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[quote=Anonymous]Our children are older now (10 and 12), so we use only about 25ish hours/week usually, but on the weeks when the children have half days (happens at each of their schools once per month, and never on the same day), then we do end up using more hours.  During school vacations, snow days, and when someone is sick, we run closer to 40-42 hrs/week.

When our children were young and we had our first AP, we actually did have a case of an AP who was resentful about her hours.  She was a 19 year old German, working 45 hrs/week with a 3 and 1 year old, and her job was HARD compared to all of her friends' jobs.  She was great at first but became resentful over time.  She was definitely not suited for our job - we didn't know better at all and had allowed the agency to pressure us into hiring her, back when CCAP "matched" for you and gave you grief if you turned down more than two of their proposed matches.  When her best AP friend, who had one of the 3-6pm driving-teenagers-around jobs, had to go home suddenly, our AP took her job, and we were all happy with the change.  We have often said that she would have been a great AP for us nowadays, but she was really unsuited to the job we had then, only we didn't know enough to honestly call it what it was.

Anyway - when the children were young, we did much better by hiring older (22-24 yr old) Brazilian APs, whose friends were all working with young children as well.  They all worked their 45 full hours between Mon and Fri and had every single weekend off, to play and party and travel and have a blast.  We loved these APs, and they were really great for us at that time.

Once our children were 6 and 8 respectively, we switched to young Germans again and have been very happy with how this has worked out.  Their friends all work the same split shift that they do (mornings and then afternoons/evenings with some occasional weekend work), and so no one is complaining because everyone is doing the same thing.

OP, as long as you are honest with your incoming AP and are very clear with her what the hours are like (we didn't know enough to really spell out, back in 2005, what 45 hours a week FEELS like with a 1 and 3 year old), then your AP will be fine.  Hopefully she will make friends with APs who work the same schedule she does, so she won't think anything is odd about her hours.

Good luck![/quote]

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