Reply to What can I ask of au pair as "member of family"?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thanks for the responses. To be clear, what I meant with housecleaning tasks and similar would be to participate with us in doing the work as a family - not doing it for us so we don’t have to. More like everyone in the family has a task, and this week it is dusting. We divide and conquer. It’s just hard for me to imagine the au pair can live in our home but not lift a finger to help keep the common spaces clean (like everyone else has to do).

I also feel like this au pair expects me to make all her meals and feed her like she’s our guest. Again, hard for me to imagine it being like that for a year.

As for snow or walking the dog once in the middle of the day while she’s home and we’re at work, not a big deal, but those are examples of things any other of our family members would do if home during that time stretch.

What I think feels like a disconnect is the expectation to treat the au pair like a family member in terms of including in activities and adventures and gift giving and taking out for meals at restaurants, but the same doesn’t hold true for basic household functions. [/quote]

You mean she expects to be fed when the whole family is eating (so you have to make an extra portion) or she expects you to make her something extra?

Either way I don’t cook for AP, unless it’s for the whole family. And our current AP is a vegetarian so I don’t cook much for her at all. Sounds like you’re unnecessarily burdening yourself and it’s making you want to unnecessarily burden your AP. Dial back your expectations for her and yourself. [/quote]

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