I’m a believer that different members of a family have different privileges and responsibilities, depending on their roles and their ages. Parents have more privileges than do children, and employers have more privileges than do employees. The rules that we follow can be different, as long as they are fair.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, uses my chef’s knife. When I’m driving, I get to choose the music. And guess what– if I want to leave my lunch dishes in the sink until dinner, I do.
I also have different expectation for myself when the kids are with me than I’ve had for our au pairs when they are on duty with the kids. I’m usually doing many other things in addition to being with my kids (like, oh, cooking, cleaning, laundry, paying bills, stuff like that). I don’t ignore my kids, but I don’t spend all of my time engaging them in educational play.
However, when our au pair is on duty, I do expect her to focus her attention on the kids, since that’s her job.
And, yes, in can be awkward when I expect her to focus 95% on the kids, when some times I focus only 65% on the kids. I think it’s fair, but it is also awkward, precisely because the differences in privileges point out that parents, au pairs and children have different roles in a family.
Host Mom-with-The View sends in this question, hoping for some advice on how to work this out a specific situation, where she wants a different set of privileges for herself vs. her au pair.
I am expecting my first au pair in 3 weeks. She is 22, German and speaks great English. I have a 21 month old son who is extremely active, and I am expecting a new baby in March. I work 3 days a week outside the home, full time, 12 hours days. As I know her now, I like my au pair very much. I am very eager to start with a positive, fair, respectful relationship.
I am writing out family handbook, and trying to decide if it is fair to tell the au pair that she may not watch TV while the children are awake. I almost always have the TV on when I’m home. I don’t watch shows I have to pay attention to, but I like to have the Today show, or the news on in the background while my son and I play or do other things.Occasionally, when my son is occupied, I will watch a show I have recorded that does not require much attention, or I will just rewind if I miss a part because I’ve been paying attention to my son. My son rarely watches TV, just the occasional 20 minutes of Sesame Street if I need to remove him from my leg to cook dinner or iron clothes.
My concern is that the au pair will half-ignore the kids if the TV is on and she really wants to pay attention to what is on TV. I know how I am with my son, and that he does not lack for attention or engagement while I have the TV on. I don’t know if this is something the au pair will be able to do.
I want to be fair, but I also think of this as her job, where she should follow the rules, but I’m afraid of the concequences of setting such an obvious double standard. I imagine this double standard will be very evident to her since I will be home for 12 weeks on maternity leave about 4 weeks after she arrives, in addition to the 2 weekdays days every week I’m home with her.
Can I ask her to do something I am not willing to do myself? Thank you for your help!
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The double standard question–not only a matter of tv!
I struggle with this as well. I expect the au pair to give more undivided attention to kids than I do, because that’s her main job, whereas it is only one of mine (and I’m only counting the ones I do at home!)
I agree your au pair’s job is to provide her full attention to your kids, and not let herself be distracted by TV or radio.
I must say I didn’t always understand this as an au pair. Once I became really comfortable with the toddler triplets and mastered multi-tasking (watching them, putting in a load of laundry and getting their snacks and bottles ready all at the same time), I felt I could do a lot of the same things my host mom did (making a quick phone call, planning my calendar…).
Also, when we cared for the kids together, although I was the one mostly playing with them and giving them my full attention, as a mom she would be entitled to have the fun part, while I needed to get busy taking care of other things since I had her help!
So it is just a matter of clarifying with your au pair… As host moms, you are our role models and we learn your family routine from you. Just clarify expectations from the beginning and remind your au pair of what your “host mom priviledges” are when you are together…
I don’t watch tv with the kids unless I have them on evenings, which rarely happens. My host family lets them watch more tv than I do, but I really don’t mind. You pay your au pair to watch the kids, not tv, and I think most au pairs understands that =)
Seems to me that there are a couple tenets that run thru advice on this blog, and both apply here:
1) start with stricter standards — it’s easier to get lax than it is to get strict
2) explain the situation to your AP. Be honest. Have a dialogue about it.
(I’ve never been good at #1). Why not just spell it out? Say some version of what you’ve said above: that while you will probably have the TV on when you’re home (at least until your kids are more interested in it and ask questions about what they see, then I bet you’ll start to be okay with not having it on yourself!) and that you want her to not to turn it on while she’s in charge. Say that you can see how it might seem unfair, but “especially while she is getting to know Darling Son” you are counting on her to interact with Son. That’s her job, and explain that you wouldn’t expect her to be doing any of the other things that you have to multi-task, so your situations really are different.
And fwiw, the “no TV’ rule is not unusual at all.
It’s definitely a difficult situation. I ask the au pair not to watch tv when responsible for the kids. She has all day to watch while the kids are at school. She only watches music videos and the news or movies in the evenings in her room when she is off duty.
