Reply to Au pair tragedy

Forum Index » Au Pair Discussion

Reply to "Au pair tragedy "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]We love our au pair. She came to us in August on her extension year. She’s wonderful and everyone in my family thinks so. About 3 weeks ago her grandmother died. She has been ill but her death hasn’t been expected. Our au pair was very sad, we tried to give her space but also made sure she knew we were here for her. She’s very open and we talked a lot, I spoke with her family when she was talking with them, we helped her observe some of the rituals of her culture, etc.

Then, last week, very suddenly, her mom died. It turns out she had covid but everyone there thought she was just grieving her mother and didn’t get her any help. Obviously it was a huge shock. On the day it happened our au pair was planning to go spend the next week in our second home with her 2 closest friends (we’d been quarantined as had they, everyone got covid tests and was very safe). They were spending NYE together and just going to relax.

Our au pair decided she wanted to be with her friends so I drove her to be with them and we checked in with her every day. I went to pick her up today, as planned. She is functioning, but still seems in shock for sure, which is completely reasonable. She said she isn’t really sleeping and only falls asleep at 5-6am.  I told her to take it easy this week and that we know this is extremely difficult (both Dh and I have lost a parent, me very recently, but we at least were able to be with them). She’s quite angry with her mother’s family and feels like they are to blame for her death (from the facts I know I tend to agree).

I’m not sure how to proceed going forward. What should my expectations be regarding her duties? She is adamant that she doesn’t want to go home. If she left she of course wouldn’t be able to come back, and she’s always said she is living her dream being here. We offered to buy her a plane ticket if she wanted to go but she absolutely does not. I’m ok with giving her extra time off (though I don’t really want her to be alone and with covid I’m not sure seeing her friends again is going to be possible at least for a while). At the same time, I do need her to help out with the kids - I’ve already taken off their whole 2 week winter break and have also taken most of this week off in order to help her, plus my kids are all remote schooling right now. Should I set an expectation for a date when she returns to a normal schedule? Is that unreasonable?

Any advice?  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics