What’s most surprising thing for Au Pairs to learn about Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day?

A. They mark the beginning, middle and end of “summer”.
B. They are celebrated with barbecues and maybe some nice cold beer.
C. They are days when most Americans have “off” but most Au Pairs do not.

Answer? C

These three days are ‘bank holidays’, when many Americans get official ‘holidays’ off but when Au Pairs can be expected to work.

Along with Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day, the other 7 US Bank Holidays (listed below) are not automatic holidays for Au Pairs.  Au Pairs can be scheduled to be on duty any of these days.

• January 1, New Year’s Day
• January 18, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• February 15, Presidents Day
• October 11, Columbus Day

• November 11, Veterans’ Day
• November 25, Thanksgiving Day
• December 25, Christmas Day

Au Pairs do not get US Bank Holidays as automatic vacation days.

It comes as a surprise to many Au Pairs that they don’t get US Bank Holidays as vacation days, along with their two weeks of vacation. After all, they are ‘employees’, so why don’t they also get these holidays?

[I don't have an official answer, but I suspect that this is when the legal status of au pairs as 'students' on a student visa comes into play here.]

Most au pairs who come to the US through an agency are told about US Bank Holidays at orientation, but it still often comes as a surprise to an au pair when s/he is scheduled to work on a holiday. It seems to me that this would be an easy point to miss, given all the other information (often in a second language) that au pairs are trying to absorb at orientation.

Cultural Differences re: Bank Holidays & Vacations

In addition, being expected to work on bank holidays goes against many deep seated assumption and expectations that non-Americans may have about holidays in general.

Most countries have more bank holidays than the US (for example, there are 11 in France, 8 in the UK, 13 in Sweden, 15 in Malaysia and 19 in Brazil ).

And, in most other countries employees get more than double the two weeks of vacation that are the norm for Americans. Put together the smaller amount of ‘vacation’ and the lack of bank holidays, and au pairs are available to work many more days in the USA than in similar jobs in their home countries.

If I were 19 and visiting the US for a year, discovering that I had to work on a bank holiday would feel like a bummer. I am too interested in barbecue and nice cold beer to want to have to work on Memorial Day.

Au Pairs and Bank Holidays, in Practice

One of the important advantages of au pair childcare is the flexibility to schedule our au pairs to work when we need childcare, whether that is a bank holiday or not, within the guidelines of the au pair program.

As a practical matter, many host families still need to have their au pairs be on duty. Not all of us who work get those days off. Even if we do have these days off ourselves, we still may need childcare, and so au pairs can often expect to be scheduled to work on these days.

However, many of us try to make exceptions when we can. We often want our au pairs celebrate the holidays with us or to celebrate holidays that are important personally to them.

For example, I really like our au pairs to be on duty on 4th of July, so that I can make them get up at 8 am can get them to come to the parade and the fireworks as part of the family. Plus, it helps to have another adult there to watch the girls on the playground while I wait in line for lukewarm Diet Cokes and soggy hot dogs at the after-parade festival.

We also will bend over backwards to make sure that our au pairs are off duty for whatever church services they want to attend around Christmas, Easter, and All Souls’ Day.

When possible, we’ll also schedule our au pairs to be off duty so that they can celebrate some holidays with other au pairs. If they really want to go to Times Square on New Years Eve, we won’t schedule them for New Years Day even if we have having neighbors over and could use the help.

As for ‘unofficial holidays’?

Don’t even get me started on St. Patrick’s Day…. You just can’t keep ‘em out of NYC for St. Patrick’s Day.  I have learned to anticipate a hung-over au pair on March 18th, and plan ahead to slog through that day on my own.

What do you and your au pair do on these 10 US holidays?

Images:  04072005 from mmatins
Stars and Stripes for … oh,…from Wuertele
The top from fille_de_photo

Last year one of our most active and committed community members “Taking a Computer Lunch“, casually mentioned something that she does for all of her au pairs shortly before they depart. She gives them the gift of “The Box“.

What is “The Box”?

We give our APs the biggest box their home countries permit, either for their birthdays or as a good-bye present, intending for them to fill it with the belongings that they want, but won’t shed tears if it doesn’t actually get to its destination.

Why is The Box such a great gift?

