My first Au Pair Experience as a Host mum

[Anonymous]

Our first experience of having an au pair was so full of promise at the beginning. Found a lovely young girl on Au Pair world, she was confident, good English, kind and said all the right things over skype. She was sporty and loved being outdoors, loved children and animals and couldn’t wait to come to the UK to improve her English.
We weren’t asking a lot, get the girls (6 &10) up and ready for school, cycle them the mile to school. Then just hoover the downstairs everyday (we have a hairy cat) which would take 20 minutes, tidy up any mess in the kitchen including load and unload the dishwasher. Twice a week hoover in the sitting room. Clean up after yourself and help the girls keep their bedroom tidy including putting their clothes away. After school pick up the children, make sue they change out of their school uniform, give them a snack, supervise homework and reading then play with them till us parents came home. All weekends off. Occasional babysitting if we ask for it.
We have a nice home, offered her a double bedroom, own bathroom. We cooked her meals ever night, told her to tell us any food she wanted in the weekly food shopping. We provided a bike for her to use, a laptop for her to watch Spanish tv and skype and were happy to bend over backwards to accommodate her.
Our girls are nice polite young ladies. They are best friends and although need encouragement to tidy their bedrooms and the oldest can be a little stroppy they are lovely kids.

Here is the guidebook that our au pair must have read before arriving:
It is common place in Spain to scream at children who are a bit slow up hill on their bikes. It is standard behaviour to leave children to get up and get ready by themselves, au pairs just fall out of bed and eat half a loaf of bread and 2 bowls of cereal, then scream at the children for not being ready on time. Making the children cry each morning is a pre requisite to a good day. Oh and apparently getting the children to school on time is not a requirement of the education system, never mind telling the parents the children have been late. No we leave it for the school to summon a meeting with the parents and then blame the children for being difficult.
Well apparently it is common in Spain to tell children to shut up, or shut their mouths, esp if you would rather watch u-tube videos instead of helping a 6 year old with her reading books. Once you have picked the children up from school you just go into your bedroom and use the wifi. If the children want attention you yell at them to go away. If the children ask to use the microwave (?!) you just say yes, you don’t ask what they want it for and when the microwave all of their wax crayons ruining the crockery you just shrug your shoulders. Children are an inconvenience and are to be ignored. If they annoy you have a hissy fit and slam some doors. When challenged about this behaviour by the host family blame the children its, not your fault, you love them but they are treating you badly. Kids need to be made to feel bad about themselves, shouting at them and calling them stupid is the easiest way. They tend to leave you alone then too.
Oh i forgot to mention that riding safely on the roads is overrated. Kids don’t need to be safe or even on the correct side of the road! Zoom off ahead and let them figure it out for themselves. When other parents call the Host family to warn them there children aren’t safe just shrug it off. On days when the kids are really late just abandon them half way and let them deal with junctions themselves so you can get to your language class on time.
Saying you can cook means simply that you can boil a pan of pasta over on the stove. It is them customary to leave the hob swimming in starchy water. You don’t clean up after yourself, even thou a dishwasher is provided it is far simpler to just dump everything into the sink. You don’t need manners, you can eat the food that’s been prepared for you with the family and no say a word, you can get up and dump your plate on the kitchen counter and go back upstairs whilst everyone else is still eating. If the host family challenge this behaviour you will load the dishwasher each day and do a really bad attempt at washing up, just spreading food and dirt around everything.

Now hoovering, the host mum has been doing it wrong and wasting so many hours all her life. You can, if you are Spanish, hoover the kitchen hall and dining room in under 40 seconds! Don’t worry about the kitchen floor, no one cares that there is food all over it. But just to really do a proper job when you come in from outside make sure your shoes are really muddy and walk the mud all through the downstairs carpets. That’s cleaning Spanish style!!!
Oh and hoovering in the sitting room? Nah don’t bother – too much effort to take the hoover up the stairs.
Host mum is probably a bit house proud and OCD so she will clean ip anyway. She’s out the house working for 14 hours a day but loves to come home and do the housework, asking you to do anything is just taking liberties. You did hoover, she’s just way too fussy. Mud is good for kids but you can always blame the (house)cat for making a mess. Host mum will have had enough at some point and sent you a very long text message stating that this arrangement isn’t working and that things need to change. She will accuse you of all of the above so you need to be humble at this point, telling them how sorry you are, that you will do better, that they are your second family and you love them all. Promise you will do better. Don’t worry thou, you only have to keep up the act for 3 weeks then you can go back to being lazy and rude.

In the evenings, if you aren’t going out you should lock yourself in your room and talk very loudly on skype for about 4 hours. So loudly the kids cant sleep in their bedroom above yours. Don’t forget to sneak downstairs for late night snacks.

Did you know that Spanish bedroom are like Aladdin’s cave? If you throw clothes, mud, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, towels, and anything else you have to hand all over the room you can stash away all the crockery and utensils that the host family might be looking for, especially bottle openers and mouldy bowls of breakfast cereal, it’s a real delight to find. Oh and if you break things down worry about it, pull the blinds off the wall, snap the shower hose, sod it, it’s not yours so why does it matter.

