Am I bad for eeking out every hour from my au pair?

[Anonymous]

I have recently looked at a few discussions on this forum and it seems like a number of posters do not use all the au pair hours permissible per week. We follow the rules religiously, and so I make sure to use all 45 of the au pair's hours, we give at least one weekend off per month, and she never works more than five hours on a weekend day and never more than 10 hours per day. The handfull of times we have offered her the opportunity to babysit for extra hours and money, she typically has had something else going on (boyfriend, etc.). Are we in the minority? I was recently chafing at the idea of her having off four days for Thanksgiving because these are hours we won't get back, but in reality we do not need her since neither I nor DH will be working, so why not give her off. But I WOULD like to get some of those hours back. Am I off base? Should we have her work fewer than 45 hours?

[Anonymous]

You're not "bad" as long as you follow the rules, but no one would call it generous. Don't begrudge her the time off at thanksgiving. You're going to burn her out and then you'll be on here complaining that your once great AP sucks, and it'll be all her fault.

[Anonymous]

OP, technically you pay for 45 hours a week of childcare. There are plenty of host families that use all 45 hours. Some of those families use them because they need full-day coverage (so 9 hour days 5 days a week), others try to use all of it simply because they paid for it.

Here's the thing - you're entitled to do whatever you want and I think as long as you're completely clear on the schedule, you can go ahead and have her working 45 random hours a week even through Thanksgiving. And I agree that it's really irritating when au pairs complain that they have to work the full 45 hours when that is the condition under which they matched anyway.

But what is the point really of making her work just because you want to use all 45 hours? If you really don't need her on a day, why would you not bank the goodwill and just let her have some extra time off?

[Anonymous]

I'm 13:44 and I thought I'd just add what we do. Our first au pair worked 45 hours a week - 9 hours a day on weekdays. We never went over the hours. She had Federal holidays off, and if we ever didn't need her for any of her regularly scheduled hours, we didn't add the hours back in anywhere. So she would work between 35 and 45 hours a week depending on the week.

With our current au pair, she only does the morning drop-off and then the afternoon pick-up since both the kids are in school now. She works 2 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon and then one date night a week (every Monday). It only comes to about 30 hours. I guess I could add 15 more hours on there somewhere (make her work all day Saturday or something?), but it just seems cheap and unnecessary. As it stands, she feels like she has a great deal and she's willing to be flexible with us if something does come up last minute. Works for us.

[Anonymous]

OP, put yourself in your Au Pair's shoes. Legally you can only work 45 hours a week. When those hours are up, you are done. No OT, no taking work home. Holiday comes up and you get 4 days off. You're excited. Then your boss says, well since you worked less that 45 hours during holiday week, I will be having you make up those hours another time. Tell me, how long would you be happy at that job? If you really don't need her, give her the time off.

[Anonymous]

OP here, we are going to give her Thanksgiving off because it does not make sense not to since we both are not working. But I just would love not to because I guess I am just still irritated from a situation a few months ago when we had to change the schedule at the last minute because something came up and she chastised me about it, this is after I had given her multiple weekends off during the summer and worked with her summer travel plans when I did not have to. So much for banking good will. At any rate, I am happy to know that having her work the full 45 hours is okay--we actually need more than 45 hours so her working the full 45 is by no means arbitrary. Thanks for your advice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, we are going to give her Thanksgiving off because it does not make sense not to since we both are not working. But I just would love not to because I guess I am just still irritated from a situation a few months ago when we had to change the schedule at the last minute because something came up and she chastised me about it, this is after I had given her multiple weekends off during the summer and worked with her summer travel plans when I did not have to. So much for banking good will. At any rate, I am happy to know that having her work the full 45 hours is okay--we actually need more than 45 hours so her working the full 45 is by no means arbitrary. Thanks for your advice!

Ah, as always - questions that have a seemingly obvious answer usually have something else behind them. OP, I'm a host parent too and whenever I find myself being nit-picky about stuff and wanting to sort of "punish" the au pair (for lack of a better word), it's usually because I'm irritated at something related to their performance or related to feeling like I am giving way more than I am getting.

OP, yes, you can most certainly use all 45 hours. But don't get into a tit for tat with her. It will spiral down until you are either rematching or just counting down the hours until your year is over. One of the big negatives of au pairs is that they are typically young and immature. You treating her coldly and ungenerously will not result in her realizing she shouldn't have chastised you. She'll just think you're being a bitch.

If you don't need her, don't schedule her. Be the bigger person. And no, do not schedule her on Thanksgiving unless you seriously need her to be around while you're cooking or something. You'll just look cheap and ungenerous.

[Anonymous]

I'm 13:59 and I will say that we do have our au pair working the Wednesday before and the Friday after Thankgiving on her normal daily schedule. That's because we are both working too. We give her the schedule at least a month beforehand, so she knows. There's nothing wrong with asking them to work on or around a holiday if you really do need them, but making up work just because you feel like you're getting rooked out of hours just seems really crappy.

[Anonymous]

I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

While I agree with your point, saying that APs get only $200 for 45 hours of child care is misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

+10000

Also OP, she's not stupid. She WILL realize you're using up all the hours "just because" and I'm almost willing to bet her childcare performance will drop. Although she'll continue to make sure your kid(s) in one piece when you get home, she'll get more irritated with your child(ren), less motivated, less "fun", etc. She will do things during her working hours that'll benefit herself. Not that it makes it right but that's how young/immature people. Or people who feel taken advantage of in general.

My point - She'll be happier and wont feel burnt out if your not constantly sqeezing every last minute out of her. Esp if her other Au Pair friends have laid back Host parents who let them off when they're not needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

While I agree with your point, saying that APs get only $200 for 45 hours of child care is misleading.

That is what they get. Yes they get free room and board, and that is taken into consideration with the stipend, but it comes with a whole mess of rules (no guests, no male guests, curfews, etc.) that, to me almost nullify the benefit of living in.

[Anonymous]

Families that use less than 45 hours aren't being generous they just have different needs. Au pairs are popular with school age kids because its hard to find a nanny that will work a split schedule and very few people need 30 hours of housecleaning a week. In the summers and school breaks these au pairs do work 45 hours but during the school year its probably closer to 30 just because the kids are in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

While I agree with your point, saying that APs get only $200 for 45 hours of child care is misleading.

That is what they get. Yes they get free room and board, and that is taken into consideration with the stipend, but it comes with a whole mess of rules (no guests, no male guests, curfews, etc.) that, to me almost nullify the benefit of living in.

You're missing a ton of other things most get and making a huge generalization about host families. We don't have any if those rules ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd also like to point out that the money you give her is a stipend, not direct payment for the hours she works. If it was an hourly wage, $200 for 45 hours is pretty awful. Stop thinking of it that way. Its basically a living allowance, to someone you should try to look at as a member of your family. Get over the fact that she chastised you, she's little more than a teenager. Be the grownup and stop keeping score.

While I agree with your point, saying that APs get only $200 for 45 hours of child care is misleading.

That is what they get. Yes they get free room and board, and that is taken into consideration with the stipend, but it comes with a whole mess of rules (no guests, no male guests, curfews, etc.) that, to me almost nullify the benefit of living in.

You're missing a ton of other things most get and making a huge generalization about host families. We don't have any if those rules ourselves.

You are the exception, not the rule.