Usually I am willing to host friends over for a night but after my current au pair had her BFF over from home for nearly 3 weeks (They traveled for 1, in my home for 2...doing nothing and eating my food), I am at this point. It's intrusive and disturbing to the routine.

No way! My rule is maximum 1 week and AP must take vacation during that time. Their non-English speaking parents are not going to venture out on their own, so AP needs to be free to be their tour guide. And for any out of town trips, AP needs to rent a car. I will do one big meal with her family and that is it. I barely have the time/vacation days that I desire to spend with my own extended family and friends. I have learned to really screen for all of this. Some APs have these big dreams about her family coming to our home and everyone being BFF. No thank you.

Anonymous wrote:I will be honest. I have no desire to host AP's family for weeks on end. We will allow a visitor for perhaps a week and AP's friends are welcome to sleep over on weekends, etc. I'm not running a hostel, though. I know I'll be called inhospitable, but I do think it's unreasonable to have visitors for a week or more and expect someone else to feed and house them.

We love our AP and I do consider her to be part of the family, but even my family members do not visit for that long. We are very generous in many other ways, but this is one I just can't handle. It's not the food issue. I just really need my personal space and my downtime. I tend to not be friendly when visitors are there for too long.

We are up front about it, though. I actually rejected a candidate solely because in the interview she kept talking about all the various friends and family that would be coming to visit once she was in America.

+1

Usually I am willing to host friends over for a night but after my current au pair had her BFF over from home for nearly 3 weeks (They traveled for 1, in my home for 2...doing nothing and eating my food), I am at this point. It's intrusive and disturbing to the routine.

Most of our APs had no visitors from home; most years, it never came up because of the expense and distance. Also our home is not huge: 4 bedrooms, all taken once the AP joined us. (Definitely no boyfriends because we would never choose an AP with a boyfriend at home. Way too much risk of homesickness in that group, and those who lied about it all went home early once it became evident. i.e. they spent all their time on Skype and moping around the house.) But we have hosted a couple of sisters and a mom for a couple of weeks at a time, only one person at a time because they have to share the AP's room. Food was never really an issue; it was a combination of eating out, AP/guest buying things they liked to eat and us supplying some foods. I have never felt taken advantage of. One set of parents came and did their own thing in a hotel, touring the region for a couple of weeks, just visiting us for an afternoon. What has been more of an issue was the language issue as the guests don't always speak English as well as the AP. Having AP's identical twin sister who spoke virtually no English was interesting.

I am a former AP.

My host family had a handbook where they said my family could come visit but had to stay at a hotel. Their house was big enough but I guess some of their former APs had abused the priviledge.
My family never came (too expensive) but I wish they had.

I think it's important for families to address that "issue" in their handbook by saying : whether you can host or not, and tackle the food issue.
Agreeing to provide the first dinner/meal with the whole family would be nice and then say the AP has to go food shopping for her family.
You don't have to feed everybody.

I allow my AP's to have visitors. Each visit is capped at 2 weeks. I put in my handbook that guests need to clean up after themselves and food items used need to be replaced. The only rule I actually enforce is the 2 week rule. If guests are coming I will buy extra staples and even make a special meal during their stay. I want them to feel welcome but like the other poster mentioned I am not running a hostel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the one who posted that all of my au pair's visitors have made us a traditional dinner from their country or area. I think the poster that is saying that indicates that I'm forcing the help to cook for me is really off-base. We've had two very dear au pairs and we have welcomed both of them to have visitors stay at our house. Both had their boyfriends come - the first for two weeks and the second for one week. The doesn't had her sister stay with us for a week and the second had a friend stay with us for a week. They were lovely visits and I enjoyed meeting other people in her life, but I'll admit they were difficult for our family. Anyone who says that having someone stay in their house for a week or two (especially someone they don't know at all) doesn't cause at least a bit of anxiety and inconvenience is not being upfront.

The first visitor we had for our first au pair was her sister. The sister came, stayed for a week, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't lift a finger when I would cook dinner and clean up for them. To me, offering to help, picking up a few groceries, helping with the cooking, etc would be a very basic level of politeness for someone who let me stay in their house for a week. Especially if it wasn't even someone I knew personally. But obviously that's not true everywhere. So now it's in our handbook that we expect long-term guests to pick up or replace some basic food items.

Our second visitor offered to cook a big meal for us from his country and it was lovely. Our third and fourth visitors have done the same. It's always fun - we all cook together, the visitor gets to tell us about the meal and his/her traditions and it truly goes to the cultural exchange aspect of the program.

I don't think the poster who feels like we're taking advantage of the help by having a big family cultural dinner gets the program in the least. Our au pairs have not been "the help" - they have been dear members of our family and we have welcomed their visitors and friends at length.

