YES

Any au pair with any sensitivity to the host child under her or his care should get that host child something to mark the child’s birthday.

NO

It doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be something as simple as a specially-selected yet store bought card with a photo insider. But, no, you Au Pair’s shouldn’t spend much money on a gift for your host kid. Host parents know not to expect au pairs to spend lots of money– we know how much you’re paid, and how much things cost.

It can be heartbreaking for a child (or an au pair) to think the a person who spends so much time with them has somehow forgotten or overlooked them on their special day.

Here as in just about everywhere else, it’s the thought that counts more than anything.

Explains MTR:

I know that au pairs do not earn a lot of money, but I expect an au pair to acknowledge my child’s birthday with even the smallest and cheapest of gifts. An au pair who knows my child would easily find $10 worth of things in Michael’s that my daughter will be very happy to receive. Our first au pair was with us for 1.5 months when my older daughter’s birthday came. She did not get her anything at all. Not even a card.

Most recent was my younger daughter’s birthday. Au Pair gave her a pillow pet that my daughter was craving, she baked her a cake from scratch (made frosting from scratch too), got her 6 fancy mylar balloons, one for each year of her age. The pillow pet is the most favorite toy now and the balloons are still around the house 1.5 months later, although they are seriously lacking in helium.

I just want to add, that although our current au pair gave all of us gifts for our birthdays and cards for other holidays and they were all very appreciated, I did make it clear that we, host parents, do not require or need any kids of gifts. She should really spend her money on herself. She did not listen to me.

Has your child ever been super-delighted by a birthday card or gift from your au pair? Or some other special gesture that celebrated the child?

Images: Happy Birthday Banner, by Devany on Etsy

It took me several years to figure out the whole birthday party thing. By the time I realized that most parents expected to stay for the party– and that I had to feed them — the kids were old enough to be dropped off. That was when I learned that you have to have room for the occasional sibling who is also dropped off without warning. But by the time I could deal with huge random numbers of kids, I had to figure out how to watch dozens of them at some activity while each one had to be escorted to the bathroom- one at a time, of course.

All of the birthday party craziness has been made easier when I’ve been able to have our au pair help. Not only have our au pairs helped to welcome guests and serve cake, they’ve also be great with supervising the scavenger hunts and painting faces for the “Warrior Cats” party.

Every birthday party has been more fun with an au pair’s help. But, even more important, every au pair has loved to play a key part in creating this experience for our children.

For us, the girls’ parties have always been a time that I’ve had our au pairs on duty– but even if I hadn’t, they would all have wanted to be there. So, I was a little surprised by that regular commenter, anonymous, who asked:

Is it okay to insist that an au pair should be around to celebrate the kids birthdays?

Just the nature of that question suggests that all is not right in HostParentVille. But, to the rescue with advice, come:

Host Mommy Dearest:

Here is my take on it. You can try to match with an AP who wants to be part of the family. You can look for an AP who will actually care about your kids and will want to share in their special things like birthdays. If you find that you failed to host an AP like this you *could* schedule her to be on duty during the times you want her around, but then again, if she doesn’t care enough to be there, do you really want her there?

I refuse to schedule my AP just so she will be there to celebrate. She is explicitly invited and I tell her I would love for her to come, but if she doesn’t want to be there (and doesn’t already have some pretty important plans that conflict) then honestly I don’t want her there moping around.

If she doesn’t want to be around for the kids’ birthday celebrations I might question whether I made the right decision to match with her or not.

MTR:

I would not insist. As Host Mommy Dearest said, if she does not want to be there, you would not want her there anyway. Our first au pair was with us for 1.5 months when my older daughter’s birthday came. When we had a family birthday thing, she was there for may be 20 minutes, ate some food, and left to go out with her friends.

Our current au pair has been with us over a year now. She has celebrated all of our birthdays with us and gave us all gifts. The actual birthday party was at the kids amusement park where it was organized in such a way that she would not have been able to spend any kind of quality time with kids or us. She fully planned to be there, but I explained to her how the party will work and told her that although she is always more then welcome, she probably would not enjoy it (I know by know what she might enjoy and what she won’t).

She did not go to the party, but made from scratch cake was presented to my daughter the next day (on her actual birthday) while I was at work and they had a huge cake party for all their stuffed friends. I got pictures at work of the whole process. (awwww!)

TACL:

We have always given our APs invitations to our kids’ birthday parties (our first AP made it clear that she wanted to be invited, not just told). For a long time, before he started school, my son’s best friends were the children who were cared for by other au pairs and nannies – and these children and their APs and nannies were issued invitations as well. I make it clear to the APs that they are not expected to purchase a gift for my son and daughter, and if they do, not to spend a lot of money.

My son’s birthday parties tend to be complicated – he wants a bike race, or a mystery hunt, or something that involves leading kids around our home or neighborhood. Having the AP on hand is necessary. One year our AP and her best friend got to lob water balloons at the kids while they tried to solve the “Mystery of the Stolen Treasure.” I think they had a great time, and seeing the kids whack at a pinata later, moved my AP to get one for a party she threw. For my son’s birthdays, we tend to schedule work hours if the AP is needed to make an event happen. We try to make it clear that they may invited their best friends to attend – there’s always more than enough food.

The Camel’s parties tend to be more sedate, although last year we went to an indoor water park for the entire day, and while I invited my then non-swimming AP, I made it clear to her that I didn’t want to pay the steep admission fee if she wasn’t going to get into the water. She demurred.

What other insights and stories about Au Pairs and Host Kids’ Birthday Parties? Share below….

See also:

Birthday Gifts for Host Kids? Yes and No

Image: Party Munchkins by ViolaStudio, available on Etsy

When a new baby joins your family, lots and lots of things change… and all these changes can affect your au pair. Coming up is a short series of posts on New Babies and Au Pairs, where we can share ideas about how to welcome the new baby (or babies) and also how to welcome the changes that these new lives bring.

So far, I’m planning these posts:

1. Having another baby? How to tell your au pair.
2. What should your Au Pair expect when you are expecting?
3. The First Three Months, when the infant is here but your Au Pair is not in charge
4. Transitioning your Au Pair to baby care

I’ll be unfolding these posts over the next two weeks or so.

Now that you know what to expect (at least in terms of upcoming posts) you can plan to share your insights in the specific post.

If you have ideas for what I should include in posts about these topics, if you’d like to suggest an additional topic, and / or if you’d like to write one of these posts as a guest poster, please email me at mom at au pair mom dot com.

Twins are home from bambibabe48

[[I'm delighted to share with your a Guest Post from a regular contributor, Dorsi. Dorsi noted that she hasn't seen much on the blog about infants and offered to share her reflections. Reading her post brought back so many memories of those tender first days of being a mom and having to look like I knew what I was doing! How about for you?]]

I always knew I would have an AP when I had children.

I was looking at prospective candidates when I was 5 months pregnant. I matched with our au pair before I bought a crib!

As someone who had been an exchange student in high school, the program sounded perfect: friendly foreign girl gets to stay with us, experience America, provide stable child care and we get to share our fun and fantastic life, as well as the difficulties of having a baby, with an enthusiastic peer. Additionally, we had a fairly erratic schedule and normal day care options didn’t work for us. Luckily, the baby came at a time when our finances could handle the AP program fees (in our area of the country, APs cost significantly more than infant care).

While I don’t know everything there is to know about APs and babies, I now have a toddler and have had some time to reflect on the experience. It found it provided better child care than I could have hoped for, but was more personally challenging than I expected.

My AP started when my baby was 2 months old.

Advantages of an Au Pair with an Infant

-Decrease in Illnesses
This has been touched on recently in other threads, but keeping the baby out of public spaces, especially early on, has a tremendous impact on the number of illnesses the whole family experiences. I think the AP program trumps all other forms of child care on this front. Even though my AP went out in the world, we still had less exposure to pathogens than other forms of in-home care – even bringing a college student, grandmother, etc. into out home.

