Bringing Au Pair on Family Vacations
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Anonymous
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I am struggling with deciding whether to bring AP on a couple family trips. It sounded good in theory, but when I added up the cost of the extra hotel room, and an extra train or airplane ticket, I got sticker shock--several hundred dollars more even for a short weekend trip up the East Coast--multiples of AP's weekly stipend. Even if AP works on the trip, it is hard to stomach paying that much just for a few hours of childcare. What do other families do? Do you pay up so your AP has a chance to travel in the US, or give her the time off? I feel slightly bad leaving AP behind and paying the extra money won't break us, but this is super expensive childcare.
TIA. |
Anonymous
| Nope. I never promise this and only have done it when it doesn't add a significant cost to us. They get that time as extra vacation. I usually give them some extra $ during that time as well. |
Anonymous
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Not any more. When I was a new host mom, I took them on our vacations on our dime for little care time.
I only take them during a beach vacation where there's no extra cost and even then, I'm tiring of it. The entitlement outweighs the help. My kids are older and often it's not worth it. |
Anonymous
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Having an au pair will affect your vacation plans. Unfortunately, no one really tells you this before you join the program.
When we were a first time host family, we invited AP everywhere we went. We learned to shop for deals, find rentals instead of hotels, and vacation via home exchanges. It certainly impacted the type of vacation we would take as a family + au pair. This means trips where we can drive instead of fly, like camping or visiting relatives. In the last few years, I have been very direct with our candidates. 'You will be invited to join on some local trips (no work, share bedroom), and you will not be invited on our yearly family vacation (which is usually longer and more expensive). One of your vacation week should fall during that time.' |
Anonymous
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We don't do it anymore unless we are getting a rental. It's just too expensive. Sometimes we give the extra vacation time sometimes we have them take a weeks vacation.
We have brought a prior AP to Disney, but she had to share a room with the kids (we gave her the choice to come and share or not go). Bringing her added more than $1000 to our dcoensss and opened our eyes to how much that extra person costs. |
Anonymous
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Don't do it, unless you absolutely LOVE your AP and she/he feels like family to you.
When we were host family virgins and doing our initial search, we were getting a lot of AP's who weren't responding to us, or asking us to release them from the hold, because it seemed like they wanted to live in a more glamorous place than suburban Maryland (NYC, LA, San Fran, etc.). After not getting many responses during our first search, we updated our host family profile on the CCAP website and recruited more hard core by indicating that we would bring our AP along on vacations with us to California and Florida. We thought this would sweeten the deal for the AP. We got more bites, and hired our AP. The vacations were a complete bust. Our AP did not help as much as we needed to on the flights, and it was mega expensive to pay for the extra plane tickets, uber rides for touring, meals out, and hotel rooms, especially because we brought her with us during Thanksgiving and Christmas. On Thanksgiving, she was totally bored because she did not understand the holiday. We gave her the day off. She didn't help cook, didn't help clean up, didn't ask questions, didn't even bring her dish into the kitchen, and basically had my extended family wait on her hand and foot during the entire meal. She didn't even talk to my kids during the party. She served herself wine even though she was under 21. The rest of the vacation, she went on Tinder and took Ubers to meet up with random people. We tried to make it a nice vacation for her. We took her shopping, out to dinner, took her site-seeing, and introduced her to some family that was her age to hang out with. We really made an effort to include her. She was mostly only around when it was her work hours, and didn't do much with the kids because she was unfamiliar with the city. They sat around and watched TV when she was on duty. At Christmas, she was sad (I was sympathetic to that, because she was away from her family for the first time). We gave her a few days off to explore the city aside from the holiday days, but she seemed put out when we asked her to work on other days during the trip. During the family Christmas meal, it was the same experience as Thanksgiving. We gave her a big cash bonus for Christmas, plus other presents. We included her in all family activities. We made the same efforts and gave her the choice to hang out with us or do something on her own. Again, while on duty, she just had my kids watch TV. The entire vacation, it felt completely disjointed. My sister has an AP who is like family. She pitches in even when she's not on "duty", she's fun to be around, she smiles and laughs at jokes, she's nice to all the kids in the family, helps with dishes even when we tell her to relax, etc. It is worth the travel money to have her around because she is a pleasure to be around. Our AP never felt like family, and that especially showed when we were on these family vacations. It made the extra expense not worth it, it caused more hassle to find things for her to do, we felt obligated to entertain her more and had less time to relax, it aggravated our extended family and friends to have her around, and she didn't even say "thank you" after either trip. To spend an extra $1500+ on a person for an experience like that, TWICE, was awful. So I would only include an AP if you truly feel like she's family and you absolutely adore her. Otherwise, I don't think it's worth the hassle. You can always hire hourly babysitters from nanny agencies if you need a sitter during a trip. The next time we went on a trip, we just paid our AP her regular weekly stipend and gave her that extra vacation time off. It was totally worth it. |
Anonymous
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I only bring AP on vacation when I really need her to work and it is a rental situation where I don't have to pay for an extra bedroom for her. The cost of the extra flight and food is enough. I have 4 kids, so she can stay at the rental with my napping youngers kids while DH and I go out with younger kids. Also, she can watch kids in evening, while DH and I go out for a quiet dinner.
In summary, I only bring her when it benefits us. |
Anonymous
correction: DH and I go out with OLDER kids |
Anonymous
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We tell our AP she needs to vacation during our annual beach trip. We also always give our AP "free" vacation time when we leave town.
We have invited one rock star au pair on vacation but told her up front that she would have to share a room with the kids. She was all in and had a great time. Another time, same au pair came with us on a different trip but we told her in advance that if she came, she'd have to sleep on an air mattress in a small area off the laundry room (only available space in a crowded house.) Both times she joined us, had an amazing attitude, pitched in without being required to work, and made our trip all the more fun by being along. She was that kind of person. You are under no obligation to take the AP anywhere and I think quite often they appreciate having the time off work instead. If you do take her, set VERY clear expectations before you buy the tickets. |
Anonymous
| Not unless the AP is extraordinary . Which is few and far between. We are a family of 4. It is easy to fit 4 people intk a hotel room. If we bring a 5th, it always means nearly double the price. |
Anonymous
| Would you feel guilty leaving your Au Pair home alone for a week after she has only been here three weeks? We have a week long Thanksgiving beach trip coming up and I just found out we are short on rooms so wondering if it would be OK to leave our Au Pair at home and give her a free vacation. Thoughts? She's only 18, might be a bit scary to be home alone that long? |
Anonymous
Yes, personally I would feel guilty about this and I would make arrangements to bring her along (or cancel the vacation altogether). |
Anonymous
| you need to tell the au pair before you hire her that she will not be included in the family vacations |
Anonymous
| I bring them because I would bring an exchange student and that's my guide for how I treat AP. |
Anonymous
| We initially thought it would be terrific to go on vacation with our AP, but soon realized that our children wanted time with just their parents, who have long work hours. Once we realized that AP loved the extra time off to hang out with their friends, travel, etc, we no longer felt guilty. |