The way you phrased it originally did sound awful. The picture you paint in your most recent post is a bit nicer, but I can't help but think what you said originally is how you really think. You ask them to cook for you so you feel "paid back".

It makes me feel like my hospitality was appreciated and like they want to do something to show me it was appreciated. I really don't think that's all that novel. Same reason you might bring a hostess gift to a party, or pitch in to help clean up after someone has invited you over for Thanksgiving. I don't get why that's so awful. People who go out of their way to he accommodating generally appreciate being thanked for it.

Yes, but how is that the case if you ASK for it? "Could you please show me you appreciate my hospitality by cooking for me? Thanks." Are you honestly going to act that its an innocent request and that you wouldn't be salty if they said no?

My handbook says something to the effect of "if you are having visitors for longer than the weekend, please plan to pick up or replace some food items for them. We have also enjoyed having a traditional meal from their country together." We say that sentence once when we're going over the handbook in the beginning of the year and it's one sentence among many. I really think you're needlessly belaboring a point and obtusely assuming the very worst. I don't greet the visitos at the door with "welcome! Please let me know what nights you're planning to cook for us!"

Anonymous wrote:I will be honest. I have no desire to host AP's family for weeks on end. We will allow a visitor for perhaps a week and AP's friends are welcome to sleep over on weekends, etc. I'm not running a hostel, though. I know I'll be called inhospitable, but I do think it's unreasonable to have visitors for a week or more and expect someone else to feed and house them.

We love our AP and I do consider her to be part of the family, but even my family members do not visit for that long. We are very generous in many other ways, but this is one I just can't handle. It's not the food issue. I just really need my personal space and my downtime. I tend to not be friendly when visitors are there for too long.

We are up front about it, though. I actually rejected a candidate solely because in the interview she kept talking about all the various friends and family that would be coming to visit once she was in America.

I'm a PP that has had visitors but I 100% back you on this. Particularly if an AP is going on and on about all the visitors she wants to have - that would be a huge red flag to me that she doesn't get at all how stressful that would be for the daily and basically would see your house like a hotel. I do think nether of my APs have reply understood that having friends and family visit is really tough. Life goes on when their visitors come for us - when I work all day, the last thing I typically like doing is entertaining or doing extra cleaning because people are all over the place, or sometimes even talking to people at all (particularly difficult with people you don't know).

You have to be stressed that she's still paying attention to the kids, worried about issues related to food, car, schedule, etc. having to deal with stuff like cooking a big dinner and the sister just picks at it and then leaves (been there done that PP). It can be fun and I do enjoy meeting a great AP's friends and family, I really do. But I'm with you, PP, when our own friends come, they don't stay longer than a weekend typically. I feel like that's enough time - any longer really uproots the fsmily's routine.

We allow visitors anyway, because I know from experience that all APs will typically have at least one person that really wants to visit them and a year is a long time. But you have to be very clear up front - our rules are that they can stay for up to a week, we tell our AP she needs to consider buying/replacing some extra food items. When one of ours had four girlfriends come, we said they could stay with us for 3 days and that we'd help them find a hostel for the rest of their visit. I found out that having four 21yos in my house for a long weekend was about my limit and I'm glad I was honest about that.

Know your own limits be upfront, and you will find the AP that works for you. Knowing how stressful it is to have visitors, I don't blame you a bit. If you thought about allowing some occasionally, one suggestion would be to require her to take her vacation days when visitors sre here. That would limit it at least to two weeks. And it would be weeks that your schedule is messed up anyway some you dont have Childcare.

Anonymous wrote:We state upfront that we have a policy of no visitors and no overnight guests. Simple and clean. Agree with PP above.

No visitors? You're awful too. Why invite someone into your home and then specifically say not to treat it like their home? Do you not have friends over ever? Selfish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the one who posted that all of my au pair's visitors have made us a traditional dinner from their country or area. I think the poster that is saying that indicates that I'm forcing the help to cook for me is really off-base. We've had two very dear au pairs and we have welcomed both of them to have visitors stay at our house. Both had their boyfriends come - the first for two weeks and the second for one week. The doesn't had her sister stay with us for a week and the second had a friend stay with us for a week. They were lovely visits and I enjoyed meeting other people in her life, but I'll admit they were difficult for our family. Anyone who says that having someone stay in their house for a week or two (especially someone they don't know at all) doesn't cause at least a bit of anxiety and inconvenience is not being upfront.

