Au Pair taking charge(s) to the gym

[Anonymous]

Host parents, would you be ok with your au pair taking your child / children to the gym (dropping them off in the gym's childcare facility while au pair exercises?) during au pair's scheduled work hours?

[Anonymous]

No.

[Anonymous]

Nope.
Ap goes to gym on their own time.

[Anonymous]

No. Your AP is providing child care. They don't get to drop them off to child care somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Not ok. Doesn't she need to pay for that? most gyms i have been to, childcare is extra. I guess you are paying for her gym membership?

[Anonymous]

Another no here.

[Anonymous]

Another no here, though not as hard lined. If you use the AP for the full 45 hours, have a split schedule, and use some weekend care, this could be a nice perk so long as it doesn’t go over 1 hour per day every other day (or whatever you are comfortable with) and as long as the facility had good childcare. Do the kids like it?

[Anonymous]

If your AP suggests it? No.

Also, if AP asked? HUGE red flag. I'd be trying to check up on whether your AP is the one that shows up on mom's groups with a picture saying that someone's caregiver had been ignoring/neglecting a crying child by being on their phone all afternoon in the park.

[Anonymous]

Clearly in the minority but I would be ok with it in some circumstances. My kids were getting crazy this summer and our Y has a great free drop off kids area that the kids love. So rather than her paying money to take them to a play place on a rainy day this would have been fine with me.

Two boys under 5 can be exhausting and I think a break from each other once in a while wouldn't be such a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

I'm totally ok with this. It is free to me, my kid loves it and my AP is thrilled with this "perk" and gets a break during a long day - win win win.

[Anonymous]

I'm fine with it. We all belong to the Y, including our au pair, and the Y in our area has great childcare that engages the kids. AP also takes our kids to swim lessons at the Y, so she leaves one of the girls in their childcare while accompanying the other to her lesson.

[Anonymous]

I am fine with this. Seems like a win-win. Au pair gets a break, kids get something different, and it costs me nothing extra.

[Anonymous]

She should have asked first if you were OK with it.
My bet is she thinks it's ok to do so because the kids are taken care of.
Address it now if you're not ok.
I would have never done anything like that when I was an Au Pair.

[Anonymous]

If she is working a 45 hour week I would be ok with it as long as the kids like the gym daycare and she limited it to ~3 hours per week or so. My kids used to LOVE the gym daycare, they would beg to go...there were bouncy houses there!!

If she's working a split schedule and 20ish hours (as is our case) I would say no, she has time to workout during the day and the morning and afternoon hours she can focus totally on the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another no here, though not as hard lined. If you use the AP for the full 45 hours, have a split schedule, and use some weekend care, this could be a nice perk so long as it doesn’t go over 1 hour per day every other day (or whatever you are comfortable with) and as long as the facility had good childcare. Do the kids like it?

This.