Massachusetts Au Pair - Regular Long-Distance Car Usage

[Anonymous]

We have a new au pair with our family in Massachusetts. She works 27 hours per week (over 3 days) and is paid $12.75/hour (under our new law). We are allowed to deduct $77/week for room and board. As such, her average weekly pay is around $270 for three (nine-hour) days of work. We have provided a car for our former au pairs’ exclusive use and have generally only required that they pay for gas. After the law requiring au pairs be paid minimum wage, we considered charging the au pairs a “flat fee” for use of the car, assuming that the use would mostly be around our area and with only a few longer road trips.

Our current au pair has a family member / friend / boyfriend (irrelevant) who lives 110 miles each way from our house and has requested to use the car for travel back and forth on “some” weekends — According to her, it will be at most every other weekend, but at least once per month. We’re trying to determine a reasonable way for her to compensate us for “wear and tear”. We suggested using the IRS reimbursement guidelines for 2020 and suggested that a flat rate of $50/week (gas included - we'd pay for gas), for unlimited use of the car. This is based on her going less than half the time, but more than a third of the time. She believes this is too expensive.

Has anybody had a similar experience with an au pair who requests to use your vehicle for REGULAR long distance (220 mile) trips? Keep in mind, in Massachusetts we are required to pay au pairs a “living wage”, under which they should theoretically be able to pay for many of their own expenses themselves - car use, cellphones, gym memberships, etc.

[Anonymous]

We are going through this with our current AP who wants to use our car for vacations as she does not want to fly anywhere/other APs cannot fly.
Anything over 50 miles and she is welcome to rent a car and drive it wherever she wants is what we came up with.

I do not care about the car mileage, I care about having to go get my car or arrange for it to get home if there is an issue with it/accident.

[Anonymous]

I honestly think you’re going to get more targeted answers by posting this on one of the MA HF focused Facebook pages. On here, no one else is dealing with the “employer/employee” relationship the way it is in MA so it’s likely people won’t have as helpful answers as others who are in MA facing the same situation.

[Anonymous]

In normal times, I would tell you that you should tell her she is welcome to rent a car for those road trips. We never let our au pairs take the car long distance. For us it was mainly about what a pain it would be for us to have to go deal with it if she was in an accident or the car wouldn't start out of town.

But we are in the middle of a pandemic where even semi-decent au pairs are in high demand. If she is a good au pair, and you don't need the car, I highly suggest you just let her take the car for the one to two weekends a month and just tell her she needs to pay for her gas. She is still MUCH cheaper than a part time nanny - if you could even find one (hint - you probably couldn't).

[Anonymous]

$50/week or she can rent her own car.

Not unreasonable. The au pair can find a new family closer than 110 miles to her boyfriend if she's unhappy. Also highly doubt she'll find another family with only a 3 day workweek...

[Anonymous]

I hope you have a car tracker on YOUR car. She may tell you she's going to a local girlfriend's for the weekend and drive it 220 miles anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In normal times, I would tell you that you should tell her she is welcome to rent a car for those road trips. We never let our au pairs take the car long distance. For us it was mainly about what a pain it would be for us to have to go deal with it if she was in an accident or the car wouldn't start out of town.

But we are in the middle of a pandemic where even semi-decent au pairs are in high demand. If she is a good au pair, and you don't need the car, I highly suggest you just let her take the car for the one to two weekends a month and just tell her she needs to pay for her gas. She is still MUCH cheaper than a part time nanny - if you could even find one (hint - you probably couldn't).

Agree with the. The competition is fierce

[Anonymous]

AP here and while I think 200$ a month is too expensive, I think letting her use the car for 50$ the one weekend she chooses to go and capping the amount of times she can go there with your car to 1 weekend a month only, is preferable. I would make sure she knows she is welcome to use the car within specific mileage (50 miles radius?) the rest of the time but if she wants to go more often she should rent a car or arrange for her family member/boyfriend/friend to pick her up and drop her off.

I couldn’t imagine borrowing my host family car to go over 110 miles every two weeks. Though I know a few Au pairs who have no limits and can travel across the US with their host family’s car.


Cause once she is there she probably go explore and use your car some more and I think she is being bit cheeky expecting to be given free use of the car long-distance for a while.

She could rematch but might not find a family in MA (or close to her bf/family member), will be paid less, might work more and likely won’t have a car to drive hundreds of miles every 2 weeks either so... Would proceed as I said and let her rematch. Plenty of APs keen to move to MA right now and be paid $270 For 27 hours. I am in California and earn barely more than that for 45hours and if my family wasn’t amazing I would absolutely be interested in moving to MA with the deal you seem to offer (and I am someone who has been several times AP and therefore sought after), I usually say it when I think HFS are being unreasonable but I think what you request is perfectly fine.

Whether you want to change the rules about the car and be more relaxed due to Covid is up to you but if you let her sleep over there I assume it doesn’t worry you much anyway so I wouldn’t.

[Anonymous]

When I was a live in Nanny many moons ago I had a family car that had restricted miles. I could use 700 miles a month for personal use. I couldnt go over but could carry miles over if I wanted to. As the Nanny it was kind of a pain but it did make me keep the miles down on the car. You could do something like this. X amount of miles per month. If she uses them all up in one weekend then shes done til the next month.

[Anonymous]

He lace you considered saying that she can go for one weekend and they can come for one weekend? That might make it more acceptable to her. Have her pay her own gas (you top up the tank before she leaves, she refills when she brings in back), and not do $20-25 for the use itself.

[Anonymous]

We covered up to x miles a month, then she had to pay a rate that was less than the federal rate but enough that it wasn’t going everywhere all the times have her price renting a car for these trips (which are definitely beyond what one would normally provide) and come up with a compromise.
If you give her them first 100 miles free, she’s still reimbursing you for the return.
As we all know, this kind of mileage leads to more frequent maintenance checks.

[Anonymous]

Think about what that dollar amount would be, then ask yourself if that is amount of money that is worth losing your au pair, knowing that you will not be able to get another one for at least 6 months.

Driving is safer than buses, trains, or planes right now. Nickel and diming the au pair is going to sour the relationship for a truly insignificant amount of money. Accept the use of the car as payment toward the loss of the normal au pair experience she is going through.

440 miles/month is really nothing, considering she likely isn’t driving much otherwise right now.

[Anonymous]

I really don't agree. Nobody should be in a relationship with their child care provider/ family member that one side is ok to dictate demands. if you are not comfortable with this, then don't agree to it. If she chooses to leave, that is her right, and shows you her personality and probably other things she would keep asking in the future. WE are all in the Covid situation, not only au pairs. There are always other options for you and your family, don't feel like you have to desperate make this work. It takes two to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.