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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am an AP who do [b]baby-sitting on the side[/b].

I baby-sit for a family M-F in the evenings, which means I make the same (or more) working 10 hours a week for that second family than I do, doing 45h+ for the first.

Has it changed the dynamic with the family? Yes and no, the second family is really nice and treat me like family even though I only spend 2 hours a day with them and always pay me for the full time even though, they often let me go early, they make me feel really valued and appreciated and I think it has emphasized how overworked and slightly unappreciated I feel by the first family who make me work more than 45h, never pay me any extra (they left me for a few days once with the baby and never paid me a penny more than the weekly stipend) etc... and while it hasn't changed my attitude towards them it's definitely convinced me not to extend with them.

Family 2 doesn't currently have an Au Pair but we've talked and they are about to buy a house and offered me to Au Pair for them, I would be doing the same hours as I am doing for them (late afternoon/evenings) and they already told me I would be able to work during the day as she won't need me at all then. Which means that yes, I will leave family 1 (at the end of my contract, even though family 2 has said they would be happy to have me before then) to go to family 2 instead.

If you are a good host family, the Au Pair won't run off nor be looking for another family though, I know I would have wanted to extend with this family were they not over-stretching me and wanting me to give them more than allowed for the minimum amount possible.  Giving your Au Pair the freedom to earn more and therefore the possibility to do more might actually keep her with you longer.

As Au Pairs (and I live in a very expensive part of California) the weekly stipend can be very little in comparison to the cost of life/activities that one would want to do to properly experience the US.[b] Taxes are also excrutiatingly expensive[/b] this year and while currently baby-sitting and doing extra means I am working A LOT of hours it also mean that I have more money to enjoy the Bay and all it has to offer and I am appreciative of having the opportunity to double my income and actual have the ability to now save, without having to sacrifice other aspect of my life here.

While the baby-sitting is adding a lot of hours to my already busy schedule, I do NOT let it burn me out as to not impact on my work with family 1, if I feel I am overstretching myself I would have no problem cancelling a night of baby-sitting. I also know that while family 2 is lovely and very accomodating and I enjoy the extra cash, family 1 is the family I officially work for and[b] therefore they have priority [/b]over family 2, family 1 is aware I baby-sit at certain times, but they asked to go on a date last week at a time I would baby-sit (despite having used up their hours!) and I still cancelled my baby-sitting gig, losing on money, because extra-work shouldn't impact on the official job.

I would be very annoyed if family 1 didn't let me baby-sit and was trying to control my free time (considering I would ensure baby-sitting never interefered with my AP schedule) so saying no to her working could damage your relationship. I think it's fine to tell her you don't want to help her find it though.   [/quote]

This all sounds like BS.  It was written by someone with an absolutely amazing command of the English language (see bolded phrases).  And a host family left their baby alone with the AP for a few days?  A baby?  I don't think so.  And the second family is paying you more than $20/hour?   Don't think so.
But if this is actually true and you have another family who wants you right now, leave.  The HF would be thrown out of the program for so egregiously violating the rules.  Though, this would not be a case of "baby sitting for two families", as you write later.  It would be an AP who is breaking the law by having another part time job.

[/quote]

I am the previous poster and I can assure you that I am very real and not a troll. I am glad I apparently have an "amazing" command of English as I have worked quite hard to achieve this level (though studying languages and having lived abroad for the last few years might have helped) and while I am actually French and therefore English isn't my main language, plenty of Au Pairs all over the US happen to speak English as their native language, so not sure how my English level could give away whether or not I am an Au Pair anyway as I could well be British or South African?  :roll:

The fact that you don't believe that parents would leave their baby/children alone with an Au Pair for a few days (probably based on the fact that you wouldn't do it) is neither here nor there, I wouldn't do it either yet my host family is of those families who do so it's kind of irrelevant whether or not it's something we, ourselves, as parents would feel comfortable doing (the mum went away last weekend and the dad had a female friend sleep over to do night times because he couldn't cope, just to give you an idea).

If you look at the timing of my last post (the 09:49am one) and remember that I am currently located in California, you will see that I posted this at 6:49am California time on a Sunday morning, why do you think I was up so early? Because I am made to pick up the baby phone at 6am even on weekends. Shit families exists.

And surprise, but shit counselors who couldn't care less about their job do too.

Don't you think that my first course of action was to mention it to the counselor when they announced to me that they were going to leave me with the baby for 4 days and the thought that I might want to at least be compensated for it (aside from the fact that it was totally against the rules) didn't cross their mind? Of course I did. 
 I mentionned it in a casual "My host family did this and I am not sure how I feel about this, it doesn't sit quite right with me" and do you know what she said? Absolutely nothing is what she said, apart from "Well if you need help when they are gone and see you are struggling with the baby on your own let me know." She is a crap counselor who's made it clear she just wants her life to be easy and doesn't want to be bothered or have to intervene. Our monthly meetups only consist of spending 30 minutes in a coffee shop where she asks us about our life but don't actually want to hear about the struggles as she doesn't want to have to deal with it before she sends us on our merry way. I spend more time traveling to the meeting than actually "meeting up" with her.