You’ve got your own private bathroom so you don’t have to bother cleaning it. It’s fine to have period blood on the carpet and bath mat. Shave your pubes in the shower and leave the hair everywhere. The toilet, no that doesn’t need cleaning, if it goes brown that’s just the pipes surely not the left over pooh mixing with limescale. The host family will buy you bleach, toilet roll and bath cleaner but don’t waste your time.

Now about food, when the host family do the shopping on the weekend it’s a Spanish challenge to have eaten every lunch box item before the first lunch box is packed. Don’t ask for any food that you might want, just eat 4 packets of crisps a day 3 yoghurts, 5 chocolate bars, half a loaf of bread and 3 bowls of cereal, it doesn’t matter then that actually the pasta you cook is revolting cause you are stuffed full of junk food.

Weekends are for partying. Friday nights you invite a girlfriend over and start drinking in your room, spray loads of perfume (probably to hide the stench of your pit because you have a guest) then head out the house at 10pm, in fits of giggles. You can of course come back noisily at 6am and then sleep all the next day, but those annoying children get up at like 8am and watch tv and the family make noise talking and being happy, how dare they. You best option is to just stay out all weekend. Don’t bother telling the host family where you are or if you will want any food saving for you (at this point they are probably past caring now anyway). Just make a mess in their house before you go, leave shoes, coats, scarves lying around all over the place and see if the pixies tidy it up for you, or encourage the cat to piss on it.

If you do all of the above you’ll get a hotel room with all-inclusive meals plus 75 quid spending money a week in return for maybe 7.5 hours work a week. It’s a really good deal

Oh yeah the cat, you pretend you love animals but secretly you’ve got a mean streak, you stand on his long hair and it obviously gets pulled out so you leave it on the carpet, you kick him out the way and he will start to go to great lengths to avoid you. Watch out thou, when you go out he will sneak in your room and piss on your bed, more than once. That’s the best at revenge.

So what happens next?

The host mum can’t take any more and fires you.

I need to find a new one to replace her ASAP. Please someone tell me that Au Pair exist that aren't party girls and have a little common sense. My 10 year old has more about her than this idiot!

[Anonymous]

Big vent.

We don't know what it's like in UK, but in general, APs require a lot of interviewing before selection, checking references, background checks, etc.

Make sure you get someone who genuinely has an interest in children and who has had a job and is used to hard work.

Then they require lots of training and management.
Write an AP handbook. Most are 10-15 pages, full of all the rules and expectations.

Correct errors as you see them
You should have not let a bad situation like that go on for so long. Be the boss next time.

[Anonymous]

OP the UK and Europe has a very different au pair system than the US. It is tightly regulated here, au pairs must use agencies who help vet families and au pairs, and set up and mediate the relationship. They are paid an exact stipend and all au pairs receive a week of training. Likewise, host parents are screened and their houses and au pair room inspected.

All of which is to say that we don't really have much insight on au pairs in the European system, and can't speak to how to better manage it. I'd talk to another UK host parent.

[Anonymous]

Your ten year old has common sense but yet microwaved crayons? Please.

[Anonymous]

While I sympathize with you for having a bad au pair. I don't think it's fair to paint all Spanish au pairs as being the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your ten year old has common sense but yet microwaved crayons? Please.

She had watched a u tube video on how to reform wax crayons into cakes using cup cake cases. She had the common sense to ask if the bowl she was using was microwaveable. I'm annoyed that the au pair didn't think to ask why she was using the microwave, instead just said yes its fine.

Kids all do stupid things sometimes, that's why they require supervision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big vent.

We don't know what it's like in UK, but in general, APs require a lot of interviewing before selection, checking references, background checks, etc.

Make sure you get someone who genuinely has an interest in children and who has had a job and is used to hard work.

Then they require lots of training and management.
Write an AP handbook. Most are 10-15 pages, full of all the rules and expectations.

Correct errors as you see them
You should have not let a bad situation like that go on for so long. Be the boss next time.

Yes I should have been the boss, but everytime I've asked her to do anything its been met with grunts, strops and complaints.

In the UK you have a contract and a letter of engagement, plus a list o house rules and a schedule of what needs to be done and when. There is no formal process for auditing and checking them out, a lot goes on trust and getting to know them on Skype calls. I've clearly made a mistake with my choice and ended up with totally the wrong sort of person for my families needs.

[Anonymous]

Hysterical. I have a decent AP and can still sympathize. +100 to Aladdins Cave, breaking things, perfume, cleaning up bodily fluids (I clean up a lot of puke after "fattening" American meals...not from my kid), etc...

[Anonymous]

TL;DR

Read the past posts here and on aupairmom.com for advice.

[Anonymous]

Your fault. You kept her around for too long. I have a list of things that if thr AuPair does, she gets sent packing . Im crystal clear with this list andntelling my kids to shut up, sends hou home immediately.

[Anonymous]

Agree with pp. you should've rematches the first time she screamed at your kids (or any if the other items you listed). That is inexcusable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your fault. You kept her around for too long. I have a list of things that if thr AuPair does, she gets sent packing . Im crystal clear with this list andntelling my kids to shut up, sends hou home immediately.

What's your list? Curious. I'm getting an au pair for the first time this June. Some are obvious, like screaming at my kids or say...serving them alcohol--but what else?

[Anonymous]

Aren't Spaniards known for late nights and siestas and such? Maybe stick with Germans who tend to be more rule oriented.