Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

We don't *expect* her to do something like that, it was an example (and it would be after the kids are asleep), but at the same time I feel like we do a lot that isn't expected of us. This is only our 2nd AP after having full/part-time nannies in the past, so we don't have much of a basis of comparison, but our first AP would do little extras as a gesture of thanks - not at all expected and we were immensely grateful, and it felt like a two-way street in terms of each party being thoughtful. That's why I feel kind of conflicted about things at the moment ...

Yup. Long time.HM here. I right now have an awful AP. We dont offer her a single thing extra. Quite frankly I'd love it if she initiated rematch. I'd say we spent an extra 7k on extras for our former APs each year. This one gets nothing. I've always paid for even personal gas, this one, I dont even let her take thr car out of our town. With how unmotivated she is around the house, I can only imagine she is as unmotivated to pay attention to the road rules.

This is life. Work hard, earn nice things. Be lazy, recieve the minimim.

You sound awful as well.
You should initiate rematch, why suffer ?
She might be terrible because she feels you don't like her and she could be someone's else happy au pair.
Maybe she's just terrible, and that happens, in this case let her go.
And wow $7000 extra per year for your former Au Pairs, you're either lying or you're loaded.
Reality check though : really rich families get professional nannies, not au pairs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

We don't *expect* her to do something like that, it was an example (and it would be after the kids are asleep), but at the same time I feel like we do a lot that isn't expected of us. This is only our 2nd AP after having full/part-time nannies in the past, so we don't have much of a basis of comparison, but our first AP would do little extras as a gesture of thanks - not at all expected and we were immensely grateful, and it felt like a two-way street in terms of each party being thoughtful. That's why I feel kind of conflicted about things at the moment ...

Yup. Long time.HM here. I right now have an awful AP. We dont offer her a single thing extra. Quite frankly I'd love it if she initiated rematch. I'd say we spent an extra 7k on extras for our former APs each year. This one gets nothing. I've always paid for even personal gas, this one, I dont even let her take thr car out of our town. With how unmotivated she is around the house, I can only imagine she is as unmotivated to pay attention to the road rules.

This is life. Work hard, earn nice things. Be lazy, recieve the minimim.

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

$50 is roughly 25% of the weekly stipend...

Anonymous wrote:I agree with others, do you usually offer your boss to do extra hours for free during your free time? Didn't think so, so why would you expect your Au Pair to do the same, just because she lives in your house? The same way a mom working from home doesn't mean she is available to look after the children and AP is free, AP being home in her free time doesn't mean she is available to babysit. It's her FREE time to do as she pleases, having to be responsible for your kids in her evenings means she can't change her mind and go out and can't fully relax as she has to be on the lookout for your kids, who may or may not wake up and may or may not want to go in bed/stay in bed.

I wouldn't work for free on my free time unless extremely necessary so wouldn't expect an Au Pair to do it.

If you want her to give you a date night, schedule her so it fits within her working hours and pay her accordingly.

Actually, I do work extra hours and check my email when not on duty at my job. I don't however expect my AP to do so, that wasn't the point. I was just offering an example, based on our relationship with our prior AP where there were gestures on both parts, but maybe it wasn't a very good one. (And when I have asked her to babysit, i.e. feed the kids and put them to bed, I have paid her extra to do so - but in future I will get grandma to come as she does it for free!)

Anonymous wrote:I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

We don't *expect* her to do something like that, it was an example (and it would be after the kids are asleep), but at the same time I feel like we do a lot that isn't expected of us. This is only our 2nd AP after having full/part-time nannies in the past, so we don't have much of a basis of comparison, but our first AP would do little extras as a gesture of thanks - not at all expected and we were immensely grateful, and it felt like a two-way street in terms of each party being thoughtful. That's why I feel kind of conflicted about things at the moment ...

