Privacy and an AU
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Anonymous
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Hi, considering hiring an Au pair for our two kids - ages 2 and 4 - in our smallish townhouse. our current guest bedroom is on the bottom level, with a bathroom. and next to the family room/tv room/playroom area. my husband also has his computer there and works from home (very rarely) down there.
my concern is less about her privacy and more about ours. what if we're fighting? do host parents just quietly hiss at each other in the bathroom with the water running? or do you just become nicer because someone is watching? what if DH wants to watch a late football game? does he have to turn the tv down very low? what if he and i want to watch a movie on a stay-at-home-date-night? do we make that explicit to her? or do we just try to pick nights that she is out? |
Anonymous
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An Au Pair does NOT need to hear her host parents fight.
You should welcome an AP only if you are a happy family. Little arguments can be dealt with in your bedroom or when out ... There aren't football games every nite so it won't be a problem for the AP ... Same thing goes for your stay at home date night movies... Just explain to the AP that unless she goes out and need to get through your living room, you'd like to keep some privacy in the family room after diner ... |
Anonymous
| I would put a tv in the bedroom or somewhere upstairs, you're not going to feel comfortable hanging out with her all the time and I could see you wanting to be elsewhere hanging out. |
Anonymous
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Longtime HM here (on 7th yr of hosting). I think it depends what you mean by "fighting." DH and I certainly squabble, and we do this in front of our APs just as we do in front of our children or in front of our parents when they visit. But "squabbling" is different than "fighting." We rarely fight, but when we do, we do it after hours in our bedroom with the fan on or out on a walk with the dog. We do not "fight' in front of the children or our parents either. No one wants to hear that.
Most of our APs have been great about giving us our space in the evenings (most have gone out - to gym, to coffees, to classes - as soon as dinner was over). Our current one needed more guidance about how to give us private time. Once I explained that DH and I like our evenings together after not having seen each other all day, she has been very respectful and has now started going out (and made more friends and developed more of a life - so all of us are happy!). |
Anonymous
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We have had two au pairs in our smallish house (I think it's 1,800 square feet). The AP bedroom is on the same floor as ours and right across the hall, we all share a bathroom, and we don't have a separate TV area. It's taken a level of extra openness and consideration, but honestly, it's worked completely fine. We're a pretty open family anyway though, so for example, it never a single time would bother me if I were watching TV and she came down and joined.
With an AP in a small house, you really have to think of her not as some separate person that you don't want around when she's not working or as a guest that you need to keep entertained, but as a true member of the family. You need to feel comfortable being in the same room as her in the evenings, being yourself, talking if you want to, but not worrying about silence if you don't feel like talking. You have to be able to be "alone" even if you have someone else there with you (which in a small house, is true even of your husband or kids, not just an AP). You also have to be considerate, which may be inconvenient at times. For example, if the TV is right next to her bedroom, then no, your husband can't watch TV at all hours of the night at normal volume. But he could get wireless headphones. And don't listen to the PP who said that AP's should only be welcome in "happy families" where the parents never fight. I'm assuming you don't mean you're on the verge of divorce and having screaming arguments every week. I assume you mean the normal back and forth that spouses have on ocassion and I think you would be hard-pressed to find a truly constantly "happy family". My husband and I have a very good marriage, but once a month or so, we'll have "discussions" of disagreements. We are always civil, but of course, keep it away from the kids anyway, and so it's not so difficult to keep it away from an au pair. If you do want to have date nights watching TV at home while she is with the kids, you would simply say that. You would need to have somewhere else she can be with the kids - I'm not clear if she could be upstairs somewhere with them? But you could say "We have you scheduled for 6-11pm this Friday night and DH and I are planning to have dinner out and then come home to watch a movie. Would you please help us keep the kids upstairs during our 'date'?" But if you're just wanting to put the kids to bed and then stay up watching TV yourselves and it's right next to her room, it seems like that would be easy to just do when she's out (which should be frequently anyway after she starts making friends). Anyway, it can certainly be done, but you have to really think about whether you can truly be open and considerate (and expect the same of her of course). You also have to be explicit about the circumstances when you're matching. There are probably some au pairs that this will work better with than others - maybe ones that have had lots of siblings or lived in a small house themselves? |
Anonymous
| I think you should be just as concerned about her privacy. |
Anonymous
10:57 here. While I completely agree with you, I read it that the OP was thinking that she is comfortable that she can reasonably assure the AP privacy by making sure she has her own room that is comfortable enough for her to retreat to and hang out in when she needs to. It's a little more difficult to assure privacy for an entire family, so that's what the OP is asking about. I don't think that the OP meant that she doesn't care about the AP's privacy also. But I suppose she can clarify. |
Anonymous
I understand what you're saying, but simply having her own room is not a guarantee of privacy. Especially one right off the family/playroom/football watching room, that OP has made clear that she expect AP to vacate at OP's whim. It sounds like a really uncomfortable setup for all and OP's attitude could lead to the AP feeling unwelcome in what is also supposed to be her home. |
Anonymous
10:57 again and I agree that simply having her own room does not give the host family free license to do whatever they want all over the house and expect the AP to either stay in her room or leave when it's convenient. But I don't think OP was saying that and I don't think OP has an "attitude" about it either way at this point. She is, at this point, trying to figure out if having an AP is the right choice for her or her family and is considering absolutely the right things at the decision-making stage she is at. She is thinking about what having an AP will mean for the way she and her family operate today. I think we can all agree that inviting another person into your home, particularly a young adult that you don't yet know, will mean some changes and inconveniences for the family (do I need to say here that obviously it will mean some changes and inconveniences for the au pair too?). Part of deciding whether or not to choose an au pair is exploring whether or not you personally can handle those inconveniences, which is what OP is doing. |
Anonymous
| Why don't you make your kids share their bedroom and leave one bedroom free for the AP ? Might be an idea... |
Anonymous
| 10:40 again, and like the PP following me, we have a very small (1800 sq ft) house. Our bedrooms are all together on one floor. Children and Ap share a bathroom. We are very, very clear about this in matching. We stress the togetherness aspect - that children are on either side of her bedroom. We stress that the bathroom is always kept neat and clean (Ds has been well-trained that he has to wipe up any - ahem - "spills"), but it is SHARED with children. Since we moved into this house, we have opted for younger APs who are used to living with their parents (and sharing bathrooms with siblings and sometimes parents) so it hasn't been a problem. Having an AP is all about compromise and being open to makeing sure someone else is comfortable and "at home." I always say that if everyone gives 110% (and I mean everyone), then we are all happy with the relationship. This approach has worked very well for us over the years. |
Anonymous
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OP here: thank you for the advice.
our children are already sharing a bedroom on the top floor. the guest room is on the bottom floor, with a private bathroom, which is what i meant by not being concerned with her privacy. she would be able to retreat t her room and have relative quiet and calm and space from everyone and have her own bathroom. I understand what everyone is saying about how treating an au pair like family, but we have so many different levels of tolerance - for instance, with my MIL, we can't run the dishwasher (above guest room) or washing machine (in laundry room adjacent to guest room) because she thinks its too loud, but when I've had my cousins come to stay with us, they've not minded any of the washing or noticed the noise very much at all - in fact, they have been more bothered by kid noise in the morning. And I think Dh and I don't have great filters - we do argue in front of the kids and we have argued in front of family before (not often)- and regardless of whether its loud, it can be snarky (something the kids likely don't pick up on, but might bother an adult in the home)... I'm just trying to figure out if this arrangement will work with our lifestyle and our home. |