Maybe a small point but I would not let our AP use her phone at dinner. My kids and my DH and I don't use our phones - it's a family rule at dinner. If AP eats with us, she eats with our rules. We all clear our plates and help clean up. That's family rules and applies to my kids' friends, visitors, APs and everyone.

I would be very resentful if I cooked dinner and the AP was on the phone and didn't do the chores my own kids do as a courtesy.

HF here with split shift and HP's who are not home until after dinner a few evenings per week. Dinner prep is definitely in our letter/profile/job description. It's never been an issue. These dinners are easy and generally involve heating food (i.e. frozen turkey lasagna) on busy evenings (kids sports) and grill meals on less hectic evenings (chicken breasts, turkey burgers, etc). And I am one of those HPs who asks AP to just cook the entire package so there are leftovers for HPs and/or her lunch the next day. In return, I cook pretty awesome homemade meals 2-3 evenings per week (lots of fresh farmers market items, fresh fish, lots of variety), and we include her on the 1-2 nights we order in and/or eat out. It's worked for now 3 APs.

I would hope that an AP who can't heat food or doesn't want to have anything to do with dinner prep, would see this requirement in our profile and just not choose to not to engage with us?? And if she didn't pick it up in our letter, it would certainly come up in our interview where we make this clear.

Well, if she shows up unable to boil water for pasta and heat up spaghetti sauce and throw a salad together, I will happily show her how. My issue is if she won't try, learn, doesn't think she should...that would be a rematch for me. APs work through at least one if not two meals a day...meal prep needs to happen at my house anyway.

APs often lie about their experience on their applications, so it's entirely possible they don't have the experience of preparing a meal for kids.

I find it hard to imagine that a young woman with any childcare experience at all would not understand that a full time child care job comes with some mealtime responsibilities I get that this may be the first time living outside of their home but certainly you are getting an AP with some level of experience...of course she has had to prepare some meals during this experience.

What do you consider "cooking"? We are having rice bowls tonight. I put rice in the rice maker this morning and put beef strips in marinade. AP needs to grill the beef strips, chop up some peppers and tomatoes, put out cheese, guacamole, sour cream. We will ALL eat this but not all at the same time due to kids sports, husband working late and sometimes AP goes to gym and eats later. I consider this a team effort. I don't dump all the tasks on her but certainly need the kind of assistance described above and think it's within reason.

Four years into this I have learned to assume nothing! While cooking dinner one night a week sounds perfectly reasonable to expect from a babysitter and adult living in your home, do not assume they can do it, feel like they should do it, will not resent you for it. We put this in our letter and discuss in the interview. Honestly I would say that most APs we have interviews over the years ask about this as one of their very first questions.

Our APs have told us that the APs who are mad about it are more mad because there are no groceries more than the cooking part. They hate being responsible to pulls meal together when no decent food in the house. So, help her help you...set her up to be successful here.

Interview, interview, interview!! If you need this, then make it a major interview discussion point. I need 30 hours, split shift, most weekends off aside from occasional date night, Tue evening off as I work from home. But those 30 hours are full-on. Three kids with busy after school schedules and I am not home until 7pm on four evenings per week. So very busy for AP from 3-7pm. I make it crystal clear in the interview, give several scenarios and tell her exactly what I need. This includes dinner prep. If there is even a hesitation, I am on to the next candidate. I have three hungry active boys who need to eat. I don't need a gourmet chef but she needs to be able to boil pasta and grill chicken. Why go through the hassle of bringing an AP here to find out that one of the main things you need her to do, she is neither capable or willing?!

Agree with PP. We discuss the with AP during initial emails and interview. It's a deal breaker for us if there is not some level of enthusiasm around dinner prep 2-3 evenings per week. I love to cook so she knows that she is also getting a healthy variety of home cooked dinners the rest of the week. As PP said, our AP seems to like being able to decide what to prep and having lunch leftovers as she isn't a fan of a sandwich for lunch.

If you know you need your AP to own a few dinners a week, just interview for it. And of course, it should always be on the clock!

Our AP cooks 2 meals for our family a week. This was discussed when she started as she wanted a 'taste of home' and there were nights where it would be cereal otherwise with my schedule.
I buy all the groceries adn the kids help her a bit as are able. She enjoys it because then she gets to make stuff she knows she likes, we get to try new foods (cultural experience) and there are leftovers for lunches so lunch is easy for her for a day or so.

Our kids are 6 and 4.
I think it can be a great cultural exchange to have an AP cook but it should NOT be required or more than they are looking to do.

If I could be home 7 evenings per week I wouldn't have an AP (I have 3 school age kids). We definitely screen/interview for APs who "get it"....dinner prep is a big part of the job. On the flip side, my kids help set the table, clean up, etc. I have learned to screen and interview APs who understand the diff between caring for older kids (driving, meals) vs babies (constant attention,diapers, play, etc).

My au pair makes the kids dinner 3-4 nights a week. She can make herself dinner at the same time or eat later. I eat after I get home but later. We might eat together on the weekends.

I would say it's reasonable to ask her to help with dinners.

I always did some type of meal prep/cooking when I babysit...even as a young teenager. Parents go out for dinner and the babysitter feeds the kids.

Any "heat and serve" meal prep is definitely on the clock. Our AP works barely 35 hours, but they include dinner hours 2-3 evenings per week so not meal prepping would be a show stopper for us. Our AP doesn't appear to mind as long as plenty of easy options...she likes to choose. One evening is crazy with kids activities from 5-7 so I make sure that there is a super easy option available. It also helps that I don't micromanage it and there is no short order prep...3 kids and dinner is take it or leave it.

Anonymous wrote:Former European AP here. I'm glad my host family didn't ask me to cook for them when I was living with them.
I left my own family and never cooked back home, my mom did all of the cooking.
Once I got there I had to cook pasta for the kid I was in charge of. I didn't even know how to cook that ...

I think it's fine to ask the AP if she wants to cook from time to time if she knows how ... or just heating up something easy and quick.

On the other hand, I never ever expected my host family to cook a meal for me, I would just fend for myself all the time.

Then as time went by, I made a few easy things to help out like lettuce and raw veggies in it, homemade dressing ... etc. But at 18 I would have been incapable of cooking a whole meal.

We never asked our au pair to cook for us- or clean up other than bussing her own plate. She unloaded the dishwasher in the AM on the clock. On the other hand I tended to cook foods she wasn't fond of (healthy and sometimes hit or miss on taste to be honest) she liked American fast food, so we gave her $$ to pick something up for herself if dinner was a bust or if we weren't cooking that night.
She worked up to the 45 hours M-F, and I didn't feel like extra cooking beyond lunch for my son, or cleaning beyond picking up after herself and keeping the mess down was a fair expectation if it wasn't on the clock.