Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup. "no food" often means that you are not buying exactly what they want, and even though you give them a stipend for food (and they are welcome to eat whatever from the house and you cook dinners), that you are restricting what they can eat because you are "putting them on a budget."

+1 Our AP felt that we were controlling her food intake by setting a stipend amount for her "extra food". We said that we are not stopping you from buying what you want with your own money. What we are doing is putting a limit to how much we will contribute to items that are for your own consumption.

She sounds sweet.

Anonymous wrote:Yup. "no food" often means that you are not buying exactly what they want, and even though you give them a stipend for food (and they are welcome to eat whatever from the house and you cook dinners), that you are restricting what they can eat because you are "putting them on a budget."

+1 Our AP felt that we were controlling her food intake by setting a stipend amount for her "extra food". We said that we are not stopping you from buying what you want with your own money. What we are doing is putting a limit to how much we will contribute to items that are for your own consumption.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen too many APs complain "there's no food" when what they mean is no pre-prepared or processed food. Having dry pasta and jars of tomato sauce in the pantry still translates to "there's no food" because host mom doesn't cook them every meal on demand and lifting a finger to boil the pasta is too much "work".

Hm.
I was one of the APs who was left behind by their HF with "no food" (they went on a weekend trip to buy a holiday home - hence, I assume money was not an issue). Well, of course there was food. I could probably have made a Sunday roast, there was plenty of meat in the freezer, and I am sure there was a can of soup somewhere in the pantry and most likely rice or pasta. However, there was no milk, no bread, no cheese, no cereal, no fruit, no vegetables, no joghurt, no lunch meats, no eggs... nothing that you could easily throw together for a quick lunch/dinner for one person and my first breakfast that weekend consisted of a fruit roll up.

Of course by that time I was so uncomfortable living with them that I really didn't dare to take anything anymore. I am not sure I would not have gotten in trouble for taking a jar of tomato sauce from the pantry or finishing anything that was open already. I lived of things I fed the baby for the last month or so and only ate when they ate and what they ate. Or bought it myself. Which was a problem as I was in one of the most expensive countries in the world and earned less than an AP in the US.

Being an AP in another country doesn't really compare well. My understanding is that families in other countries can do whatever they want, so there's more potential for abuse.

Anonymous wrote:I've seen too many APs complain "there's no food" when what they mean is no pre-prepared or processed food. Having dry pasta and jars of tomato sauce in the pantry still translates to "there's no food" because host mom doesn't cook them every meal on demand and lifting a finger to boil the pasta is too much "work".

Hm.
I was one of the APs who was left behind by their HF with "no food" (they went on a weekend trip to buy a holiday home - hence, I assume money was not an issue). Well, of course there was food. I could probably have made a Sunday roast, there was plenty of meat in the freezer, and I am sure there was a can of soup somewhere in the pantry and most likely rice or pasta. However, there was no milk, no bread, no cheese, no cereal, no fruit, no vegetables, no joghurt, no lunch meats, no eggs... nothing that you could easily throw together for a quick lunch/dinner for one person and my first breakfast that weekend consisted of a fruit roll up.

Of course by that time I was so uncomfortable living with them that I really didn't dare to take anything anymore. I am not sure I would not have gotten in trouble for taking a jar of tomato sauce from the pantry or finishing anything that was open already. I lived of things I fed the baby for the last month or so and only ate when they ate and what they ate. Or bought it myself. Which was a problem as I was in one of the most expensive countries in the world and earned less than an AP in the US.

Anonymous wrote:My AP last year went from simple requests (OJ, a squash) to a dozen items per shopping trip, including out-of-season produce and protein water. We finally said no and I think she was annoyed about it.

I'm always amazed at families that give their APs a weekly budget for food. We have PLENTY of food at the house -- way more than necessary. And it's all the food we said we eat before we matched. If she suddenly decides that she needs protein water, she's free to buy it herself.

What the hell is protein water???

Nope. I refuse to wander the aisles of a grocery store due to some obscure request. AP can do it in their free time with their own money....

My AP last year went from simple requests (OJ, a squash) to a dozen items per shopping trip, including out-of-season produce and protein water. We finally said no and I think she was annoyed about it.

I'm always amazed at families that give their APs a weekly budget for food. We have PLENTY of food at the house -- way more than necessary. And it's all the food we said we eat before we matched. If she suddenly decides that she needs protein water, she's free to buy it herself.