-Breastfeeding
I have friends and colleagues who have had many battles with day care over how much to feed the baby, how often, and if they should supplement with formula and rice cereal. Those moms who have had successful long-term breastfeeding relationships and who work outside the home, know that it takes a lot of cooperation on the part of the caregiver. My AP didn’t have a lot of preconceived ideas and followed my instructions easily. Also, when I need to sleep (I work swing shifts and nights) or do other things around the house, the AP could get me to feed the baby and then I could go back to what I was doing.

-Avoidance of Separation Anxiety
Though we had days where the babe preferred the AP and days were she preferred me, we never had to go through the stage of leaving a screaming, unhappy child at day care. The AP was just part of our household flow and handing off responsibility was seamless.

-Easing into the AP program
Having an AP can be fraught with issues (thus the existence of AP mom), as well as joy. As first time parents, we were able to avoid some of the big ones:
- Driving – baby has no need for being driven anywhere, so we happily selected a non-driver.
- Role Model – this is not an aspect we worry about, babe is not going to be influenced by AP’s eating habits, dating/partying, etc.

-Travel
I found it easy to take my breast fed baby on a handful of work trips when she was small and not so mobile. It wasn’t too expensive to buy an extra ticket for the AP, and travel was fairly painless with another set of hands. With my toddler, I don’t know that there is the same ease and value with taking her places, but it was another way that the AP simplified my life with a newborn.

-All the usual advantages of the AP program
– flexibility, no missed work because the baby is too sick for daycare, one on one care.

Disadvantages of an Au Pair with an Infant

- Witness to parenting struggles
When my babe was born, I had several ideas about sleep training, pacifier use, solid food introduction, scheduling, etc. Like most new moms, the ideas have changed. When we decided that letting the baby “cry-it-out” a la Ferber was the right thing to do, I also had to convince the AP (and live with her silent judgment). This may be a non-issue for a lot of people, but having another person see you change course, contradict yourself, and struggle made things harder for me.

-The “three month rule”
APs are not allowed to be alone with infants less than 3 months of age. I worked evenings when the AP started, so she provided care only when my husband was also home, or I was home sleeping. For people with a more typical schedule, this wouldn’t have been possible. Occasionally we had a grandparent or a friend who would hang out at the house for an hour or two and supervise the AP in the beginning. As much as this was a hassle—I do think it is good policy. Someone who is new in this country (and maybe doesn’t have tons of time with tiny babies) should not be alone with a fragile newborn.

-Isolation (for us)
We know very few parents socially and the AP program hasn’t helped with that at all. We also get no feedback from experienced child care providers. While this is sometime nice (no one to tell me that we should start solids sooner/later) it would be nice to hear how others are solving the problems we are dealing with. This may be a fantasy of having a great day care community that wouldn’t really exist. The AP may offer ideas on nap scheduling, but they are usually fairly inexperienced compared to other child care providers.

-Isolation (for AP):
Babies don’t do much and we didn’t have anyone that the AP knew for play dates. Couple that with the difficulty of scheduling around naps – I think there were some very long days at home with the baby alone for the AP. This worked out okay with our AP, but could have been a significant problem for some APs.

Surprises and Things I wish I knew

-“Mom” vs “Peer”
As a new mother, I really didn’t think of myself as “mom” to the young woman who moved into our house. I hardly thought myself a “mom” to the tiny crying thing in the next room. It was a little shocking to be referred to as her “host mom” and to suddenly feel like I had to parent my AP. This may have been a little bit specific to the AP I matched with, but she expected to take on the role of daughter in the household. We struck a balance, eventually.

-Breastfeeding
Not every AP thinks this is normal and not “icky.” Luckily my AP had no problem handling breast milk and following my instructions. She was not uncomfortable with me breastfeeding in her presence. However, I would ask the AP in the future what about her comfort level prior to matching.

• Host parents, what parts about Dorsi’s reflections on having an au pair care for your infant resonate with your experience?
• If you have used the specialized “infant care” or infant-trained au pair, does that seem to have made a difference?
• Au Pairs, if you’ve cared for a little baby, what else might you add from your point of view?

