Wine + such...

[Anonymous]

Totally agree, I know my APs keep alcohol in their rooms for pre-gaming or to enjoy with their friends when they have a couple gals over to watch a movie in their room e.g. No big deal - I dont want it in my kitchen/wine fridge getting mixed up with my stuff. I liken it to a college dorm room - when you "live" in a single room, you keep everything in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous to store alcohol in your bedroom when you're an Au Pair. Yes that makes you look like an alcoholic.
You can have drinks with other Au Pairs when out on weekends, in bars or restaurants.
Storing alcohol in your bedroom shows you want to hide it.
You could have found a place for it in the kitchen.
We don't buy your story, French AP.

Lol do you realize that most host families suggest to their AP that they store all the snacks and things they don’t want to see their kids seeing or eating in their room away from kids view. How is storing a bottle of wine for later use, any different than storing a dozen packs of candies?

Were you my host mom and had you stepped into my room you would have seen the alcohol immediately, it was on a high shelf away from the reach of the kids BUT very much in full-view, not hidden under my pillow.

If someone is an alcoholic and wanted to hide it, they surely wouldn’t hide it in full-view of their host mom in their room (unless OP comes back to say she went through her AP stuff and found it hidden under her pillow).

An alcoholic will drink no matter what, storing the alcohol in the fridge or living room wouldn’t prevent the AP from drinking it on her free time (or whenever) really?

Like I said, most/ a lot of families have an alcohol cupboard as well as a glass/bottle of wine at diner or a beer when watching TV (with, shock horror, their kids around) should I presume they are alcoholic and call CPS on them ? You are being ridiculous.

I did store alcohol in my room as it was my only private space in the house, but I was also the AP who would always refuse the glass of wine/beer/alcohol offered to me by host families at dinner/gathering. I don’t drink with food as I don’t see the need but will drink on a night out. I buy bottles because alcohol in restaurants and bars is incredibly expensive and so I would much rather have a bottle of alcohol I can bring to my friends house to pre-game etc... not hard to picture surely.

If you can’t «buy it» you must have lived a very sheltered life.

[Anonymous]

If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

A bottle of wine every three days is nothing. Effing puritanical American society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

A bottle of wine every three days is nothing. Effing puritanical American society.

I was thinking the same thing and I don't even drink wine. There is 6 glasses of wine in a bottle, wine is 11% alcohol. Drinking a glass with dinner and another one with the spouse when the kids are in bed as you watch tv or catch up about the day is not outrageous and I fear, pretty common. Would you literally brand your friends as alcoholics for having a glass of wine at dinner and one whilst watching tv with their partner? People have no notions of what's worrying behavior ( hoarding bottles of alcohol left and right/ drinking huge amounts of alcohol to the point of being non-fonctioning/needing to drink and suffering from massive withdrawal when not drinking/drinking at work/ when looking for children/drunk-driving) vs what's harmless behavior (storing ONE bottle of alcohol in your private space and having one or two glasses after work).

The drinking on duty after bedtime is not ideal and I would address that BUT she wasn't even hiding it, meaning she probably wasn't abusing alcohol and was just doing what she does at home of having wine while watching netflix and didn't realize she would be (ridiculously) labelled as an alcoholic for a glass of wine. Ultimately I don't know of many parents who haven't ever had a glass of wine/beer/ drink when at a dinner with friends with the kids in tow or hosting dinner. I know AP is paid but I wonder if people who assume AP is an alcoholic for one glass of wine at bedtime spend their day on the phone with CPS trying to report absolutely everyone for the most ridiculous things considering the paranoia on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Au Pairs are 18-25. They go out and have fun. Why would they need alcohol in their bedroom unless they're starting slowly to become alcoholics ?

I wouldn't have tolerated it as a host mom.