• Airlines have luggage weight regulations.
• Airlines charge horrific amounts for overweight extra luggage.
• Au Pairs like to buy souvenirs for their families at home.
• Au Pairs accumulate lots of their own souvenir treasures (like our au pair who made 6 full size scrapbooks while here… and then wondered how to get them home).
• Au Pairs buy a lot of stuff (shoes, books, clothing, shoes, clothing)
• Au Pairs often have full suitcases when they first arrive, so they have nowhere to put the new stuff.
• Host Parents can and will hand down, donate and recycle leftover stuff… but would rather not.

What will The Box cost you?

Says TACL:
It generally costs me $150 or so to send it airmail and insured for the amount of the postage fees, so it’s a generous gift. Most of my APs don’t realize the full value of the gift until a) they pack and b) they see how much the postage cost when they get home.

Extra APM Tip? Make The Box “Special”

Depending on whether or not you help your au pair pack the box, and if you take it to the UPS/PostOffice place yourself, you might tuck a little extra ’something’ inside The Box... maybe some photos, some candy (something light weight) as one more token of your affection.

You can also decorate The Box-- or have your kids do it– so that it is especially cute when it shows up back home.

Now, of course, we love the concept of “The Box” — but it’s the 2nd best Goodbye Gift.

What is the 1st Best Goodbye gift?

Memories of a wonderful year.

Many thanks to “Taking a Computer Lunch” for this great idea and all the many other tips she’s shared with us on AuPairMom!!!

See also:
Saying Goodbye to an Au Pair you Parents really love
Getting her stuff back home: Is there a cheap way to ship things?
Goodbye Gifts

Note:   Despite what these illustrations suggest, I do not recommend that you pack your cat into The Box.
Images: Cat in the box?from mcwetboy Boxed cat from Mothlike

In the mirror post to this one, we’re generating a list of ways that families interpret and execute the rules, but with the effect of having the au pair feel mistreated.

Here on this page is our chance to list what an au pair can expect from a family when both the family and the au pair are fulfilling the basic program requirements.

Let’s assume that host families are already doing the basics, like giving the au pair her or his day & a half off each week. Let’s take the next step, and consider how families can do this in a way that helps the au pair feel as though he or she is being treated appropriately or well.

In terms of how the family interprets and executes the program requirements:

What can an au pair expect from a host family?

Image: Victorian maid in Miss Havershams…from Gauis Caecilius

Riffing on the post Do Au Pairs need a bill of rights? about Au Pairs and a domestic workers bill of rights, Dawn mentioned that

A clear listing as to what kind of treatment is reasonable to expect would be very helpful in such circumstances.

As one example, in a program where the AP expects to be “part of the family,” is it okay for the family to literally LOCK their “family” refrigerator, and have their AP eat completely different food than the rest of the family eats — food of a lesser quality than the family purchases for themselves? I don’t think so, but my AP’s friend who is in this situation is afraid to rock the boat by talking to her LCC about it.

Expectations & interpretations

The program requirements do set out a framework of expectations, but unfortunately ‘bad’ host families interpret both the rules and the principles behind those rules in ways that serve themselves rather than serving their au pair and / or the whole family-au pair system.

There are many, many (too many) ways that unscrupulous host families can interpret the program requirements in ways that end up feeling like ‘mistreatment’ to au pairs. These ‘bendings of the rules’ or distortion of the intent behind the rules, are different from actually breaking the rules. When a family (or au pair) breaks the rules, the violation is clear: s/he either did or didn’t get two weeks of paid vacation. When program guidelines are enacted in a way that distorts them, whether or not it’s “mistreatment” is up for grabs… and generates ongoing conflict and distress.

Can we establish a list of appropriate expectations for how regulations should be enacted? If we could, then host families and au pairs would have a better sense of what good treatment is, and isn’t

I like Dawn’s idea of a list of positive expectations… but it’s a hard one to execute. Still, let’s try it.

Positive examples

There are two ways to go about this. One way is to start to generate a list of how au pairs can and should expect the guidelines to be interpreted. We have already discussed what behaviors ’show’ that an au pair is being treated as part of the family, and it never hurts to revisit this topic. It’s just too important.

I’ve set up a second post where people can generate more ideas about “What an Au Pair can expect from a Host Family”.

