There’s something about hosting a friend of relative of your au pair that can mess with the fine balance between “part of the family”&  “childcare provider” and between “host mom” and “house elf/slave”.

For lots of us, we forget to check our assumptions about how we should act towards other people’s guests, how much of a host or hostess we should be, whether we should treat the guest like another au pair/family member or like the au pairs’s responsibility, and so on.

Most of us host parents want to be warm and welcoming when our au pairs have guests- whether these guests stop in for coffee or spend a week or two in your host parent house. Most of us have learned though trial and error what we can take, and what we can’t take, when it comes to house guests in general and guests of au pairs in particular.

ReturningHostMom writes with a great  opportunity.

She’s hosting an au pair’s house guest for the first time — with this particular au pair. This host mom has had some good and bad experiences hosting guests, and so she wants to know–

What can she do UP FRONT to set the expectations for the visit?

I’ve dug up this thread looking for some updated advice. Our AP is about to have her BFH (boyfriend from home) visit for two weeks over the Christmas holidays, and he will be staying in our house. I encouraged AP to invite BFH over Christmas, as we are going away for 10 days and while she was welcome to come, I didn’t think it would be much fun for her to be up at my sister’s house with their family, with her not knowing anyone there and not being the sort to make friends and go out with local APs, the way some of our previous APs were. So now I’m facing two weeks with BFH (a total of five days will be with us home), and then mom and sister are coming two weeks in the spring and godfather for 10 days in May. So I need this visit to go well, or I won’t be feeling welcoming for the next visits.

I should put up front that we have had great and awful visits with previous APs’ families: Two were fantastic – parents, boyfriends, boyfriends’ families, etc all visited, lots of fun, great to have them. One AP, though, had her mom and sister for two full weeks, and for two full weeks i cooked and cleaned and waited on them – they were lovely people and we had fun but still I felt very overworked, but then on the last night, after I cooked them a big “goodbye” dinner, AP announced she was leaving the next day with mom and sister. Turned out this had been the plan all along – flight was booked – and AP’s mom and sister simply used our house as a hotel so they could visit the US before AP left with them. So you can see why I’d be a little gun-shy with the visits this time around!

So what can I do to help ensure that this first visit goes well, so that I will feel happy about all those future visits as well?

I’ve tried to set expectations by being clear and outlining my expectations in the au pair handbook. I have in the handbook now that anytime guests stay longer than 3 days, that AP should provide food (thanks to that AP mom and sister who cleaned out our fridge of food every other day but paid for nothing). I have in the handbook that no guests should drive our cars, and I told AP that there would be a mileage limit for the visit (again, from that other AP, who put over 500 miles on our car when the mom and sister were visiting). I have in the handbook that AP must take vacation day on any day that I would otherwise need her to work and so will have to get back-up childcare.

I haven’t yet approached the question of sleeping arrangements with BFH, but since AP has told me that when BFH stays at her house at home, he stays in her room with her, I was thinking I’d just put them in there. Should I set some rules about the bathroom (small house -AP shares bathroom with two children 7 and 9, and her room is on same floor as our bedroom)? What else should I be thinking of?

We like this AP a lot, even though she is young for her age and needs a lot of hand-holding. She is kind, respectful, helpful, and very much a part of our family, and I really want to welcome her family with open arms…but I need this visit to go well in order to do so with the additional guests who are scheduled to come (plus I should add that she has had weekend visitors a fair amount too).

Advice? Suggestions? Thanks very much.

A while ago I got a request for advice — a host mom was mystified that her desired au pair candidates seemed uninterested in the opportunity she had to offer.

After all, what au pair wouldn’t want a situation that required only 20 hours per week, paid vacations with the family, her own apartment underneath theirs, on Lake Shore Drive, with a Mercedes SUV for her own use? Oh yes, and tuition reimbursed at a major Chicago University?

Dear readers, I thought the email was a hoax. So I replied with an email of my own:

Are you fur reelz?

Indeed, she claimed. Very real.

After several rounds of emails, I concluded that her situation is pretty real.  And even if it’s exaggerated, the central question remains:

When we offer a great situation, why don’t we easily find great au pairs?

You all will have a lot to say.

Here’s her dilemma, put together with details from a few rounds of correspondence between us:

We are a first-time host family from Chicago, IL. We are a family of 5 (me, hub, 3 kids aged 6 – 15). We have been looking for our AP for almost one year, because we wanted “the perfect candidate” for us. We were not looking for someone PERFECT, but someone who was perfect for us.

We found an amazing girl on Site Y about 2 months ago. She was exactly from the country we wanted, from a country/2nd language we wanted, 21 years old, 13years education, proficiency English, wonderful human being. She provided us references, which we contacted, who wouldn’t stop saying how amazing and smart and skilled she is. Straight-As at school but also street smart, generous, fun, down to earth, very talented.