And because that seems to be of concern to you,  I am not hiding the fact that I work two jobs at all (good thing about having a counselor who cares about nothing is that you can tell her absolutely anything I suppose!)  she definitely [b]knows [/b] I baby sit for a second family and plan on potentially extending with them, she just DOESN'T care, if anything she encourages us to make the most of our year in any way we see fit as long as families don't complain to her  and I think the only way she would care is if families started complaining about it to her because [b]she would actually have to work[/b]. She is not a bad person but it's just clear she just want the money for the job, doing as little as possible and from what I hear most counselors are of the similar kind so me working two jobs with the family's approval, isn't going to trigger her into any kind of action, I am afraid.

So no, I am probably not going to get kicked out of the program (not for working two jobs anyway) when the family has zero complaints about me whatsoever, and probably neither will the family as you should know that families rarely get kicked out of the program regardless of how little they follow the rules (mine is a prime example). I actually know plenty of Au Pairs who get berated by their counselor because they [b]refuse[/b] to work extra hours and then have to listen to their counselor tell them that they need to be "more flexible" as it's supposed to be an "exchange" and flexibility is in the "spirit of the program".

I definitely know I have more than enough ground to rematch and could go above my counselor to have them removed from the program if I wished but I also have reasons not to want to rematch.  The main one being that [b][u]I love my host kid[/u][/b] and the baby isn't responsible for his parents flaws. I love him, and even though I am absolutely knackered and sick of being over-stretched, I do want to be there to see him make his first steps and other first important moments in his life, I haven't spent 6 months over-stretching myself to miss out on those small yet very important moments of his life when we've bonded and I am now half-way done with the program. I litterally spend hours each day stimulating him and helping him reach new milestones, of course I want to be there when he does reaches them.  I also don't want to risk leaving the area by rematching (and family 2 for personal reasons wouldn't be able to host me until a few months from now anyway), I have built up a life here and because I live in an expensive area, baby-sitting gigs DO pay well (20$/hour minimum is the norm here and that what the 2nd family pays me) so baby-sitting is actually a big part of why I do [b][u]not[/u][/b] want to rematch because it allows me to save quite a lot of money that I am using to pay off my uni debt and keep aside for future project.

So if me being loyal to family 1 partly thanks to family 2 makes families warry of letting them have a second job, so be it.

I am [b]not[/b] saying parents should encourage or help Au pairs find a second job but most Au Pairs I know definitely [b]don't[/b] fill their host family up on what they do with their free time anyway, so not too sure how the logistic of actually stopping an AP from working a second job would be as I am sure plenty of APs would just do it without mentionning it to the host family if they knew they would be against it anyway? My point was that while you probably can't actually control your AP from baby-sitting or dog-sitting if she really wants to (though wouldn't necessarily be unreasonable for being against it) it's probably best to shift the focus onto ensuring that [u]whatever [/u]your AP does on her free time doesn't infringe or impact on her role as an AP and her attitude/energy levels with your children.  [b][u]She is an adult[/u][/b], she knows the visa regulations, let her make her own choices but by the same token make the right choices for your family if her doing extras means she is now late/ gets moody at schedule changes etc... telling her she needs to drop her side job or rematch seem like fair choices to me.

For the mum who is asking about where are the Au Pairs who want to work more, most Au Pairs want to EARN more (I think if we could earn more doing nothing more we would jump at the chance) and side jobs pay way more than Au Pairing so I think plenty of Au Pairs are very much keen to do extras.  APs are less keen to work more for host families though because it usually means working more for the same amount. Hence why APs who are used to working 25hours often become grumpy come summer time when they suddenly reach 45hours for the exact same weekly stipend and suddenly feel like they are being underpaid for the work they provide (even though it's well within the rules and the daily life of plenty of Au Pairs with little ones). 
Your Au Pair not showing up for work or being late is totally unacceptable though?

As seen by this thread there are both terrible families and terrible Au Pairs, you either have a good AP in this case you trust her to not let what she does on her free time impact her role within your family, or you have a bad AP and in this case, the side job will probably be the least of your problem? Same thing if you are a good host family then I can't see how her doing extra work for extra cash could negatively impact your family or why she would want to suddenly "run away with the neighbours" and if you are a bad family, she probably would still be looking for a way out regardless of extra jobs so seems like extra works are mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

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