Negative examples

A second way to get a sense of what au pairs should be able to expect is to list examples of ‘bad treatment’. This would not be examples of where host families broke the results themselves, but rather ways in which the host family “interpreted” program requirements in ways that end up feeling like mistreatment.

Dawn’s example of the locked refrigerator suggests that this host family was willing to provide ‘board’ for their au pair, but just not at the same level as the rest of the family. They are perhaps fulfilling the letter of the regulation, but not the spirit. And, separating out the ‘family food’ from the ‘au pair food’ so that the au pair gets lesser quality meals is a true violation of the spirit of the term ‘au pair’– and au pair is supposed to be treated ‘at parity’ or at a status equal to a family member.

Personally as the blog moderator, i get a little anxious when I set up a post where we list things that people (host families, agencies, LCCs, au pairs) do wrong. I don’t like gripe fests, and neither do most of you readers. That said, we can handle this one well if:

1. We note not only the ‘mistreatment’ but the reason why it felt like/ looked like ‘mistreatment’.

2. We respect the viewpoint of the person suggesting the ‘mistreatment’. The goal here is to understand what’s behind both the behavior and the bad feeling, so we need to listen first before we move to offer a correction, or a suggested action step.

Ready to try it?

See also:

Do Au Pairs need a bill of rights?
Advice Wanted: How to set the right tone from Week 1
Host Family Advice: Resist the Amenities Arms Race
The 3rd Car: Avoiding a sense of entitlement
Part of the Family: What does that mean to you?
Part of the Family: The Au Pairs’ Perspective
Image: a midnight snack from Little Dragon

[ Note: I think this might be the longest AuPairMom post I've ever written. It was a long train ride and I think I got carried away.]

Host families and au pairs call it mutual expectations, and management scholars call it the “psychological contract”.

The idea behind a psychological contract is that we agree to give our employee/employer certain services and attitudes, and in exchange they offer to compensate us both financially, materially (e.g., with a tv and internet access) and in less tangible terms. When either the services and attitudes change, or the tangible and less tangible compensation changes, Basically, the exchange is now out of balance, and one side feels taken advantage of.

When either the family or the au pair fails to live up to what they said they’d provide, or what they implied that they’d be like, it’s a situation where the psyholocgal contract has been broken.

Usually when we start an employment arrangement, the psychological contract is reasonably clear. When we initially match with an au pair, we know what we are able to give and we try to be explicit about what we expect to get. We are usually able to establish a well-understood balance of what will be exchanged.

However, psychological contracts evolve over time. Many of us host parents relax restrictions and begin to give more compensation, with more free time, more driving privileges, a few family members using our homes as a hotel, and stuff like that.

It’s a problem, though, when an au pair doesn’t recognize and appreciate the extras. And, it’s even worse when she recognizes them but doesn’t hold up her end of the changing exchange — at least the way you think she should.

One situation where the changes in psychological contracts become clear are when ‘on duty’ hours change. Lots of us need different kinds of ‘on duty’ weeks during the winter than during summer vacation, and might go from 30 hrs a week to 45 when June comes around. Great when you can anticipate this and build it in explicitly, but a real drag when it comes as surprise to your au pair. You think that your au pair should appreciate all those weeks in January when she worked only 2/3rds time and got in so much skiing. But now she thinks that you’re asking for too much.

Then, what do you do?

Here’s a specific case, sent in by “I’m being taken advantage of”:

I am a first time host mom in MN. My au pair (from Thailand) arrived July of last year and is scheduled to leave in early July. Our son just turned one last week. She loves the baby and he loves her.

At first things were great. When she came, I bought new bed linen, put flowers in her room, made a welcome sign, etc. At the time, I worked 2 days at home, so I took the time to drive her to the bank and set up an account, to the social security office, grocery shopping etc. She was also very nice to us. I felt I had made the right decision.

Then she developed a boyfriend in NYC. Yes, how don’t ask me. The story is weird. She has started to fly off to NYC for weekend visits. Recently, I was unable to her a ride to the airport because or my own work demands, and she got annoyed at having to arrange other transportation. Then, she decided to blow off her 10:30 Sunday night ‘curfew’ and instead flew home early Monday morning, without discussing this in advance. That pissed of my husband and he told her that in the future she needed to let us know. We wouldn’t have been able to say anything this time, since her ticket had already been purchased. We just needed to know when to expect her back. However, we asked that in the future she talk to use before her boyfriend bought the ticket.