We talked a lot by email first, and then on skype more than once. She was already wonderful, even on skype. She was very honest and upfront about everything we talked about, even things that could have made her “lose points”, and so were we with her. We fell in love with this Au Pair and so did our kids.

We knew she was in contact with other families and that she was close to a match with more than one family and that she was close to a decision, but honestly, as arrogant as it might sound, we thought that no family could “beat us out”. (I know, I’m not supposed to say that but… that’s how we felt.)

She made a short video for me and my family in which she told us that she finally made a decision and she chose another family. It was a cold shower for us, even if during the matching process she kept telling us that she was hearing from other families and that she had to decide (we already asked her for a match and so did the other families I guess). I have to say it was very nice of her to make a video to tell us that, because an email would have been easier, required less “emotional energy” and so on. But still, she chose another family and I know we won’t find another AP like her (we have been looking for months!!)

I know I can’t do anything to make her change her idea, even if I will – and yeah, I know I’m not supposed to do that – but I feel she is “the one”! But in all of this I really don’t understand how come she chose someone else!
This AP wanted to go to Chicago very badly … but then she took the advice to choose the family over the place…

Before she declined, we had already stated some nice benefits in the AP handbook we sent her. I don’t want to raise jealousy but like I said, we are very prosperous so we wanted this girl to have some nice perks. These included:

• We offered her a 500$/week stipend, which means 2.000$/month

• 20h/week schedule, and she could take classes every day 9.30 am – 4 pm

• We told her we could pay for her tuition at X University where she had already been accepted. (She’d been issued a scholarship opportunity from X University last year, (she was in Chicago to study english and has an amazing talent for writing. Her teacher knew someone at University X so he had her go there and present an application and they offered her a scholarship to study there). The scholarship would cover about 8,000 $ and she would have to pay like 6,000 $ more (because she would be a sort of a part time student). She said she would cover the cost for her university but I know she doesn’t come from a wealthy family and those 6K would “cost” more for her than they would cost for us if that makes any sense.)

• We were going to buy her a brand new Mércedes ML (Suv) to drive our kids and told her she would have unlimited car usage and that we would pay for gas for her personal use as well. (B/c it’s among those cars that have ONSTAR system. Safety is among our primary concerns so the aupair car MUST have that system on it. (It’s a General Motor service and not so many cars have it. If we were going to buy a Chevrolet Escalades (which has it) or something similar, the price would not be that different, so we had our 15 years old girl choosing the car that she liked because hopefully in about 2 years or so, she will drive and we won’t need an aupair or full time nanny anymore, and the AP car could be my daughter’s).

• We have an almost new condo right under ours (but on one floor), that would have been her apartment

• We go on vacation once or twice per months (depending on our children schedules), usually to very fancy (and expensive) places and told her she was welcome to come with us (we wanted her to!)

• We live in the city she is in love with.. which I know was priceless for her.

To be clear, when we first contacted her, we didn’t offer all this information up front, and we did not post it on Site Y. I didn’t want an AP to choose us just because of our whealty lifestyle. I just wanted to make sure that an AP would choose us because of our family and not because of our money.

I can’t imagine that the other family could make as good of an offer, e.g., teenagers (who don’t require much work), brand new suv, high stipend, over-the-average perks, and a warming loving family who was looking forward to have her.

She never promised us “anything” but we were maybe too confident in hoping that she would be OUR ap? As a first time host mom, with this big disappointment, I’m wondering -

- where did I do wrong?

- what can we do to get the kind of au pair we want?

I don’t want to sound “stand-offish” with all I said. But yes, we can afford to give the AP some nice benefits and we would be happy to do that FOR THE RIGHT PERSON who deserves that. And the right person was this girl.

Please PLEASE please, let me know if you have any advice on how to convince her to say yes to us and tell us what did we do wrong.  She is so amazing I know we are not going to find another her.

LakeShoreMom

Here’s a poll to follow up on my vdiatribe…..

A long time ago, I was experimenting with doing a vlog (a video post), but I never posted it because I looked kindof dorky. Also, a few months later, the lovely Susan Robinson of Cultural Care started her AuPairAnswerMom vlogs, and does them so well that I thought I’d just stick to text.

But then I got this email, below, from a Host Mom who’s interested in gift baskets (or Welcome Baskets) that are sent to incoming au pairs at Orientation.

Hi CV. I hope I’m not asking something that has already been asked, but I’m wondering how many families order the gift baskets at the au pair school. Our 4th au pair is arriving in March and we’ve never ordered the gift basket. Now we’re wondering if our girls feel totally left out. Our last AP said she didn’t care about it, and that the things in it weren’t anything she would want, but I’m now wondering if she was just being nice. What do other HFs do?

Thanks. I love the blog. It’s fascinating to see what others think about AP-related things.  Jenna

Since I already had this vlog, and post, somewhere in the hopper, here’s my answer. …
No laughing.

