Reply to Let's put the coffee cup argument to rest

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am unfamiliar with the concept that an au pair can perform “household chores.” I thought that they can only do child-related chores (laundry for child, wash child’s dishes). [/quote]

An up pair cannot perform household chores as part of her on duty work. However, the program says they can perform household chores as a member of the household. So she should never be expected to clean a whole house, but can be expected to vacuum or the empty dishwasher. [/quote]

An equitable split of household chores between all adults is allowed.[/quote]

So in a one-parent house you could have the au pair do half of the chores? Really? [/quote]

As far as I can tell, yes they could do half of the HOUSEHOLD chores (AP does for herself and kids, HP does for themselves), if the kids are young enough to not be helping at all.  In a two parent home, 1/3 would be equitable.  That’s how a lot of people split cooking/clean up: one cooks, one washes pans by hand, the other loads the dishwasher.[/quote]

I find this interesting, as a HF in Canada where we don't have such rules (I hope it's ok I participate in this forum despite not being in DC!). I couldn't get our AP to do any non-work-related household chores other than some fairly limited cleaning up after dinner until I said she could do some of it as part of her paid hours. It's pretty common here to not expect much from your AP in that way, unless you're going to pay them to do them on the clock (pay is generally per hour). She still doesn't do what I would consider her fair share, but after having a very hard reset and adding things like cleaning the shared bathroom and the laundry room every other week to the paid tasks, those are getting done more regularly and she is actually working harder and more efficiently (I am not paying for more hours - she was time wasting before and I said I would have to cut her hours if she didn't actually work when I was paying her). I don't mind having to pay for them as the alternative is I do it all the time or we get a much more expensive cleaning service in. (This might be relevant for MA families or any others where the state does something similar ...)[/quote]

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