Anyway, she got upset and went to the local childcare coordinator. We had to have an intervention. Things calmed down and she began to make more of an effort.

Now, onto a different set of specifics. My parents have been here since January and I during this time I have asked her to work fewer than 45 hours a week.

So, since January, all these ‘unworked’ hours have built up. This month, I am beginning to return to work full time. In preparation for this, and since my parents are here, I cut down her hours even more. knowing that she would work over 45 hours for two months before she finished the year.

She is in London visiting the boy friend’s parents, so I sent her an email telling her she’d need to work a couple of hours on two Sat. in May (cutting into her ‘boyfriend’ time). She always wants advance notice of her schedule. Now, though, she that she flipped out and is basically saying I should get a babysitter.

But the last few months, she has worked much less than 45 hours and we have paid her fully, as required. I am really upset right now. I feel like I am being used. I am really tempted to tell her that I am terminating the contract and getting a baby sitter. What do you advise?

Dear Host Mom –

The expectations between you and your au pair are clearly out of balance now.

However, before you can address the issue with your au pair, you have to look again at your own expectations to make sure they are reasonable. Not to come off as harsh here, but from where I sit, some of your expectations are reasonable, and some are not.

First, the ‘not reasonable’ expectations:

You can’t carry over hours from one week to the next.

It’s not reasonable (or legal) to expect that you can “hold over” hours that you have not asked your au pair to work. The hours unused from one week can not be carried over to be added to an already full future work week. With regard to work hours, you use ‘em or you lose ‘em. No carry over.

Any time you anticipate needing more than 45 hours of childcare in a given week, you should be prepared to pay overtime for it, and you should have a backup babysitter, because your au pair is well within her legal rights and also within the initial psychological contract if she prefers not to work these hours — for any reason she has.

That said, some parents make explicit agreement with au pairs from week to week, offering an exra day off now for an extra two hours or a 10 day stretch in the future. But you should expect to pay her for these overtime hours, because they are more than the legal (and reasonable) 45 hours. Not only should the trade-off or exchange be absolutely clear, it should also be agreed to on both sides without pressure and with an explicit conversation.

You can’t assume that your au pair is experiencing these shorter work weeks as a ‘gift’ or that she thinks of the hours as something she’ll owe you back in the future.

Even if you could carry over hours, who’d be keeping track over the course of months? And, what matters more is not the accounting, but the experience. Those weeks are over and done, in her mind.

Now, for the reasonable expectations:

It is reasonable to expect that your au pair might appreciate the reduced work week and extra off duty time, in general.

After all, she has gotten lot of extra free time without losing pay. But remember, this is part of the deal for you as a host mom– the pay is the same no matter how many of the 45 hours per week that she is or is not on duty. She shouldn’t be grateful about being paid in full — this is your obligation, and one that you have kept. But, she should appreciate the free time.

It is reasonable to expect her not to complain about now working a 45 hour week.

With regard to months of less than full on-duty weeks now being followed by two months of more than full time expectations — it makes sense to think that, on your end, your au pair should be grateful enough about the extra time off that she would be willing to ramp up to full time herself without complaint. And, if you had explicitly discussed the change in advance, you might have been able to get her to agree to a few 45-plus weeks. (With overtime pay, of course.) You might still be able to arrange this with her.

On her side, she may resent having to work on weekends now, and having to work a full 45 hour week, but those are the official terms and she should figure out how to deal with it

It is reasonable to expect hope that your au pair might carry over some sense of goodwill towards you and your needs (especially since you have helped her out in other ways).

It is reasonable for you to ask your au pair to work some Saturdays, if this is what you need. But this is exactly where the shift in the psychological contract is most obvious and most problematic.

Although your au pair might have gotten accustomed to having her weekends free, this was not an explicit part of the arrangement that the two of you agreed to. At the same time, she’s now so accustomed to it that, for all emotional intents and purposes, this is now what she’s expecting. In contrast, on your side you see Saturdays as something expected, that she should do without complaint. And, maybe she should appreciate that you’ve rarely asked this of her, even though you could have.

So now what?

– Understand that her sense of what’s fair is based on her experience of these last several months (e.g., weekends off, short work weeks) and that the actual contract no longer holds real weight with her.

