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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And, no, hourly employees do not generally get to bill time for travel. Mileage and per diem yes, but travelling out of state to work a convention? Absolutely cannot claim air or drive time as working hours. You would bankrupt universities and non-profits if this were true. [/quote]

What? Are you kidding? I travel on the regular with my. Family and always bill for travel time. Sitting with a baby on flight to Tokyo while my mb sleep is work and I’m paid for that. [/quote]

You’re a nanny. And you are taking care of the child. Not sitting there watching your own movie and doing whatever else you want. [/quote]

Plenty of APs do that too though. I am an AP and have definitely had the lion's share of the care of the kids during flight time. I can actively remember a trip to Hawaii (5 hours) where the baby didn't want to settle and I spent the entirety of the flight walking up and down the aisle, the parents only holding the baby at landing and take off.  Most hf don't seem to count flight times as work hours though, so despite doing 5 hours with no break on the flight I still had to do a full day whilst there because of course so much need to be done on the first day, I am one of the AP who appreciate the gesture of being invited on a trip but often dislike the reality of it. More often than not trips are a massive grey area where no proper schedule is set so AP is always semi on call, where you can't go late at night at the risk of waking people in the hotel room up, where you are stuck somewhere with gorgeous landscapes that you often can't really explore (no access to a car, stuck in an all inclusive hotel by the beach but far away from any local cultural experience etc...), I also find host parents to be way more lax (not in the best way) about the schedule because somehow they feel like they are doing a good deed for taking you along and know they can push the line a bit because saying anything would make the AP ungrateful.

I was very appreciative of my hf taking me with them to hawaii but I was also stuck in a very tiny town in the middle of nowhere with only 1 restaurants and 3 shops and nothing to do without a car (and I didn't have car) and I was bored out of my mind, (I had my real hawaii holiday when I took a week off to explore and had full freedom to do so) I was appreciative of the experience but if my hf had wanted to make this a bi-monthly thing I would have really resented it. It wouldn't have mattered that I had Saturday day off or Sunday day off and to do as I please when there was NOTHING for me to do in the area. [/quote]

It sounds like you probably were not mature enough to entertain yourself at that age - if you could not entertain yourself or manage to find joy and enjoyment in Hawaii of all places. Yikes. Vacations are a gray areas for APs, too, ours do not wake up early on a schedule unless there is a planned activity, have no trouble planning and organizing activities, and communicating as adult women (e.g., our AP asked if she could book a surfing lesson at a specific time, we dropped her off and picked her up, booked herself a massage on the beach (we dropped her off and picked her up), and looked up free yoga and hikes she wanted to try. We had a detailed discussion regarding hours before the vacation. We indicated she would not be left alone with DD throughout vacation, but would be expected when with us to assist when asked. We asked her to make a list of activities she wanted to do, and we would try to combine with our trip objectives. We do screen for older, mature APs, however. Plus, our agency recommends that APs pick one and HFs pick one in terms of vacation. We could have asked for her to use vacation time. I would have beg borrowed or stolen to have a working vacation in Hawaii (still would). The idea that an au pair expects a “real Hawaii holiday” on what is essentially a work vacation is pretty narcissistic. I would never tell my boss that a European work trip is my personal holiday. [/quote]

I am in my mid 20's and have lived abroad for years and traveled the world, I know how to entertain myself and I value traveling. I didn't expect to have a proper hawaii holiday when with the host family it was a WORK trip and tha'ts my point, it's work, it's not a holiday. You have no idea where in Hawaii I was but if it's of interest to you I was in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't by the beach or anywhere touristy, I was 30 minutes drive from the nearest beach and there was no sidewalk or street light that allowed to walk safely on the roads (definitely not with a baby anyway).  There was one local restaurant and one souvenir shop at a semi walking distance and that's it. Nothing else to do or see but fields. Like I said, I still appreciated the opportunity to go but I would have HATED it to be a place I would have had to be at twice a month during my FREE time.

It's awesome you let your Au Pair come up with activities and drive her to those places, it wasn't the case with my host family, them giving me rides or using their rental car wasn't an option.

It's nice to have free time but what's almost the point of it if there is nothing you can do with it. I had nowhere to go or explore, nobody to talk to there wasn't even a TV or books in the airbnb to entertain myself with.

I used to live in the Carribean (amongst other countries), I know Island life and know how to entertain myself on an island, my point is that, even if you feel like your AP should be able to entertain herself because wherever you holiday is entertaining for you doesn't mean it's the case for your AP and I don't think it's fair to force an AP to give up on two of her weekends for FREE, to be bored out of her mind, just for a night of baby sitting.

My hf ideal holiday was being in the middle of nowhere staying in the Airbnb  ALL DAY catching up on sleep and reading, it's lovely (especially when you have an AP to facilitate that) but it's NOT my idea of fun, it would have been super unreasonable of them to expect me to come with them to this super remote location twice a month to be bored out of my mind during my free time (again AP is giving up her free time to be in a place she obviously doesn't enjoy) just so they could use the 3 hours they had left for the week on a night of baby sitting and yes I would have resented it.  Nothing to do with being entitled. [/quote]

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