See Also:

Starting out on the right foot, when you’re on maternity leave
Would you recommend an Au Pair to…Parents of baby twins?

Be Our Guest Poster!

Sweet dreams | day 28.365from pixelrobber
Sweet Baby Amelia from Ruth_O’Neal
Sweet Baby from moon_child

Yes, actually, it WAS torture to look for images. Painfully baby-lust inducing, if you must know.

One of my favorite moments as an au pair mom was the summer afternoon I came home to find my two year old in a diaper, my au pair in a bathing suit, both of them in the garden, covered in finger paint. They were having a blast.

This particular au pair, although very mature and studious, loved to play with my daughter. Finger paint, Thomas the Tank Engine, mud puddles, the whole deal. It made me so happy to see them play together.

Up until the point when my two girls got really involved in playing with each other and with their best friends- the boys next door (at around ages 5 & 7), I wanted our au pairs to get down and play with the girls. Not only is this more educational, and more fun, it is way more interesting than sitting there on the coach flipping through a magazine while they argue over who would get to use the red light saber.

The amount of time and dedication spent directly playing with the kids varied, though. Some au pairs want to play directly with the kids, while others prefer not to.

But if that’s what you as a host parent want, and what you as a host parent think is best for your kids, how do you help your au pair understand that s/he should flop down on the floor, pick up Edward, Bill, or Annie, and roll them around the track?

Here’s a question from Host Mom LL:

We have three young children – ages: almost 2, almost 4 and almost 6. We are on our third au pair and have liked all three girls reasonably well.

But, I have had one ongoing concern about our au pairs:
The girls all tend to want to sit and look on while the kids entertain themselves.

Now, – I know that would have to happen sometimes. I get tired and sit sometimes while my kids play. But ultimately of course I am looking for an au pair who will engage with them, play games with them, talk and sing with them, etc.

My husband always says, he doesn’t care what the au pair’s interests are, if she would just SHARE them with the kids. If you like to paint, paint with my kids. If you like sports, do sports with my kids.

I do not want my au pair to feel that I am spying on her, criticizing her, etc. And frankly, just criticizing someone never helps. So I am looking for more positive ways to approach this.

Should I ask her to write in a journal about what she did with the kids today? In the past this has not been as helpful as it sounds. “Played in sandbox” does not tell me whether she was actually playing with them or not. Should I take the time to make a list of activities and just ask her to do some of them each week (“Please do painting with Molly this week”) – which would be very time consuming for me but is possible?
That would also not guarantee her engagement with them, but it would at least ensure some variety of activities for my kids.

Or are my expectations too high?

Images:  “Sleeping” with Dolls from The Mooncake Box
(51/53): Play from Grums
Dylan and his Car from Extra Medium

Readers, Here’s a specific question about choosing the right au pair for a family that has lost their mom through tragedy.

We had one host dad comment on our earlier post about single parents, and I know that there are at least two other host dad-readers who have lost their wives and who have hired au pairs to help with childcare and to offer a little extra warmth to the kids. Likely, there are other readers out there with first hand experience or other close up advice to share.

Here is our email from the host mom & friend wondering whether to suggest an au pair to a newly widowed dad:

Sadly, one of my closest friends recently passed away from breast cancer leaving behind a husband, a 7 year old son and a 3 year old daughter. I’m thinking an au pair MIGHT be a wonderful option for this family as he needs a lot of help with his children since he must continue to work full-time. However, I have the following concerns:

* Availability. Are there au pairs that a strong enough to handle this difficult situation where the family will be grieving the loss of this wonderful person and mother? (My friend needs a stable, sensitive person in the home, not someone that would bring more problems.)

* Perception concerns. Will people think it is creepy that a 40 something man has a 20 something young, un-married woman, living in the house? How does he and the au pair handle inappropriate comments?

* Setting kids up for another loss. Should he be concerned about hiring someone who might only stay one year? My children LOVE our au pair and I know it will be difficult when she leaves. For these children, whose mother has died, would an au pair leaving after one year be just another tough loss for them?