Anonymous wrote:It's more common than you think.
My host family also didn't provide enough food.
The mom was anorexic, the father would eat out ...
I'd do my best to cook a decent meal for the children with what I'd find in the pantry. Most of the time we had soup and I pretended not to be hungry so they could have enough.
I'm only glad they had a good meal at school for lunch.
I only had one meal a day, the "dinner" I made for the children. At some point I started to become anorexic as well, eating less and less.

And if you ask why I didn't say anything : It was a rematch family and my counselor was terrible, she told me that if I was unhappy I could just head home. I was young and didn't know what to do, I was scared to ruin my year as an AP so I stayed.

That's totally bullsh*t and I'm sorry you had to deal with that. You should have had food to eat. Did they allow you to shop for food?

I do shopping for the family and there is always food in the fridge. I have a board and they are welcome to put notes on it for what they would like when I go to Costco or the grocery store. There is always fresh fruit, salad, cereal, yogurt, etc. around that is easy to grab during the day.

I have had au pairs request very reasonable items (particular fruit, types of bread, cottage cheese, special types of tea, etc). I have also had au pairs request things like beef every day for dinner or expensive artisan cheese (think $20/lb) or protein bars that were $5 a pop, etc. I think most families try to find a balance and hopefully most au pairs come with an open mind to try some new stuff.

Yeah my current MB is basically anorexic gluten free so I’m not allowed to feed the kids anything with carbs. I guess she did f want their brains to grow. Not my problem.

It's more common than you think.
My host family also didn't provide enough food.
The mom was anorexic, the father would eat out ...
I'd do my best to cook a decent meal for the children with what I'd find in the pantry. Most of the time we had soup and I pretended not to be hungry so they could have enough.
I'm only glad they had a good meal at school for lunch.
I only had one meal a day, the "dinner" I made for the children. At some point I started to become anorexic as well, eating less and less.

And if you ask why I didn't say anything : It was a rematch family and my counselor was terrible, she told me that if I was unhappy I could just head home. I was young and didn't know what to do, I was scared to ruin my year as an AP so I stayed.

Yup. "no food" often means that you are not buying exactly what they want, and even though you give them a stipend for food (and they are welcome to eat whatever from the house and you cook dinners), that you are restricting what they can eat because you are "putting them on a budget."

Anonymous wrote:Experience a sense of glee reading the rematch documents on CCAP? I read one today where the family wasn't giving the AP access to FOOD. Jesus. I hope they were removed from the program.

I'm actually looking for a rematch candidate, not JUST doing this for fun. But it's also kinda fun.

I'd take that with a grain of salt. I've seen too many APs complain "there's no food" when what they mean is no pre-prepared or processed food. Having dry pasta and jars of tomato sauce in the pantry still translates to "there's no food" because host mom doesn't cook them every meal on demand and lifting a finger to boil the pasta is too much "work".

Right. Those docs are interesting, but you have to read between the lines for sure. I was super curious about what ours was going to look like and see how they were going to spin the serious issues we had with our AP, but they ended up sending him home. So that was a relief and gave us a little bit of confidence in the system. but just a little.

Anonymous wrote:Be aware that the CCAP documents are often full of what I’ll politely call creative writing. We’ve had two rematches and saw the write-ups for our rematching au pairs. The au pairs came off as just short of angelic and it was NOT reflective of reality. Keep in mind that CCAP is just trying to get you to “purchase” yet another of their products. Be sure to do your due diligence and talk to the original host family and the LCC!!

+1. Leaving scissors and knives out where a 2 year old can reach them after being told to put them away multiple times translates into "mismatch of expectations"

Be aware that the CCAP documents are often full of what I’ll politely call creative writing. We’ve had two rematches and saw the write-ups for our rematching au pairs. The au pairs came off as just short of angelic and it was NOT reflective of reality. Keep in mind that CCAP is just trying to get you to “purchase” yet another of their products. Be sure to do your due diligence and talk to the original host family and the LCC!!

Experience a sense of glee reading the rematch documents on CCAP? I read one today where the family wasn't giving the AP access to FOOD. Jesus. I hope they were removed from the program.

I'm actually looking for a rematch candidate, not JUST doing this for fun. But it's also kinda fun.