The first visitor we had for our first au pair was her sister. The sister came, stayed for a week, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't lift a finger when I would cook dinner and clean up for them. To me, offering to help, picking up a few groceries, helping with the cooking, etc would be a very basic level of politeness for someone who let me stay in their house for a week. Especially if it wasn't even someone I knew personally. But obviously that's not true everywhere. So now it's in our handbook that we expect long-term guests to pick up or replace some basic food items.

Our second visitor offered to cook a big meal for us from his country and it was lovely. Our third and fourth visitors have done the same. It's always fun - we all cook together, the visitor gets to tell us about the meal and his/her traditions and it truly goes to the cultural exchange aspect of the program.

I don't think the poster who feels like we're taking advantage of the help by having a big family cultural dinner gets the program in the least. Our au pairs have not been "the help" - they have been dear members of our family and we have welcomed their visitors and friends at length.

The way you phrased it originally did sound awful. The picture you paint in your most recent post is a bit nicer, but I can't help but think what you said originally is how you really think. You ask them to cook for you so you feel "paid back".

It makes me feel like my hospitality was appreciated and like they want to do something to show me it was appreciated. I really don't think that's all that novel. Same reason you might bring a hostess gift to a party, or pitch in to help clean up after someone has invited you over for Thanksgiving. I don't get why that's so awful. People who go out of their way to he accommodating generally appreciate being thanked for it.

Yes, but how is that the case if you ASK for it? "Could you please show me you appreciate my hospitality by cooking for me? Thanks." Are you honestly going to act that its an innocent request and that you wouldn't be salty if they said no?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the one who posted that all of my au pair's visitors have made us a traditional dinner from their country or area. I think the poster that is saying that indicates that I'm forcing the help to cook for me is really off-base. We've had two very dear au pairs and we have welcomed both of them to have visitors stay at our house. Both had their boyfriends come - the first for two weeks and the second for one week. The doesn't had her sister stay with us for a week and the second had a friend stay with us for a week. They were lovely visits and I enjoyed meeting other people in her life, but I'll admit they were difficult for our family. Anyone who says that having someone stay in their house for a week or two (especially someone they don't know at all) doesn't cause at least a bit of anxiety and inconvenience is not being upfront.

The first visitor we had for our first au pair was her sister. The sister came, stayed for a week, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't lift a finger when I would cook dinner and clean up for them. To me, offering to help, picking up a few groceries, helping with the cooking, etc would be a very basic level of politeness for someone who let me stay in their house for a week. Especially if it wasn't even someone I knew personally. But obviously that's not true everywhere. So now it's in our handbook that we expect long-term guests to pick up or replace some basic food items.

Our second visitor offered to cook a big meal for us from his country and it was lovely. Our third and fourth visitors have done the same. It's always fun - we all cook together, the visitor gets to tell us about the meal and his/her traditions and it truly goes to the cultural exchange aspect of the program.

I don't think the poster who feels like we're taking advantage of the help by having a big family cultural dinner gets the program in the least. Our au pairs have not been "the help" - they have been dear members of our family and we have welcomed their visitors and friends at length.

The way you phrased it originally did sound awful. The picture you paint in your most recent post is a bit nicer, but I can't help but think what you said originally is how you really think. You ask them to cook for you so you feel "paid back".

It makes me feel like my hospitality was appreciated and like they want to do something to show me it was appreciated. I really don't think that's all that novel. Same reason you might bring a hostess gift to a party, or pitch in to help clean up after someone has invited you over for Thanksgiving. I don't get why that's so awful. People who go out of their way to he accommodating generally appreciate being thanked for it.

We state upfront that we have a policy of no visitors and no overnight guests. Simple and clean. Agree with PP above.

I will be honest. I have no desire to host AP's family for weeks on end. We will allow a visitor for perhaps a week and AP's friends are welcome to sleep over on weekends, etc. I'm not running a hostel, though. I know I'll be called inhospitable, but I do think it's unreasonable to have visitors for a week or more and expect someone else to feed and house them.

We love our AP and I do consider her to be part of the family, but even my family members do not visit for that long. We are very generous in many other ways, but this is one I just can't handle. It's not the food issue. I just really need my personal space and my downtime. I tend to not be friendly when visitors are there for too long.

We are up front about it, though. I actually rejected a candidate solely because in the interview she kept talking about all the various friends and family that would be coming to visit once she was in America.

We are about to finish the year with our first au pair, and she's had a lot of visitors from abroad. Boyfriend for 2 weeks, sister for 10 days, parents and sister (again) for 2 weeks, and boyfriend again for 2 weeks. Her parents stayed in a hotel for all but one night. Otherwise, we hosted all of this in our home. It has its moments of feeling crowded or annoying, but for the most part it has been fine. We liked meeting her favorite people from home. We never asked them to cook for us, but all did cook at least one meal while staying with us (excpet the sister, a seemingly fairly entitled teenager). They also all did a mix of eating out and eating in our home. I have also felt a bit petty asking them to pay for food or to buy their own groceries. I never really felt too taken advantage of, though.

