Our au pairs spent a lot of time helping our kids learn how to take care of themselves. Let’s be honest, much of parenting is doing things for your kids because it is faster than teaching them and monitoring them doing it for themselves.

We gave our au pair pretty direct instructions that they should help the kids in an age appropriate way, but at the end of the day we were asking them to partner with us in helping our kids become independent capable adults. Our au pairs taught our kids how to clean the bathroom, double check homework, do laundry, pack a lunch, figure out what groceries they needed for lunch, clean up a snack, you name it, one or more of our au pairs probably had a hand in it.

Our whole family absolutely loved our au pairs, but for each one it often took a while for them to really embrace our approach since it was counter to almost all of their friends experiences.

We had au pairs for our twins from about age 3-12. Obviously kids can’t fully manage everything at every age, but I cannot advocate enough for relying on your au pair for some of the heavy lifting to teach your children to do chores you’d otherwise have her do.

One word of caution, you have to be willing to back up your au pair if you take this approach since inevitably your kids will not love it at some point in time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours is different in that our au pair watches our 2 young kids during the work day.

Kids Laundry 1x week
Make kids lunches daily
take kids to events/activities during the day
drive to preschool/school and pick up from it.
organize/pick events to do (library, park, splash park, pool, farm, etc).
Help the kids clean up their play room/ bedroom.

After family dinner together and we all clean up- so we ask our au pair to do that with us, but it's pretty quick with 3 adults involved.

Are you impinging on her "off the clock" time to clean your kitchen?

Au pairs are supposed to be "part of the family" In my family (no au pair though...) everyone clears the dishes from the table (Usually their own dish and cup plus maybe one serving dish), one person wipes the table, another person may wipe the kitchen counters and the third person may load the extra dishes into the dishwashwer. Takes very little time and is ok per the cultural care guidelines _ falls under "all things that everyone does in the house" :

https://culturalcare.com/blog/au-pairs-and-household-help-what-and-how-much-is-ok/

She should only be "helping" (helping is the key word)if you have meals while she is in the clock.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid laundry
Kid breakfast/lunch/snacks
Kid hair styling
Kid sunblock before camp
Pack and unpack kid bags
Drive kids to and from camp/school/activities
Watch kids on days there is no camp/school/activities
Watch kids after camp/school
Help kids keep rooms clean
Supervise kid showers

Do you do anything for your children? Au pairs aren't surrogate mothers!

Wtf? She works 20 hours a week. She's not the only one to do these things, but they are all things she may do while working. Us parents do plenty of parenting. Don't you worry.