Back in the day (like, 12 years ago) sending a little giftie to your incoming au pair at orientation seemed like a nice thing to do.

I thought it might be nice for her to be welcomed, maybe with some mini-Snickers bars, some photos of the kids and a baseball cap, and get a little extra cash to pay for her snacks on her way down to Virginia. Plus I am a total sucker for presents. Wrap a pencil in some tissue paper, tie on a ribbon, give it to me, and I’m in heaven. However, I must go against my general present giver-and -receiver preferences this time.

Based on the comments on our earlier posts about orientation, I’m revising my recommendation on gift baskets, and I say:

Enough with the gift baskets

Why?

Well, many reasons–

• Gift baskets leave some au pairs feeling special and other au pairs feeling left out — we don’t want to put any au pair at an emotional disadvantage by thinking– even for a minute– that his or her host parents don’t really care.

• Gift baskets have become a revenue opportunity for agencies. I don’t begrudge them a bit of profit, but I do think that the agencies exacerbate the problem by having several options, each more costly than the last!

• Agency-sponsored gift baskets aren’t very ‘personal’. They aren’t made by you, or your kids.

In my opinion, the gift basket thing has gotten to be more about making money, spending money, and making the welcome less personal– and that’s not what it’s supposed to be about. Plus, the social drama around gift baskets has overwhelmed their purpose.

The point of sending anything to Orientation is to welcome your au pair and help her or him get excited about meeting your family.

You might still want to send your au pair something (other than a formal gift basket) and if you do, send a package with:

• Some photographs
• A welcome note from you and/ or your kids
• A hat, T-shirt or town-based souvenir (like, postcards of the park near your house)
• A NYC guidebook
• Candy for him or her to share with roommates

If your au pair is taking an extra flight, train ride or bus trip to get to your home from orientation, consider sending her or him up to $10 – $20 explicitly for her to buy snacks or lunch. You’d buy her lunch if you were picking her up in your car, so it doesn’t seem like too much to send some food money. But again, just a small amount.

Remember, you’re not trying to win your au pair over with generosity or munificence. You just want to help your au pair feel welcomed.

It’s possible that, really, what you need is a warm phone call.

All of which would total less than $25.

What are your feelings about Gift Baskets? Next post up is a poll!

See also–
Au Pair Advice: Send a welcome package to your Au Pair’s orientation
Host Family Advice: Resist the Amenities Arms Race

Our previous two posts,

Providing Your Au Pair With Safe, Affordable, Convenient Transportation , and
Don’t Abuse A Cluster Taxi

have been set-ups for this next question, from SanJoseMom.

SanJoseMom is a first-time host parent and trying to organize her expectations and establish a foundation for a successful au pair year.

Hi AuPairMom -

I live in CA, and We will be getting our new au pair in Mid September. She is from Scandinavia, and is 19 years old.

I live in a suburb, so there is public transportation but its not very good. Near our house there is only a bus line, and BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit which takes on to SF, is about a 20 minute drive from my house one way, there is a light rail near a mall which is about 10 minutes away by car.

I am wondering what do families do when they don’t let their au pair drive their cars.

Our 2 cars are brand new and very expensive cars, and not something that we would like an au pair to crash by accident, so we are hesitant to let her use either of our cars. Since its our first au pair, we don’t really want to invest the money buying a used car or to spend over $1000.00 per year to insure the au pair on the used car.

I am a stay at home mom, so we are only living on one income, so I don’t have a huge budget to cover a car expense for an au pair.

That said, how do other families handle when an au pair doesn’t have a car, if you don’t live near good public transportation?

Do you give the au pair a bike, and have they ride the bike to the nearest bus stop? Do I need to put my baby and my toddler in the car, and give her a ride to her class whenever she needs to go somewhere?

Please let me know if you guys have any ideas for me here? In a nutshell my questions, is how do you
1) keep an au pair who has a license and knows how to drive happy, without giving her a car,
2) how do you handle her getting to where she needs to go?
3) if there are very slow buses near our house and not much else, how does the au pair get to class?
4) meet up with her friends,
5) go to her au pair monthly meetings, etc.

Thanks in advance for any tips that you have. SanJoseMom

SanJoseMom,

I’m sure that there is lots of advice for you in the previous two posts. Readers will give you some specific suggestions, too, as they comment below.

And, there is one ‘big picture’ suggestion that I also want to offer you:

Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective au pair.

Imagine yourself being 19 years old, and on a year-long work/play adventure in California. What would you need to be happy? What presents an appropriate level of challenge and what might be too much for you to bear?

Your ability to put yourself in the shoes of your incoming au pair, and empathize with how the experience might feel for her, will be critical in determining how well your relationship will unfold.

Okay readers– Ready for your ideas!

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