Here are a couple of stories about all this: the boyfriend came and made a traditional meal from their country. We enjoyed it, complimented him, thanked him. AP the next day gave us the receipt for the groceries they bought to make the meal. Still makes me laugh. Yes, we paid it--wasn't worth it to us to make a big deal out of it. Ok, I guess the next story isn't as funny: the sister. She was here around Thanksgiving. I love to cook and really go overboard on this holiday (for example, I bake the bread myself that I use to make the stuffing, I make 6 kinds of pies. . .). I do love it, but it's a lot of work and very tiring. What I hope for in return is that my guests will enjoy it, express that they enjoy it/ some appreciation, and maybe help with the set-up and clean-up. Well, AP and her sister showed up as we sat down to dinner, sister picked at a few things, then immediately went up to her room. Came back for dessert and did the same. Said nothing, helped with nothing. Our AP is not normally like that, so we did feel like her sister brought out poor behavior in her. . .

Anyway, what have we learned? I am updating our handbook to make clearer our expectations that guests for more than a night will buy their own groceries. I won't enforce it per se, but I just want to make clear that we expect AP's guests to contribute a bit.

Anonymous wrote:I'm the one who posted that all of my au pair's visitors have made us a traditional dinner from their country or area. I think the poster that is saying that indicates that I'm forcing the help to cook for me is really off-base. We've had two very dear au pairs and we have welcomed both of them to have visitors stay at our house. Both had their boyfriends come - the first for two weeks and the second for one week. The doesn't had her sister stay with us for a week and the second had a friend stay with us for a week. They were lovely visits and I enjoyed meeting other people in her life, but I'll admit they were difficult for our family. Anyone who says that having someone stay in their house for a week or two (especially someone they don't know at all) doesn't cause at least a bit of anxiety and inconvenience is not being upfront.

The first visitor we had for our first au pair was her sister. The sister came, stayed for a week, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't lift a finger when I would cook dinner and clean up for them. To me, offering to help, picking up a few groceries, helping with the cooking, etc would be a very basic level of politeness for someone who let me stay in their house for a week. Especially if it wasn't even someone I knew personally. But obviously that's not true everywhere. So now it's in our handbook that we expect long-term guests to pick up or replace some basic food items.

Our second visitor offered to cook a big meal for us from his country and it was lovely. Our third and fourth visitors have done the same. It's always fun - we all cook together, the visitor gets to tell us about the meal and his/her traditions and it truly goes to the cultural exchange aspect of the program.

I don't think the poster who feels like we're taking advantage of the help by having a big family cultural dinner gets the program in the least. Our au pairs have not been "the help" - they have been dear members of our family and we have welcomed their visitors and friends at length.

The way you phrased it originally did sound awful. The picture you paint in your most recent post is a bit nicer, but I can't help but think what you said originally is how you really think. You ask them to cook for you so you feel "paid back".

I'm the one who posted that all of my au pair's visitors have made us a traditional dinner from their country or area. I think the poster that is saying that indicates that I'm forcing the help to cook for me is really off-base. We've had two very dear au pairs and we have welcomed both of them to have visitors stay at our house. Both had their boyfriends come - the first for two weeks and the second for one week. The doesn't had her sister stay with us for a week and the second had a friend stay with us for a week. They were lovely visits and I enjoyed meeting other people in her life, but I'll admit they were difficult for our family. Anyone who says that having someone stay in their house for a week or two (especially someone they don't know at all) doesn't cause at least a bit of anxiety and inconvenience is not being upfront.

The first visitor we had for our first au pair was her sister. The sister came, stayed for a week, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't lift a finger when I would cook dinner and clean up for them. To me, offering to help, picking up a few groceries, helping with the cooking, etc would be a very basic level of politeness for someone who let me stay in their house for a week. Especially if it wasn't even someone I knew personally. But obviously that's not true everywhere. So now it's in our handbook that we expect long-term guests to pick up or replace some basic food items.

Our second visitor offered to cook a big meal for us from his country and it was lovely. Our third and fourth visitors have done the same. It's always fun - we all cook together, the visitor gets to tell us about the meal and his/her traditions and it truly goes to the cultural exchange aspect of the program.

I don't think the poster who feels like we're taking advantage of the help by having a big family cultural dinner gets the program in the least. Our au pairs have not been "the help" - they have been dear members of our family and we have welcomed their visitors and friends at length.