I had nearly this exact scenario with one of my au pairs. Met a bunch of girls at English class and they would cook together afterwards once or twice a week. She could barely make herself a sandwich and then started requesting me to bring her all sorts of raw food ingredients (salmon fillet, beef steak, numerous fresh veggies please!). I let most of this go, but definitely had a rule about none of my pots, glassware, silverware etc. leaving the house. Our LCC had an event once where the au pairs needed to bring some silverware from home and she ended up with numerous left over pieces—most kids this age don’t prize your kitchenware as much as you do!

She has a few friends she met in her English class and they like to take turns cooking at each other's houses a few times per week for lunch. She has come home with leftovers in our food storage before so I am confident she has at minimum borrowed that stuff. Maybe they don't have a potato peeler and serrated knife?

Anonymous wrote:Where is she cooking with friends? I don’t understand

+1, same here, don't they have utensil/kitchen stuffs at those friends' places?

Where is she cooking with friends? I don’t understand

OP here....My kids are 7 and 9....

I think the potato peeler could be in a random drawer but the knife? It's one of those ones for bread (serrated?) so it's a big knife. Food storage containers all live in the same cupboard so....

I have absolutely no idea what has happened to them so I can only guess she's "borrowed" them for cooking with friends and not returned them and now feels embarrassed for not taking better care of our stuff? I totally don't mind if she borrows these things but I want them to come home when she's finished. Now I can't even have a conversation about that because her back is up. I didn't accuse her of stealing (these would be weird things to steal) but I asked her if she'd borrowed them to cook and she got insulted.

Your AP could have broken them, thrown them away, and doesn't want to admit it (so acted insulted).

APs can be careless with stuff that isn't theirs.

I also vote for being put in odd locations or kids using them as part of play.

Anonymous wrote:Are you ABSOLUTELY sure that the items are not in some random drawer or cabinet? This happens to us but it is because she doesn’t know where to put things and I find them in weird places

This! Many times new people unloading the dishwasher don't know where things go and they end up in other places in the kitchen.

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure that the items are not in some random drawer or cabinet? This happens to us but it is because she doesn’t know where to put things and I find them in weird places

I think it’s an interesting reaction that she got insulted by it (and I think your theory is a good one). Unless you accused her of stealing, I don’t know why she would be offended, Judy befuddled.

I also wonder how old the kids are. My younger brother and two of my nanny kids (from 2 different families) went through a stage of swiping random kitchen items that looked cool or were part of some pretend game they were inventing.

How old are your kids? Any chance it’s one of them?

This is a though one. What do you guess she is doing with the stuffs? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Isn't it better for her to just steal money and buy those stuffs? I leave my wallet where AP can see and if she was dishonest, I wouldn't notice if she took a $20 here and there, but I will notice if my carrot peeler or knife went missing lol (but we know thieve are not always that smart). Anyway I trust my AP doesn't do that.

We are on AP #6 and she's ok. Not our best, not our worst. I have started noticing random kitchen objects going missing and mostly the kind of thing she wouldn't ever take to her room (potato peeler, knife, food storage containers, oil sprayer). This has literally never happened in previous years...sure maybe we are short on coffee mugs a few days because they are in her room or something but this is just WEIRD. She likes to go cook lunch with her friends when the kids are in school and so I was thinking maybe she borrowed stuff and didn't return it? I asked her and she seemed very insulted. WTF?