WWYD: Paying for 'outings' (skiing day trip)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

We don't *expect* her to do something like that, it was an example (and it would be after the kids are asleep), but at the same time I feel like we do a lot that isn't expected of us. This is only our 2nd AP after having full/part-time nannies in the past, so we don't have much of a basis of comparison, but our first AP would do little extras as a gesture of thanks - not at all expected and we were immensely grateful, and it felt like a two-way street in terms of each party being thoughtful. That's why I feel kind of conflicted about things at the moment ...

Yup. Long time.HM here. I right now have an awful AP. We dont offer her a single thing extra. Quite frankly I'd love it if she initiated rematch. I'd say we spent an extra 7k on extras for our former APs each year. This one gets nothing. I've always paid for even personal gas, this one, I dont even let her take thr car out of our town. With how unmotivated she is around the house, I can only imagine she is as unmotivated to pay attention to the road rules.

This is life. Work hard, earn nice things. Be lazy, recieve the minimim.

You sound awful as well.
You should initiate rematch, why suffer ?
She might be terrible because she feels you don't like her and she could be someone's else happy au pair.
Maybe she's just terrible, and that happens, in this case let her go.
And wow $7000 extra per year for your former Au Pairs, you're either lying or you're loaded.
Reality check though : really rich families get professional nannies, not au pairs.

^^^Good post!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

We don't *expect* her to do something like that, it was an example (and it would be after the kids are asleep), but at the same time I feel like we do a lot that isn't expected of us. This is only our 2nd AP after having full/part-time nannies in the past, so we don't have much of a basis of comparison, but our first AP would do little extras as a gesture of thanks - not at all expected and we were immensely grateful, and it felt like a two-way street in terms of each party being thoughtful. That's why I feel kind of conflicted about things at the moment ...

Yup. Long time.HM here. I right now have an awful AP. We dont offer her a single thing extra. Quite frankly I'd love it if she initiated rematch. I'd say we spent an extra 7k on extras for our former APs each year. This one gets nothing. I've always paid for even personal gas, this one, I dont even let her take thr car out of our town. With how unmotivated she is around the house, I can only imagine she is as unmotivated to pay attention to the road rules.

This is life. Work hard, earn nice things. Be lazy, recieve the minimim.

You sound awful as well.
You should initiate rematch, why suffer ?
She might be terrible because she feels you don't like her and she could be someone's else happy au pair.
Maybe she's just terrible, and that happens, in this case let her go.
And wow $7000 extra per year for your former Au Pairs, you're either lying or you're loaded.
Reality check though : really rich families get professional nannies, not au pairs.

We did have a nanny, for 8 years, same nanny, until our kids were 8 & 10, our kids are now 13 & 15 and she is a taxi. News flash for you, nannies don't want to stay on payroll when they can't work 40hrs, nor do they want to watch teens, LOL! Our stayed on for 2 years at 30hrs doing some housecleaning while the kids were in school, but ultimately wanted to find a family to watch kids all day. Yes, we easily spent 7K extra our our former AuPairs, maybe more. Travel is expensive, getting an extra hotel room is expensive, plus gifts, bonus (for a job well done), and all that adds up. Does that make us loaded? That is subjective, but we aren't exactly scraping by or eating beans. Are we traveling with this girl? Hell no. Why stick it out? Because I'm an idiot and keep this bump on a log around. Our agency only allows one family initiated rematch and if we give her the boot, she goes home. She came to us as a rematch, clearly the story was not what it seemed as is the case with the agencies. However I needed a driver who was licensed in Virginia immediately and foolishly got swayed by her being in country.

I don't think she is aware that we dislike her. I don't think she is aware of much at all. I'm just very happy to be marching towards July 15th when we go on vacation and she is free to start her travel month a month early.