BTW this father is a typical engineer – focused on facts, very organized and does not readily show emotion.

I’m sure there are more questions but these are some of the key ones. I welcome your comments and your advice. Thank you so much. AG

Hi AG,

It is so hard to lose a friend, to cancer or to another tragedy; I am so sorry for your loss. I can appreciate how much it could mean to you, and to your friend’s family, for you to be able to offer them some help with the childcare challenges. I hope we can offer some helpful insights.

Of course there is no filling in the space left by the loss of a mom (or a wife, or friend). And, I agree with you that an au pair may be a very good way to provide both childcare and another consistent adult presence. A great au pair could be a positive force in this family’s situation.

I’m pretty sure that other host parent will agree; there are some au pairs who would be great in this situation. I know that some of our former au pairs would have been able to handle this well, and I know two au pairs who have been in similar situations and handled it well.

The challenge is not just finding an au pair who can handle it but also finding one that can fit well with a family that (regardless of the chance that stress will change what’s ‘normal’ for the famiy) is a good fit in terms of personality.

We’ve talked a little bit on other posts about the perception issues – so look there for ideas to add to what readers will share in the comments.

With regard to the kids and another experience of loss – this strikes me as the hardest issue.

Even if an au pair extends for another year, she or he will eventually go back home. But it is also true that other kinds of caregiving arrangements don’t always last as long as you hope. People leave, they change jobs, etc. A friend of mine just lost her nanny of three years when the nanny died suddenly in her sleep! So there is no guarantee.

When people ask me if it is hard for kids to say goodbye to an au pair, I answer that yes, it can be hard to say goodbye. This is one of the things that host kids get to learn how to do when they have au pairs.

The flip side, the positive side, of this is that host kids learn that there are many different people out there who can come into their lives and create a loving relationship with them, and leave and continue a loving relationship with them. Kids learn that people leave, that this is okay, and that there is a lot of love out there to be shared.

Let’s hear from you readers— what advice can you offer AG?

See Also:

Myths about Au Pairs: Au Pair = “Hottie”
Follow Up: Rude Comments about Au Pairs– How to respond

Photo: Lost-in-Lomo from Joel Bedford on Flickr

I firmly believe that working on your au pair relationship makes you a better parent, directly and indirectly. Any time you have to stop and reflect on your parenting principles and your priorities for your kid(s), you have the opportunity to become more mindful about what you’re up to with your family.

Here’s one of those questions that’s as much about parenting as it is about working with an au pair.

How much responsibility/freedom should we give to the AP’s for arranging playdates?

In general, I have given the option to coordinating schedules to the kids and my (great) AP, because they know what needs to be done during the week and all seems to have worked out.

My 2 kids have been having playdates with the same kids all the time. My older son (9) has a balance of playdates at our house as well as those at his established group of friends. My younger son (age 6) is more of a homebody and prefers to have his friends come to our house. Today though, a parent of a child that has come to our house a few times invited my son over to his house. The AP said “sure” and dropped my son at their house and returned home with my older son.

Reports from the playdate are very mixed … Dad (divorced) is a heavy smoker and was smoking around my son (I am an avid-anti-smoker) … my son exclaimed how smoke comes out of his nose when he breathes! My son also commented on the fact that Dad “Has his own Bar!” as if that was something super cool. When I asked what they did, he said they played a game where Dad tried to hit them with a stick while they ran away.

Perhaps I’m too protective, but I think I’ll be telling the AP that playdates with that child will be at our house in the future.

Other Moms around here suggested that I might have asked the AP to stay at the house for the first playdate. I don’t know that I would have done that myself (by 6 that seems like overkill), so feel it’s a bit of a double standard.

I’m thinking that I will discuss with the AP and not place any blame on her (she did text me about the arrangement as I had asked). I’m thinking, however, that in the future, I should be the one making arrangements for playdates with any “new” kids and “new” locations.

Activities at our house and “well established friends” are fine to continue as usual.