Our AP now is very good about interacting with the kids and playing with them instead of watching them play. With our last AP, I used to have to turn off our wireless network while I was at work so she wouldn’t completely ignore the kids and use her laptop all day. Sad, but true.
We make some of these double standards clear right from the beginning. Even our letter talks about how we want an AP that will “actively engage” our children. During interviews I go further into what I mean – very little TV, and I only allow age appropriate shows for the kids, not grown up shows. I also discuss that cell phone/telephone and computer use is absolutely not allowed while the children are awake.
Nap times are different – so long as any additional chores are done, AP is free to do what ever she wants. TV, phones and computer are all fair game then. I also make sure that our AP understands how the DVR works so that she can record any favorite shows that she might want to watch at her leisure.
Do I use my cell and the computer while I’m with my kids? You bet I do. I don’t think of it as a double standard, I guess because I try to make it crystal clear that our primary care givers primary focus is our kids. That also pushes aside lots of other duties for her like laundry and cleaning. I don’t want to overwhelm her with so much other “stuff” that those things take on a more important role than interacting with my kids.
I think it is fine to have a strict rule of no TV watching while the au pair is on duty. That’s what we did. I’m like you – I may have the TV on to watch the weather or listen to the Today Show in the AM before she is on duty…then when she takes over, the kids are with her and no TV. You can explain that this is your rule and that sometimes you break it, but that is ok because you are the boss! It’s easier to just have a line drawn – no TV – than to develop a bunch of exceptions.
I’m fairly strict about television. My daughter, who is severely retarded, does not watch TV at all (she is developmentally young enough that she couldn’t care less, either). She is, however, easily distracted and can play for hours with her toys and on her piano. My typically developing son, however, is only permitted 1 hour of media time (computer, game system and TV) on school days and 2 hours Friday through Sunday. He loses media privileges for infractions like hitting. Our boy is active, and if he doesn’t stay moving (e.g. outdoors), he’s fairly climbing up the wall by dinnertime. I can tell when he’s had indoor recess at school. Our au pairs, albeit sometimes begrudgingly, have followed our directions on this. He takes most of his media time with them. We have TVs in the au pair bedroom, the basement playroom and our (parents) bedroom. There is no TV in the living room/dining room/kitchen area which is on the same floor as our daughter’s handicapped-accessible bedroom.
I do not require the au pairs to clean the house. They only have to do one load of laundry per week. They are supposed to spend 100% of their time with the kids, unless the kids are home all day on a snow day or home all day sick. Most have been excellent about this. (Because their workday is usually labor intensive in caring for my daughter – they don’t have much time to “cheat.”)
My current au pair, however, admitted on a recent snow day that she didn’t spend any time with my son and had spent the day — when she wasn’t feeding or diapering my daughter – studying. While her reading and writing are excellent, her receptive and spoken English remain pretty basic, even after 6 months. I think my son has given up on her, so she has given up on my son. He admitted that he was pretty lonely on the recent snow day. None of his friends were available to play, and our AP is not permitted to drive in the snow (having never done so, and having shown absolutely no inclination to learn until now, two months after the snow has started to fall).
I went ballistic, mainly because I don’t want this AP to set the stage for my son’s relationship with future APs — that the AP is for my daughter and not for him. He’s a pretty self-reliant kid, and reads for pleasure with gusto, and plays easily by himself. However, no child should have to do this for 8 hours (only to have his mother come home and say, “I have to feed your sister,” because the AP’s tour of duty ends just before my daughter’s dinner).
We have guidelines, and one of them is no TV, computer or homework during working hours, unless it is an unanticipated day with the kids, and then in moderation. I am going to make the guidelines more specific – APs will need to engage the children directly on snowdays.
Fortunately, my son is now 9 and can respond to probing questions quite explicitly (and he knows how to care for his sister, even if he cannot yet physically do it).
I have to say that I just realized this ‘double standard’ fairly recently. When we first started out with APs, I tried very hard to always come across as ‘fair’. However, as we’ve gained more experience after several APs, I’ve recently realized that yes, there are some areas where I have different expectations for my AP than I do for myself. Especially in regards to how she spends her time with the kids. I agree with other posters that, while I certainly don’t ‘ignore’ my children, I feel like I am always multi-tasking and trying to get something else done while we are at home (cooking, straightening, going through mail, making appts, etc). While my au pair does not have any of these responsibilities, aside from straightening up after the kids and washing a few dishes here and there. I think I will definitely be more clear about this at the beginning for future APs, because I think this is something that an AP could easily interpret from their perspective, without realizing all of the other jobs that we parents have.