– Recognize that part of your expectations are unreasonable, and dial them back. You only have ground to stand on when you stay within the legal boundaries of your contract. None of your expectations for what she should do that are outside the contract are things that you can reasonably ask for, no matter how much sense they make to you.

You can insist on what’s reasonable — e.g., that she work on a weekend, that she work a full 45 hours. You can ask for something more (e.g., an extra 3 hours per week with overtime pay).

– Put your needs for childcare first, over her desire for a convenient social schedule. You can mess around with ways to get back at her for not being grateful, and/or you can come up with a plan that works better for you than for her. For example, if you need 50 plus hours of childcare per week, you can hire a sitter for Monday mornings, and then schedule your au pair for Saturday nights (when, in my town, it’s both more expensive and harder to find a babysitter).

– Be prepared to have a frank conversation with her — face to face and NEVER by email (especially not when she is with her boyfriend, who will in all likelihood fan the flames of her indignation and self-righteousness). Be prepared to ask for what is legal, and what you need. Be prepared to tell her that you think she should be grateful, be prepared for her not to be.

– Give your counselor a ‘heads up’ since you might need her.

– Prepare for either a lot of awkwardness or a nasty ending.

– Get ready to rematch, psychologically and with backup plans, just in case.

– Think ahead to your next au pair or other childcare contract. Have a scheduling plan that covers the whole 12 months and how they might vary (e.g., vacations, family visits, intense work times, quiet times when your spouse might work less/do more childcare) and then discuss this up front with your next au pair.

Something to think about:

We all keep careful track of what we give. Each concession, each Saturday night, each ride to the airport. But as far as remembering what we get? Forget it. That concession, that Saturday off, that ride to the airport– we come to expect those.

And that difference in our ability to track what we get compared to tracking what we give… ? When you put two people into a contract, where each remembers what she’s given and not so much what she’s gotten, that’s how the imbalance starts.

Answers?

Are you being taken for granted? Almost assuredly.

Is she taking advantage of you? Unconsciously, yes; consciously, who knows.

Should you rematch behind her back? No, unless you absolutely distrust her.

Should you expect her to fly to NYC and not come back? Don’t be surprised.

Can this relationship be saved?

Readers, what do you think?

Image: July 19: Balancing act (58/61)from theDQT on Flickr

Regardless of the type of childcare your family chooses for your kid(s), there is always some work involved in maintaining your relationship with the actual caregivers.

With a daycare center, you need to communicate with the staff members and with the administrators on things ranging from schedules to toilet-training strategies. With your mother, mother-in-law or other family member, you have to manage social (power) dynamics of the basic relationships while you try to get things done the way you want them. With nannies and au pairs you need to negotiate everything from care use to playdate arrangements.

With every form of childcare, you will intentionally or unintentionally make make some kind of emotional investment in your relationship with the caregiver. At the very least, you’re bonding with them over how damn adorable your kid is. In the best case, you’re creating a partnership with them so that everyone thrives– you thrive, your kids thrive, and your caregiver thrives.

With au pairs, in addition to establishing a relationship around caring for those adorable little(r) people, you have two extra areas where you need to make an emotional investment:

(1) as parents sharing their home with another adult person, and

(2) as grown-ups working with someone who’s still actively growing up.

Au Pairs fall into that weird grey area of being ‘adult’ enough to leave home, to be trusted with the care of children, to drive, and to make important social and financial decision for themselves. They are adult enough to have signed a contract to be an au pair for an entire 12 months.

And, at the same time, au pairs are often having their first experience with living away from home, establishing themselves socially in a brand new group of people, figuring out a new culture/language and sometimes even having their first full-time job, with serious work demands.

About your home

With au pairs sharing a home with us, we have to learn how to manage our privacy, our emotions, and our openness to another person’s social and emotional needs. You have to figure out what you have to offer, and what s/he needs, and what you can give, every day all week long. I don’t know about you, but I am not always ‘on’, or even pleasant, 24/7.

But I have had to learn how to manage that, so that our au pairs can feel welcomed and at home.

You also need to help au pairs learn to live in your house and home. You can’t expect an au pair to know which is your favorite coffee mug, or to realize that you can hear her Skyping at 3 a. m., or to know when to withdraw from the room when your sister calls to talk about your mom. These are things that you have to teach your au pair, gently. And, before you can even teach him or her how to respond, you have to become aware of what bothers you and what you’d prefer.