What does everyone else think? Thanks! OB Mom

Here’s what I think, as a place to start:

Playdates are a deceptively complex part of your Au Pair & kids’ world.

What looks like just a chance for you child to have some fun company comes with questions like:

• Is their house safe?
• Am I comfortable with the other family’s caregiver/ caregiver situation?
• Do they lock their handguns in a gun safe?
• Does my child actually enjoy the company of this child?
• Whose turn is it to host?
• Can I leave my child alone with these people?
• How might I discipline/feed/comfort the other kid if that seems warranted?
• Is anyone taking advantage of playdates to get some free baby sitting?
• Are the playdates being scheduled for the kids’ advantage or for someone else’s?

With all these questions, I think it’s important to come up with some explicit guidelines to help your au pair make playdates that work for your child and your family. When I say guidelines, I’m not talking about rules (e.g., no playdates at the pool) so much as I’m talking about principles.

For example, you might want to give your au pair something she can say as an “easy way out” when she feels like she’s being taken advantage of my some parent who wants to dump a kid with her. ….(“My host parents think that Sam needs more downtime, so I’m scheduling fewer playdates. May I call you when he’s ready?”

Here’s what we’ve got in the sample Guidelines about playdates:

• Take charge of arranging playdates. You can be the authority with regard to planning activities.
• Put all playdates on the calendar to avoid scheduling conflicts.
• Only agree to have someone come over if it makes sense and feels comfortable to you and to the children.
• Also, only schedule playdates for days in the children don’t have other activities, and make sure that the children do their homework and their music practicing before the play begins.

What else do you recommended? How can you help your au pair make playdates that work for everyone?

When you comment, if you are an au pair please let us know so that we can appreciate your perspective.

See also: Scheduling your kid(s) week: Can the AP be in charge?
IBoy With Stick 2 from jemsweb

Hi Readers, we interrupt our regularly scheduled plan for an emergency request for advice that popped up in the comments of the previous post. Here’s the issue, from VA AuPairMaidNanny:

Some of you dedicated readers & Host Parents will remember that I posted a few weeks ago about my experience so far. Many of you gave me some good advice, and now I need some advice from you all yet again.

Yesterday my 4 yr old (host child) bit me in the face for no freaken reason. It took alot of my strenght not to show my hurtful expression to her but i wasn’t going to let her get away with it, so i put her in to time out. While I was putting her into time out and explaining to her why it’s not nice to bite people,my host dad came downstairs. I know he heard everything. On seeing her dad,the little girl tried to get out of her time out. She begged her father that she didn’t want to be in time out.

Now what hurts me the most and brings tears to my eyes is that the only thing the Host Dad said to her was “I told you not to bite”. He turned on his heels and walked out the door. End of story.

What about physical and metual abuse that an au pair goes thru with the children? What about when the host parents know what happened and they just look the other way?

What more do i need to do or show the parents to discipline the kids?

I know for sure that when I have children i wouldn’t want my children going around biting people. Please, any advice would be appreciated.

Let’s be sure to distinguish advice regarding:

(1) what to do with the child,

(2) what to say to parents when a child is hurtful, dangerous, or mean, and

(3) how to deal with a host parent like this dad, who does not seem to want to take responsibility for his kid or to support his au pair’s efforts.

mean face from stevegatto2 on Flickr

If there is anything about having an au pair — or anyone, really — in the bedroom on the third floor that bothers my DH, it’s noise after 10:30 pm. He is a fussy sleeper, and it drives him nuts to be able to hear a tv, or a phone conversation, while he’s trying to fall asleep. So, we have ‘quiet hours’ (when you turn the volume down), and rugs on the floor, and ask our au pair to close the door of her room and at the top of the steps so that sound doesn’t float downstairs, and that usually does the trick.

Well, actually, let me restate that: The sound-reducing strategies  solve the problem of us not being able to fall asleep, but it doesn’t make sure that our au pair herself gets enough sleep.

For PAHM, her au pair not getting enough sleep has become a serious problem. She writes:

I have a request for a topic….SLEEP!!!