I agree with others, do you usually offer your boss to do extra hours for free during your free time? Didn't think so, so why would you expect your Au Pair to do the same, just because she lives in your house? The same way a mom working from home doesn't mean she is available to look after the children and AP is free, AP being home in her free time doesn't mean she is available to babysit. It's her FREE time to do as she pleases, having to be responsible for your kids in her evenings means she can't change her mind and go out and can't fully relax as she has to be on the lookout for your kids, who may or may not wake up and may or may not want to go in bed/stay in bed.

I wouldn't work for free on my free time unless extremely necessary so wouldn't expect an Au Pair to do it.

If you want her to give you a date night, schedule her so it fits within her working hours and pay her accordingly.

I would pay for the first ski trip. It’s a family outing, and something new that she might enjoy.

Yes, $50 is a large part of the au pair budget (depending on what Canadian take home pay is for au pairs - it’s almost 20% of the US budget).

She has been with your kids all day. She wants to relax, watch Netflix, etc at night - not take your kids for more hours during her off time so that you feel like she’s going above and beyond.

Come on parents, your expectations aren’t fair ...

Just because she stays home at night doesn't mean she has to offer you some free babysitting.

I wouldn't pay for her ski trip.

Blaming the cost could just be a polite way of saying she’s not interested, not fishing for a bigger subsidy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would just say:” That’s too bad. Let us know if you want to join us next time perhaps.” and would leave it at that.

I agree. You don’t want to pay for her and she doesn’t want to go unless it’s free. So stop overthinking this.

OP here - yes, you're right. I have a habit of overthinking things! Thanks for the sanity check!

If she were really interested in going, she would be willing to pay.

Anonymous wrote:I would just say:” That’s too bad. Let us know if you want to join us next time perhaps.” and would leave it at that.

I agree. You don’t want to pay for her and she doesn’t want to go unless it’s free. So stop overthinking this.

I would just say:” That’s too bad. Let us know if you want to join us next time perhaps.” and would leave it at that.

OP here - I should probably mention she would get paid as usual for her 5.5 hours that day, though there would be little 'work' beyond helping with breakfast and unloading the dishwasher in the morning. I would be paying for lunch and the shared cost would be the equipment rental and 'first timer' lesson/lift ticket.

We have an AP who is OK - kind of does the bare minimum and has needed a lot of micro managing to get up to speed. The kids love her and she is overall pretty good with them so we are happy to continue with her. We have helped pay for a winter coat, boots and paid fully for some other winter gear. We pay her fairly (we're in Canada so it's slightly differently here - an hourly rate less room & board), and take her to the movies, restaurants, etc. Up until now we have bought her the special food she asks for, even though sometimes she doesn't eat it and I end up throwing it out or it sits unopened in the cupboard (we're not buying any more food that we don't already eat though as it's such a waste of money).

So in that context - we go skiing locally (day trip, not over night) and I have offered her the same deal as our prior AP, which is to pay for some but not all of the cost (probably cost her $40-50 per trip). Last week I let her know I'm probably going to take the kids skiing on Friday as they have that day off school. When I reminded her that she hasn't let me know if she wants to go, she expressed some concern about the cost. I discussed with my husband that perhaps we can pay for the whole cost the first time, but he is adamant that as she is not stellar like the former AP, we should not be rewarding her with additional free/subsidized stuff/activities and if she is really keen to go she should pay some of the expense like the last AP did quite happily. We feel we have already been pretty generous - that is our default mode - but it seems like a bit of a one-way street (e.g. she wouldn't do something like offer to look after the kids for a couple of hours at night so we could go out for a little date night if she was going to be home anyway). And we don't have a very close relationship with her as host parents (she never asks us anything about ourselves, doesn't really make conversation, etc.).

I feel like maybe it's a bit mean to prevent her from experiencing skiing for the first time, but I know she can't be too badly off as she just bought a brand new iPhone 11. And she has so few expenses with us, she is probably saving most of her income (she also has some other money making gigs on the side - MLM, babysitting). She is not the cheapest childcare option for us and we have had some financial set-backs recently but I try not to let that affect what we are able to offer/do with her. What would you do?