About her or his adult-ness

Au pairs are usually still at an age where they are going through a lot of emotional and social growing. They don’t have it all figured out, and most of them haven’t figured out how to deal with not having it all figured out. They’re going to do things like get drunk, overspend, stay out overnight, smash up your car, overuse the phone and the interwebz, be clingy, misread your social cues, get homesick, argue with their parents, and break up with their BBB(G)Fs.

And you are going to need to be willing to help them.

That’s part of the deal, of having ‘live in’ childcare, of having an ‘on par family member‘, and joining in a ‘cultural exchange’.

So how do you approach this emotional investment?

I know that each time we’ve had a new au pair, I’ve been aware that I need to start all over again– not just in teaching them our family systems and how we parent around here– but in creating a relationship with our new au pair herself.

This has sometimes been pretty hard for me– I’ve been burned out from the high maintenance au pairs, or irked after the really crappy au pair, or heart-broken at the departures of the wonderful au pairs. I’ve found that I almost start out begrudgingly, because I want to spare myself the work and the disappointment if things don’t go well.

I think that other host parents feel this hesitation too, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum of ‘au pair as employee’ or ‘ au pair as family member’.

And this doesn’t even include anything about your kids!

Things I have tried to remember:

Every relationship deserves its investment. You never know what this au pair relationship is going to bring your family. Although any au pair relationship will always be work, and always have some challenges, the chances are that your au pair relationships will bring you enough family happiness that it will be worth it.

We can’t really guard against being hurt or disappointed by an au pair who disappoints us by not making an emotional investment in them, in their well being, and in their learning.

We have to make that investment, right at the start, rather than withholding until they prove they won’t disappoint. Because, you know, if we withhold at the start we make it more likely that they (and we) will fail.

It is especially crushing when an au pair ‘dumps you’, disappears on you, turns out to be a spoiled brat, or for some other reason goes into ‘transition.’ What a colossal waste of time and energy!

It even hurts when she goes home or transitions for reasons that have nothing to do with job performance or your relationship (like when one of our great APs went home early b/c her father died).

When you start to feel weighed down or apprehensive about the emotional energy it takes to have a good au pair relationship,

what do you tell yourself to help yourself rise back up to the challenge?

We host parents can be a weird bunch. The kinds of things that drive us crazy… no wonder it can be hard for au pairs to get adjusted!

Over the weekend I heard a crazy lament that I want to share with you.

My friend has a new au pair, who’s been with them about 6 weeks now. They like her very much and feel confident that she’ll have a great year with them. All is going smoothly except for one thing:

“She’s using my coffee mug,” the host mom says.

Um, hello? You have about 27 coffee mugs in that cabinet there. What’s the problem?

“It’s my coffee mug. My favorite coffee mug. The one my roommate gave me when I turned 25. The pretty blue one with the pink inside. The one that she has decided is her favorite.

She’s using it all the time and I never get to!”

What to do? Options include:

1. Remove the coffee mug from circulation until this au pair leaves.
2. Place a large label on the mug that says “Mom’s mug”.
3. Hide the coffee mug somewhere weird, pulling it out to use it yourself and then putting it back immediately— no trips to the dishwasher.
4. Buy your au pair a special mug all of her own.
5. Have a brief, honest talk and tell her that the mug is your personal fave and only for you.
6. Just get over it already. For god’s sake it’s just a mug.

Other ideas?

Mug Shot! from life serial
Multiple Choice from .Irit.
eyes, scarf, mug from brianna hope

When it comes to bedding for your au pair’s room, there are three criteria that must be met:

The bedding must look clean.
The bedding must smell clean.
There must be enough bedding.

It’s a bonus if the mattress is new, if the bigger bed fits the room, or if the sheets are her or his favorite color. But if the bedding you offer meets these criteria, you’re good.

Still, you might want to do a little bit “more” for your au pair. After all, you want her to sleep well. You want him to feel at home and comfortable. And, within limits, you want to make sure s/he has what s/he likes as well as what s/he needs.

One area where I’d go a bit crazy is with bed pillows

Turns out that, even if your kids are willing to keep using the only extra pillows you had laying around when you switched them to a ‘big kid bed’, adults actually have preferences. Some adults like one kind of pillow over another, and some like to have more then one pillow. Who’d a thunk it?

