Oops, that was a weird edit. We went into rematch and she is our new AP from the rematch pool. By the time we let her drive on her own, she’ll have had 3 months of lessons and supervised practice.

We already did 12 hours of driving lessons. If she we had gotten her from the beginning rather than the rematch pool AP, we would have rematched.

More lessons won’t help. She just needs practice and more confidence. By “terrible”, she turns into a 60 year old Sunday driver who goes 25mph in a 35 zone nervously trying to figure out where to go in a new situation. At least she can drive in a straight line now after the lessons....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless it means AL has no access to a car on weekends I would stick with 2 cars.
If you buy a 3rd car its fine to do your first option.

We don’t need both cars on weekends usually. But it’s more I kinda want the AP to risk a cheap older car driving around who knows where than to have our newish cars get banged up. Even our careful AP blew out a tire and ran into a parked car in the driveway. I’d rather tell a new AP that if they total the AP car, that’s it for social driving privileges. An accident with #2 means I have to drive to work in a dented car or take time to get it fixed (or worst case needing to buy a 2nd car). Current AP has no social driving privileges since she is a brand new driver.

Hope she isn’t driving your kids thrn.

She is, but supervised. We're acting like she has her learner's permit for a few months and riding along (which is very tedious). After another month of practice, we'll let her drive the kids to school and back on her own, but likely nowhere else. She does not handle anything other than the one route to/from school well (DH tried directing her to a new location and she reverted back to being a terrible driver).

Driving lessons are the way to go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless it means AL has no access to a car on weekends I would stick with 2 cars.
If you buy a 3rd car its fine to do your first option.

We don’t need both cars on weekends usually. But it’s more I kinda want the AP to risk a cheap older car driving around who knows where than to have our newish cars get banged up. Even our careful AP blew out a tire and ran into a parked car in the driveway. I’d rather tell a new AP that if they total the AP car, that’s it for social driving privileges. An accident with #2 means I have to drive to work in a dented car or take time to get it fixed (or worst case needing to buy a 2nd car). Current AP has no social driving privileges since she is a brand new driver.

Hope she isn’t driving your kids thrn.

She is, but supervised. We're acting like she has her learner's permit for a few months and riding along (which is very tedious). After another month of practice, we'll let her drive the kids to school and back on her own, but likely nowhere else. She does not handle anything other than the one route to/from school well (DH tried directing her to a new location and she reverted back to being a terrible driver).

We have three cars -- AP uses that one for carpools/pickups and socially. We use our cars to get to work so we needed her to have a third. It's still a safe car but much older than our other two.

But we don't advertise it as a perk. We have strict limits on where it can go and the car has a curfew.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless it means AL has no access to a car on weekends I would stick with 2 cars.
If you buy a 3rd car its fine to do your first option.

We don’t need both cars on weekends usually. But it’s more I kinda want the AP to risk a cheap older car driving around who knows where than to have our newish cars get banged up. Even our careful AP blew out a tire and ran into a parked car in the driveway. I’d rather tell a new AP that if they total the AP car, that’s it for social driving privileges. An accident with #2 means I have to drive to work in a dented car or take time to get it fixed (or worst case needing to buy a 2nd car). Current AP has no social driving privileges since she is a brand new driver.

Hope she isn’t driving your kids thrn.

Anonymous wrote:Unless it means AL has no access to a car on weekends I would stick with 2 cars.
If you buy a 3rd car its fine to do your first option.

We don’t need both cars on weekends usually. But it’s more I kinda want the AP to risk a cheap older car driving around who knows where than to have our newish cars get banged up. Even our careful AP blew out a tire and ran into a parked car in the driveway. I’d rather tell a new AP that if they total the AP car, that’s it for social driving privileges. An accident with #2 means I have to drive to work in a dented car or take time to get it fixed (or worst case needing to buy a 2nd car). Current AP has no social driving privileges since she is a brand new driver.

Anonymous wrote:APs need simplification- switching from mini van with everything the kids and driver needs, to a small personal car, several times a day, will lead to unnecessary complications. For the most part, APs are surprisingly young and immature, and they need clarity and direction from you as the host parent. Don't pander to a teenager's whims.

AP might switch three times at most. 1) Gets home in minivan for split shift, chooses to go out to do something in the middle of the day (gym, lunch with friends, whatever) using #3. 2) Arrives home by start of shift, uses minivan to pick up kids. 3) At the end of AP’s workday, AP chooses to go out in the evening socially and uses #3.

Directions would be clear. Work = minivan, social = 3rd car.

I guess your point is that this isn’t simple enough for some APs, especially the immature ones. We had a 19yo that would literally ask for the car 10 min before she was supposed to leave and meet friends, multiple times (eventually rematched for bigger isssues stemming from immaturity). Our 21yo would have been fine because she was very conscientious.

Track the mileage/gas. If you know that your kids’ activities use one tank of gas every two weeks, you fill up every two weeks. The first time AP doesn’t have the funds to fill up for her useage, she loses the ability to drive for her things.

We knew we would only take an older au pair (24-26) and we figured she would want her own car. Different strokes.

Unless it means AL has no access to a car on weekends I would stick with 2 cars.
If you buy a 3rd car its fine to do your first option.

APs need simplification- switching from mini van with everything the kids and driver needs, to a small personal car, several times a day, will lead to unnecessary complications. For the most part, APs are surprisingly young and immature, and they need clarity and direction from you as the host parent. Don't pander to a teenager's whims.

I wouldn't get a third car simply to use as a perk. If you rarely use two cars at a time, your AP will be fine with having access to the car most of the time. Switching cars, plus having AP pay for gas for third car will only make AP less appreciative.

We got a second car and let au pair have a car exclusively for her use work snd social.

If you have a 3rd car dedicated for AP:

Do you make AP use car #1 or #2 for kid related activities, school pick ups? Then car #3 is exclusively for AP’s social driving?

Or do host parents use #1 and 2, so AP #3 is for all AP driving - work and social?

Thinking about doing the first option since one of our current cars is a minivan and we have 3 kids. But this means AP has to come directly home and then switch to their own car for the gym or whatever (assuming split shift). Maybe I’m too negative about the entitled APs everyone talks about, but since we wouldn’t pay for any gas on #3, I’m wondering if future AP might whine about the “inefficiency” of not being able to use our car (and our gas) to go directly to the gym (never mind that our schedule takes the driving home time into account).

Or would you not bother to get the third car since we don’t even use 2 cars all the time anyway? I suggested getting a 3rd car only to advertise it as a perk and be an older, cheap car that we didn’t care too much about for AP’s use only (but with limits—still no DC driving or road trips).