[Anonymous]

My question is, how do you know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People saying « she is an alcoholic because she stores alcohol in her room» she is an AU PAIR where else should she store her alcohol? I am also a former Au pair from France and whilst I didn’t store wine (I don’t like wine), I definitely stored alcohol in my room. The thing is I NEVER touched it when on duty and never at night if I was working the next day (I guess one glass of wine or a beer after work is different though). I did drink it in the weekends if I was going out to party or whatever else, but then again I was off. It could also go untouched for weeks/months. Though yes, if you stepped into my room you would have found a bottle of alcohol, maybe half full who had probably been sitting untouched for weeks, not that you would know that just by looking at the bottle.

Most households (French or not) have an alcohol cabinet. APs usually don’t, so I stored all non-essential items in my rooms (snacks/candies/ alcohol) didn’t mean I was an alcoholic and drinking every night!

Why you would assume someone is an alcoholic because they store alcohol in their room when their room is their only private space is beyond me!

Now sure if she downs a bottle of wine every night, address it but if you just so happens to see a bottle of wine in her bedroom and have no notion of how much she drinks/doesn’t drink then I would be cautious to assume the worst when there is no reason to believe she is an alcoholic.

This.

You HMs are not logical at all.

[Anonymous]

We host BPs; most of them turned a window shelf into a bar.
Sometimes they filled our recycling themselves after a weekend of pre-gaming at our house.

They are 20 somethings, partying on the weekned is no issue for us....drinking on the job would be; but their BR is same as my dorm room was....bed, tv, desk, clothes and alcohol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous to store alcohol in your bedroom when you're an Au Pair. Yes that makes you look like an alcoholic.
You can have drinks with other Au Pairs when out on weekends, in bars or restaurants.
Storing alcohol in your bedroom shows you want to hide it.
You could have found a place for it in the kitchen.
We don't buy your story, French AP.

Disagree. Storing wine in your room means that this is yours and not the host families. I mean honestly do you really expect AP to keep their wine in the kitchen and have to come upstairs every time they want a glass of wine. Give the poor girl some privacy, as long as she is waking up on time for work and not drinking to excess on while on the clock who cares what she does at night in her room.

+1 She is storing HER wine in her room. It does not mean she's an alcoholic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Au Pairs are 18-25. They go out and have fun. Why would they need alcohol in their bedroom unless they're starting slowly to become alcoholics ?

I wouldn't have tolerated it as a host mom.

APs also make $200 a week. A glass out wine out at a bar is going to be expensive for an AP, let them drink their $10 bottle of wine in their room before they go out as long as they aren't driving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous to store alcohol in your bedroom when you're an Au Pair. Yes that makes you look like an alcoholic.
You can have drinks with other Au Pairs when out on weekends, in bars or restaurants.
Storing alcohol in your bedroom shows you want to hide it.
You could have found a place for it in the kitchen.
We don't buy your story, French AP.

LoL ! This is funny !

Every one of my APs stored alcohol in their room, same as most college kids do in their dorm rooms. And no way would I want them storing their alcohol in the same place as our own - that's just confusing !

I do actually think it's kind of strange she's drinking wine alone in bed though .... sort of seems like a sad Mom thing to do, not something typical young people actually do. And I would not like my AP, or any paid babysitter, drinking while on duty, I'd lay down a rule about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

A bottle of wine every three days is nothing. Effing puritanical American society.

Um.. I posted that and I'm not even American. It depends on your body weight and many other factors. The bottom line is that she shouldn't be drinking on duty even if it's late at night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

Yeah. Some of these posts in particular 03:00 are hilarious displays of the mental gymnastics people will go through to excuse frequent drinking if it's wine rather than beer or liquor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If she has the same bottle for 3 weeks it's one thing. It's different if she gets a new open bottle every 3 days.

A bottle of wine every three days is nothing. Effing puritanical American society.

Um.. I posted that and I'm not even American. It depends on your body weight and many other factors. The bottom line is that she shouldn't be drinking on duty even if it's late at night.

No, its max 2 glasses a day, not even really, since there aren’t 6 glasses of wine per bottle. That’s very little.