A few years ago we had a whole bunch of people staying at our house for Christmas, so I went out and bought around eight new bed pillows of different firmness and types. (I had to get a non-feather one for the nephew with allergies.)

After everyone left, I had all these nice pillows, and a new great idea: I would let our new au pair pick from among the pillows the one(s) she liked best.

Much to my surprise, she picked the two oldest, schlumpiest feather pillows. I’d have never chosen those for her– I’d have given her the Martha Stewart ones for side sleepers, because they have a pretty blue border, and I would have given her something she didn’t like quite as well as what she chose for herself.

I have to say, I think she liked choosing her own pillows. In a weird and small way, it was a chance for her to actively make herself at home, and feel comfortable.

See also:
Your Au Pair’s Room: How much mess can you take?
Your Au Pair’s Room: Advice
Privacy and Your Room

The three of us from Sint Smeding
My favourite pillow from Mòni

Many parents find that 45 hours a week is not enough childcare.

Either you have an emergency late night at work, a kid home sick, a snow day, or a bookclub meeting. Some parents have work + commute combos that mean they’re away from home 10 hours a day, m-f, even if they stagger their departures and returns.

In a perfect world, we’d have low cost back-up childcare — a friend or parent, a high school babysitter, or even a second au pair — who could pick up the childcare hours that go above and beyond your au pair’s 45 hour limit.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, and so host parents (and au pairs) break or bend the 45 hour/week rule.

Let’s agree that we know that this rule exists, and the reasons why it exists. Given that some parents feel they need to break this rule, and given that many au pairs would be happy to earn some extra pocket money — let’s tawk:

Is there a fair way to ask for & pay for extra on-duty hours?

The host parent who emailed to ask that we discuss this has two key questions.

One question is easier– what to pay per hour?

The second question is a bit dicier — how to make it fair?

Here’s the email from the parent who suggested this post:

Dear APM readers-    My question is about extra hours.

I know this subject may be a little taboo, but I have spoken with my current Au Pair and many of her friends, and I’ve learned that many families have made arrangements for their Au Pairs who work over the 45 hour limit.

My spouse and I both commute to NYC and even working 9-5, the commuting makes a typical week 52-55 hours long. During our interviews with prospective au pairs, we discussed our longer work week and also discussed how we would compensate her monetarily for this. We also discussed what other ‘perks’ we would offer an Au Pair – things such as:

• Full car use on weekends
• Her own private bathroom and tv room (for the most part)
• Cell phone and texting plan
• A computer for her use only
• Almost never having to work weekends (unless she was off a bit during the week – and we always try to clear this with her first)
• Only one really sweet baby to watch — our now 10 month old daughter, who lucky for all of us is an angel, never crying, fussing, etc. Compared to the many au pairs we know who are in charge of two or three hyperactive 6-10 year olds, our one baby seems to be easier work

What we tried to make clear was that we were offering a somewhat cushy set-up. In addition, we felt with my wife and I being young (31) and in our eyes, relatively cool, we offered an all around good deal for a prospective Au pair, short of the extra hours.

Our Au Pair agreed to this arrangement before matching, and it’s been working well for us. That said, she is also a fabulous au pair in every way.

Here are my main questions:

What do you think is fair to pay your au pair for these extra hours?

What are other families who require north of 45 hours paying their au pairs?

If you simply offer the Au Pair her hourly rate for the extra hours (weekly pocket money divided by 45 hrs), it comes out to $4.33. I feel like that is taking advantage a bit, but I don’t have a different way to assess what other amount might be ‘better’.

I’m looking looking to hear other host parents’ (and au pairs’) thoughts.

What makes this Host Dad’s concern ‘unique’ is that this arrangement is not temporary or occasional — it’s an ongoing thing. So, I expect that host parents will have some specific & different concerns about this arrangement as opposed to ad hoc extra hours here and there.

Some concerns I had–

What if the au pair changes her mind about the arrangement?
What if your work schedules change and she stops earning ‘extra’ money?
What if your au pair ends up chronically tired, or grumpy?

Okay host parents and au pairs, off we go.

