Reply to WWYD: Paying for 'outings' (skiing day trip)

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[quote=Anonymous]We have an AP who is OK - kind of does the bare minimum and has needed a lot of micro managing to get up to speed. The kids love her and she is overall pretty good with them so we are happy to continue with her. We have helped pay for a winter coat, boots and paid fully for some other winter gear. We pay her fairly (we're in Canada so it's slightly differently here - an hourly rate less room & board), and take her to the movies, restaurants, etc. Up until now we have bought her the special food she asks for, even though sometimes she doesn't eat it and I end up throwing it out or it sits unopened in the cupboard (we're not buying any more food that we don't already eat though as it's such a waste of money).

So in that context - we go skiing locally (day trip, not over night) and I have offered her the same deal as our prior AP, which is to pay for some but not all of the cost (probably cost her $40-50 per trip). Last week I let her know I'm probably going to take the kids skiing on Friday as they have that day off school. When I reminded her that she hasn't let me know if she wants to go, she expressed some concern about the cost. I discussed with my husband that perhaps we can pay for the whole cost the first time, but he is adamant that as she is not stellar like the former AP, we should not be rewarding her with additional free/subsidized stuff/activities and if she is really keen to go she should pay some of the expense like the last AP did quite happily. We feel we have already been pretty generous - that is our default mode - but it seems like a bit of a one-way street (e.g. she wouldn't do something like offer to look after the kids for a couple of hours at night so we could go out for a little date night if she was going to be home anyway). And we don't have a very close relationship with her as host parents (she never asks us anything about ourselves, doesn't really make conversation, etc.).

I feel like maybe it's a bit mean to prevent her from experiencing skiing for the first time, but I know she can't be too badly off as she just bought a brand new iPhone 11. And she has so few expenses with us, she is probably saving most of her income (she also has some other money making gigs on the side - MLM, babysitting). She is not the cheapest childcare option for us and we have had some financial set-backs recently but I try not to let that affect what we are able to offer/do with her. What would you do?[/quote]

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