Au pair not joining for Christmas

[Anonymous]

Our ap has been here @1 month and it’s not been a great start. Early on she mentioned that her parents may come to visit over Christmas. I said ok, we will likely be traveling to see family then but she doesn’t have to come. I asked her to confirm as soon as she could because I need to buy plane tickets. I finally asked her again today and she said yes, they are coming but she isn’t sure of the dates, and they asked if they can stay at our home while they are here. We will be away Dec 23-Jan 3 or so, and I think they’ll be here during some but not all of that time. Do I count this as her vacation? Is it weird for our ap to not be with her host family for the holidays?

[Anonymous]

Not weird at all. I would be thrilled to not purchase another flight at Christmas time. Holidays are for family.. Don't count it as her vacation.. you were going away anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not weird at all. I would be thrilled to not purchase another flight at Christmas time. Holidays are for family.. Don't count it as her vacation.. you were going away anyway.

Right, but she would've come with us and worked at least part of the time... and its her choice to stay home.

[Anonymous]

If you asked her to work and she said no, she'd rather hang out with her family, then you can make her take it as vacation. But you won't get much good will for doing that, especially if it's already not a great start. Maybe give her Christmas week as a holiday and make her take the next week as vacation?

[Anonymous]

Tell her that since you would have had her work some of that time, you will be counting 3 days of that as vacation. Her family is staying at your place for free. If it's not going well and you might rematch you will probably need to come out of pocket to pay for the gap in childcare anyway.

[Anonymous]

What is not going well? I am going to be the minority here but I think she is probably going to go into rematch after her family leaves. I think it should be her vacation because she never gave you the option to actually come with you. And the fact that she assumed her family will just stay with you will rub me wrong. Anyway that should be her vacation, she is already saving a lot of money on hotels!

[Anonymous]

What country is she from? Do you think her parents can afford the tickets at Xmas time? Something seems
Fishy, esp if she doesn’t know details at this point.

[Anonymous]

Wait? You are not jumping up and down for joy that you won't have to take her on vacation? I definitely wouldn't make her take vacation time, especially since if you were going to make her work, you would have been under the assumption that you'd have to give her time off another time. It makes you seem like you're just butt hurt and your ego is bruoded.

[Anonymous]

First - what does your handbook say about vacation weeks? Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I would say it is ok for you to make that one of her two weeks. You are giving her enough notice and with her family visiting, she was probably planning on taking that week off anyway. And you asked her to join you and she chose not to. If its not a big deal to you either way, then don't count it. It really depends on your own work situation. But I think the situation allows you to count it as one of her weeks, but talk to her about it soon.

Second - I don't really like people staying in my home when I am not there. This obviously does not apply to our au pairs. They have had background checks, they already live with you etc. But I would not want her family who you haven't even met staying in the house. That's a lot to ask in my opinion. Especially when its not going so great anyway. My guess is that kind of attitude is why it may not be going so great anyway?

[Anonymous]

I would not count it as vacation. You aren't there anyway. IN terms of family staying in your home--how much do you trust the AP and is she responsible? you can go through ground rules to really make it clear waht you will tolerate and what you will not.

Our AP had her mom stay with her and they were both complete brats. We had a strong rule---no taking food outside of the kitchen/dining room (for all of us). We kept finding food containers n the downstairs trash. If they aren't going to respect your rules, they can go trash a hotel

[Anonymous]

I would be okay with the AP not coming with us for Christmas if things were going well otherwse, but I agree with the PP. If the parents come, they will stir up her homesickness, and guess what happens in January? You get to find a new AP on short notice.

I'd rematch in December before Christmas, change the locks, have no AP for your vacation period, and get someone new in January. I'd prefer to rematch on my own timeline. How would you feel if you hosted the parents, they enjoyed your hospitality for a week or two, and then AP watched to rematch?

[Anonymous]

We had a similar problem, allowed au pair to take extended vacation during the holidays at a hardship to our family, with the thoughts of keeping her happy and trying to be nice/good people. She returned from her holidays, announced she was homesick and went home. The entire experience was very stressful. We did ultimately end up with a great rematch. I would be hesitate to allow her to have her family in the house unsupervised, particularly if you are only doing so in attempt to keep her happy and get through the year.

[Anonymous]

I hadn’t even thought about the homesickness/potential for her wanting to leave after Christmas. She’s been here just over a month. She’s much quieter than we expected but she says she is happy, she loves living here (we are in nyc) and loves the kids. She’s just nowhere near as great as our prior ap and she has a slower learning curve.

I’m inclined to not let her parents stay. She’s from France and her parents are professionals so I don’t think money is a huge issue.

[Anonymous]

If you said, we need you to come with us during Christmas to work or take your vacation, then it would be vacation but if you said would you like to join us, she said no, it shouldn't be her vacation time. Its ok to say no to them staying. You don't sound fair if she's doing the job and just quieter.

[Anonymous]

She’s doing the job, but not well. She doesn’t take any initiative and cannot seem to have any authority over my relatively easy kids. It’s not great, but I’m not sure it qualifies for a rematch, and again, she seems to be perfectly happy (of course she has a lot of perks and a fairly easy gig).