Just ONE request– if you want to comment anonymously, choose & use a pseudonym. We need to keep track of all the participants as we unfold our conversation.

spazimal rainbow from jek in the box
spazimal pink spotted splat from jek in the box

See also:

Do you pay your Au Pair for her orientation days?
Should you share your au pair?

When a host family takes their au pair with them to work during part of the vacation, what should they provide for her during her off-duty time? Especially, what should you provide on a ski vacation, where costs are relatively high and your au pair can’t afford to pay for her own skiing?

A European Host Mom Ann asks:

Our au pair from America is a nice girl. She has been here since start of January. In two weeks we will be going on a wintersports holiday. She will travel with us to the hotel (so travel expense is covered) as is the hotel including dinners and breakfast. She will stay in a room that she shares with the boys. We will make sure she will have privacy there.

My question is: who should pay for what? Skipass, ski lessons and a rental of skis & helmet will be necessary (also she needs glasses, a warm jacket and snowpants) if she wants to go skiing. She is supposed to work this week, but if the kids are in ski-lessons, she is off-duty, so she could use this time for skiing.

I would appreciate your advice very much–

thanks, Ann

Let me start of with some general principles for taking your au pair on vacation:

• Anytime you take your au pair with you to work, when you are on vacation, you should provide her with comfortable lodging, and all the same kinds of food, etc. as you would your kids. (However, don’t let her run her own bar tab on your room account!).
• Make sure she knows that, while it’s vacation for you, it is largely work time for her.
• Set aside some off duty time for her so that she can explore wherever you are and spend a little time vacationing too. Also, make sure you’re giving her a decent chunk of time off (like, an afternoon to sight-see, not time after dinner when it’s dark and everything is closed).
• Make sure she has things to keep herself busy not bored.
• Make sure that she has a way to stay in touch with family and friends (e.g., internet access).

You are already planning to do much of this, and thinking about the other details now is definitely good.

The hard part is always whether you can afford to have your au pair vacation in the same style as you parents or the kids are vacationing.  After all, it’s your vacation and not hers.

In an ideal world, you’d have enough money (we all would) to be able to pay for your au pair to ski during all of her off duty time… However, given that it costs around $100 per day to have your au pair ski, this may be out of the question for you.

You’ll want to talk with your au pair about how much it actually costs to pay for each skiing adult. Here in the US it’s horribly expensive– maybe it is less so where you are going? But you want to make she that she knows whether or not it’s easy for you to afford. Not that you want to make her feel beholden if you can afford to treat her, but you also don’t want her to misperceive the extent of your generosity. To imagine that two days of skiing equals a week of pocket money sure puts that into perspective.

You might consider how much you can afford to spend to entertain your au pair… and then offering her the opportunity to chose how to use this budget. She might prefer two days of skiing, or maybe she’d prefer extra time off to do something less costly (skating, movie marathons, hiking).

Make a special effort to identify some interesting and less expensive activities that she can enjoy, and make sure she packs what she needs for those activities. For example, your hotel may have a pool, whirlpool and fitness room. Or, you might bring a laptop and a video camera and encourage her to make a few movies. You might identify historic sites near to your hotel and get her tourist information. I know this may seem dorky and unglamorous compared to skiing, but everyone can remember that this trip is part of her chance to see other areas of the world, and she could take advantage of that regardless of the skiing.

Keep in mind that, when you take an au pair with you on a ‘fancy’ vacation, she may thing that you have a lot of disposable income and that if you aren’t paying for her, too, you’re simply being cheap. It is hard for au pairs, kids, relatives, anyone but the adults in charge, to know how a vacation fits into the family’s overall budget.

My personal opinion is that you should try to spring for two days of skiing… maybe her two off duty days, or a few half days while the kids are busy. It would be hard not to come off as mean to take her to a ski resort and not help to make it possible for her to ski a bit too.

Talking about all of these issues is difficult, and with an immature au pair it can be impossible. But, you are starting with a good foundation.

Remember, and mention this to your au pair, that being able to talk about money, about privileges, about role differences, and so on is not easy, but it is the only way we can make sure that we are correctly understood — in both directions.  This is part of the life lessons for host parents and au pairs.

What else should Ann think about? What do you advise??

Also see:

Don’t take your Au Pair on vacation during her first 3 months!

Family Skts from jgscils598f08 Pretty young woman in white and…from nigel67