When Au Pair's family comes to visit - grocery question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Usually I am willing to host friends over for a night but after my current au pair had her BFF over from home for nearly 3 weeks (They traveled for 1, in my home for 2...doing nothing and eating my food), I am at this point. It's intrusive and disturbing to the routine.

No way! My rule is maximum 1 week and AP must take vacation during that time. Their non-English speaking parents are not going to venture out on their own, so AP needs to be free to be their tour guide. And for any out of town trips, AP needs to rent a car. I will do one big meal with her family and that is it. I barely have the time/vacation days that I desire to spend with my own extended family and friends. I have learned to really screen for all of this. Some APs have these big dreams about her family coming to our home and everyone being BFF. No thank you.

I sort of feel the same way. I also think that Europeans tend to have more budget to travel to the USA and there seems to be an expectation that the family will host them (for some anyway). It's important to set expectations right from the beginning. I too do only one week, twice per year, 2 people max. I make one big dinner for everyone. It can feel overwhelming since they are on vacation and yet our family continues to travel at whirlwind pace as usual. Also, it is all nice, new and exciting to them since it is likely their first experience with the USA. For us, it is literally year after year that we have Au Pair visitors. That part becomes really tiring to me.

[Anonymous]

I sort of feel the same way. I also think that Europeans tend to have more budget to travel to the USA and there seems to be an expectation that the family will host them (for some anyway). It's important to set expectations right from the beginning. I too do only one week, twice per year, 2 people max. I make one big dinner for everyone. It can feel overwhelming since they are on vacation and yet our family continues to travel at whirlwind pace as usual. Also, it is all nice, new and exciting to them since it is likely their first experience with the USA. For us, it is literally year after year that we have Au Pair visitors. That part becomes really tiring to me.

I also find that all of the French who stay with us really don't want to spend money on hotels and go great lengths not to do this... last year our AP was with her parents for a couple of nights out of town and got caught in a snow storm while they were there...it was declared a state of emergency in our town (I texted AP to let her know)...they still drove through the snow storm in a little rental car so they didn't have to spend another night in a hotel.

And I agree with you... I really hate hosting anyone (including my own family) when I am not off from work...our life is crazy enough and it just stresses me to the max.

Also, you hit the nail on the head...I am really over it after hosting AP parents year after year...

[Anonymous]

This is an area where I had to be clear in matching on the limits of our family. We are the type of people who would love to be able to host your parents, but realistically we work a lot and want to spend time with our kids in the very little downtime we have 47 weeks a year (which is already fortunate by American standards). It is therefore best for you to take your vacation time and travel with your family. We would love to meet them, but because you are already in the extra bedroom, our home does not have extra space, and houseguests (in teh family room on air mattresses) on work/school nights don't really work for us.

[Anonymous]

This is an area where I had to be clear in matching on the limits of our family. We are the type of people who would love to be able to host your parents, but realistically we work a lot and want to spend time with our kids in the very little downtime we have 47 weeks a year (which is already fortunate by American standards). It is therefore best for you to take your vacation time and travel with your family. We would love to meet them, but because you are already in the extra bedroom, our home does not have extra space, and houseguests (in teh family room on air mattresses) on work/school nights don't really work for us.

I need to say this!

[Anonymous]

We have been pretty flexible on this but I think those that cover this explicitly with specific rules in their handbook are making the right call if this is important to them.

Our handbook says "reasonable" visits, check with us first, do not invite anyone without talking to us - we are busy people and we all need to be comfortable with guests hosted in our home.

This has worked fine for us most of the time. We used to live in a smaller house, and that was trickier. Some families have been more considerate than others. One family (of a favorite au pair) was so nice, it was truly a joy to host them. Our AP did not take vacation while they were with us but instead they just included our kids in their sightseeing activities together (which the kids loved). All of our guests have wanted to cook at least one meal from their home country. We actually limit the # of meals cooked by guests . . . while it's nice to try something new, my experience is that the food often does not come out the way they expected (because our flour is different, or oven is different, other ingredients missing, etc) and it can be a bit stressful. So, we try to agree on a date when they will cook that's convenient (such as Friday night rather than a weekday night). If the family is staying with us for more than 3 nights, we make it clear that we are not cooking for the whole bunch every night and they are encouraged to go out to eat on some evenings. This is a sanity preserver for us. Small talk every night over dinner during the workweek gets really tiring.

Boyfriends, friends, siblings generally are easier to host. After all, there's only 1 or 2 of them. Whole families are definitely more stressful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We state upfront that we have a policy of no visitors and no overnight guests. Simple and clean. Agree with PP above.

No visitors? You're awful too. Why invite someone into your home and then specifically say not to treat it like their home? Do you not have friends over ever? Selfish.

Our "friends" don't come and stay for a week. They bring food/wine to share and then go home. Why do you feel so entitled to inviting people over when it's not actually your home?

We are upfront that our house is small and there is no space for overnight guests. We must be asked/meet visitors the the AP wants to invite over. I certainly don't want our AP to invite random people over from Tinder and it also helps get AP out of the house when she wants to do things with friends. The two friends that have come over have been local APs that are respectful and also don't mind some crazy kids running around. Along the same lines, our own friends that don't like kids don't get invited over to our house and we certainly don't give our address out to strangers from the internet to come over.

[Anonymous]

It's further complicated when the APs parents dont speak English. Our APs parents are coming to visit and I'm a bit concerned about the effort it's going to take to communicate.

[Anonymous]

We allow AP to invite family/friends to stay overnight, but ONLY during her vacation time. This inherently cuts down on the requests and means we won't be there anyway. This way AP is hosting and I am not put in the awkward situation of cooking/cleaning/shopping for her guests or trying to work around them in the house during a busy week.