My au pair stays up until all hours of the night and into the early morning. She is usually on the internet. Occasionally I hear her speaking German. At times she is VERY noisy on the phone and it wakes me up and i have to remind her to please be more quiet. Thankfully my kids are sound sleepers and her being up all hours has never woken them

She is often too tired to interact with the kids during the day. I often catch her sleeping on the couch while she is on duty. My boys are 8 and 5 and very active. They get really disappointed when AP is too tired to engage with them, which seems to be nearly everyday.

I have a curfew in my handbook, but it really only applies to going out… it would seem a little too controlling to have a “bedtime”.  After all, she is an adult.

I have suggested to her that she need sleep for good health, to enhance her mood, and even to help her sustain a healthy weight, but none of those arguments has gotten her to go to sleep earlier.

She has been with us for several months, and this has been going on for a long time. Any ideas what I should try next?

morning phone call from xjyxjy
1st time i participate in a tag…from irina slutsky

Although this blog is not really for au pairs, there are times when other host parents are the best folks to offer advice to an au pair. This particular situation is a tough one, since the problem concerns how the Host Dad treats his son, and how (or even whether) the Host Mom and the au pair can change the situation.

Au Pair Lucy recently wrote with a question about some dynamics with her Host Dad that are turning out to be quite difficult. She’d like our thoughts about what to do.

Hi I’m an au pair in France, currently in my seventh month with the same family. I feel like I got so so lucky with this family and I’m really happy with everything, except with the Host Dad.

I feel like the Host Dad is really really negative towards his eldest son. I cannot handle it anymore. The child has difficulty taking care with his handwriting, and I’m always next to him helping with his homework and reminding him to take care with his handwriting. He has been getting punishments because of this, so I try to make him do his best at all times. One day he had taken so much care with his handwriting and I was so proud, I told him to go show his father, who was playing video games in the room next-door. His father refused to pause the game to look at his son’s work, and what’s more, called him selfish for it, and he came back into the room to me in tears.

I really can’t understand how someone could have decided to have a child, which he did, the children were planned, and treat them like that?

The father has blown up at the child, 8 years old, quite a few times over these past 7 months.

I really feel like, as an au pair, I can’t say that I disagree with how he treats his children. I feel like that is a conversation that would ruin my relationship with the family, whom, apart from him, I absolutely adore! On the other hand I can’t sit back and let him abuse a child emotionally, because I feel like that is what he is doing.

Do you have any advice for me about this situation?

Start with the Host Mom ?

SInce the first thing I’d advise would be to talk with the Host Mom, I wrote Lucy back to aks her if she’d done this already, and what had come of it. Lucy replied:

My Host Mom evidently has spoken about this with the father, because she mentioned to me that he would be making an effort to be less hard on his son.

Which worked for about a month, around Christmas, when all their family was around, but he no longer seems to be making the effort.

And I feel bad for my Host Mom because I’m pretty sure she knows how I view the situation, and I feel like she is trying to please everyone. She doesn’t contradict her husband, then she has to comfort her son and then reassure me that she is not ok with what is going on. It really isn’t fair on her, so I don’t know if I could bring it up with her, I feel like she has enough pressure as it is.

Having an au pair around has usually helped me be a better mom. I’ve wanted to be a good role model, and frankly also not embarrass myself. I have occasionally been aware that having my au pair around has prevented me from acting out my own worst Mom behavior. And, I’ve also been embarrassed to not have acted as warmly towards my kids or my spouse in front of (not to mention away from) my au pair.

But, other than being told that I wasn’t teaching my kids enough about Jesus, I’ve never had to respond to implicit or explicit criticism from an au pair.

So, I wonder what the best way is to:

• Protect the Host Child
• Support the Host Mom and Host Dad in better behavior
• Kindly confront the Host Dad

Parents and au pairs, what should Lucy consider?

Temple of Philae, Dec 2008 – 27 from Ed Yourdon

Green Pencil by Pink Sherbet Photography (D Sharon Pruitt)