I simple explain it on my handbook. Though I should state just got my fourth au pair and have learned many lessons along the way, some harder than others. I put this in the handbook because like all the other moms I want him to be creative and engaged with his time withthe kids. He is only here for a year maybe two. This is his chance to be the best the newest, etc. I explain in my handbook that even though I’m on the cell phone, computer while I watch the kids its because I have things I have to get done. Personally we turn t.v. by 10 a.m. that is when dad is off to work I like music for my background noise. We are not perfect we watch more when we are sick or bad weather days. They understand and it helps when it is explained in their handbook. Live and die by the handbook!!! I swear it’s true.
I think telling your au pair not to watch TV during her worktime is absolutely fine, even if you as parents do it when the kids are with you!
As far as I remember, not watching TV during my working time was not explicitly mentioned in the rules that my hostparents wrote for me, but for me it was always clear that during my working time my responsibility was taking care of the kids and not watching TV.
My host parents always had the TV on when they were home, but even if they had forbidden me to watch TV when with the kids, I wouldn’t have had a problem with this. An au pair is paid for watching the kids, so she should put all her efforts in doing her job well! Parents have all the right to decide how they want to spend their time, just as the au pair should have the right to decide how she wants to spend her free (!) time.
So in this case, I don’t have any problems with double standards. But there is one thing where I did have a problem with double standards in my hostfamilies (before and after rematch): They always stated very clearly that I should make sure that the kids do not watch more than 30 minutes of TV a day, that they should not eat sweets… I always followed these rules and sometimes had a hard time making the children understand why I had to be so strict, so it sometimes felt like a slap in the face to see that their parents themselves didn’t follow their own rules just because they found it too exhausting. I understand that most parents are tired when they come home from work and that they need some time off and sometimes just don’t want to argue with their kids, but it was really frustrating to see that the children watched hours of TV and ate lots of sweets when with their parents, while I had to fight and argue with them to make sure that the parents’ rules were followed.
But back to the point: I as an ex- au pair think that you can absolutely write the “no TV”-rule in your handbook without worrying that this will harm your relationship with your new au pair! Good luck
Of course you can.
I told one of my not so good au pairs directly, that when I am with them, she should not use me as an example of her behavior with my kids.
I am the mother, and I have many jobs, I have to clean, cook, shop, pay bills, and be with kids at the same time in my “free time”, and that’s when I am done working at my 9-5 job.
Being with kids IS her 9-5 job so to speak, and after that in her free time she can do what she wants, but while she is “at work” she has to do what I ask and how I ask it, and give all her attention to the kids.
I don’t let my kids watch more than 30 min a day and a total of 1 hour a week of videos or any form of animated entertainment (when she is with them), but if I am with them on Sun and say not feeling well, I can rent an hour and a half kid movie on iTunes for them and let them watch all that in one shot.
I think the “no TV-rule” can be easily applied and I don’t think the au pair should be too upset. One of the reasons, besides “it’s her job to watch the kids, not the TV” is that many young girls from different countries barely have any interest in American TV. Most of them don’t speak good enough English, they are not familiar with all those popular shows, and watching American morning news is not so fun for them, trust me. I speak a good English, spent over 2 years in this country and still barely watch any TV and so do my friends. Movies are a different story, and most of young girls from any countries like them. But English language makes them complicated, they need to focus, “guess” what are those people talking about, so why bother?
I have another question, though. Do you mind if your au pair is listening to the radio or her ipod while on duty, including the music from her home country?
No I-Pods. Whomever is responsible for the children must be able to hear them at all times and if they are little to see them at all times. I had to ask my excellent au pair not to listen to her i-pod when she took my daughter for a walk in the stroller. That is especially dangerous but it never occurred to her. Plus, she should be talking with my daughter and interacting with her, not tuning her out with headphones on. So even with really great au pairs sometimes these things need to be pointed out because they don’t have that mother’s paranoia thing that we do! But when my daughter is napping and if all the tasks for the day get done than my au pair can do whatever she wants during the nap times except leave the house of course.
I’m all for iPods, especially music from your home country so long as it is being played from a computer and the kids can hear the music as well. My only rule there is if there is any music in english that it is a clean version of a song, nothing with explicit language. Many of au pairs have brought music from their home countries with the sole intention of sharing it with our kids.
That’s also why we, as adults, don’t watch our shows when the kids are around. While I may love The Bachelor, its certainly not something my kids need to watch… I tend to be pretty strict as far as TV watching goes, paying attention to the ratings as well as screening shows on my own to listen to the language, tone and content but I don’t have a set time of how much the TV can be on; we all rely on it for background noise. As with all parents, there are things that I am OK with and other things that I am not. Language, disrespect and attitude are off limits while I can generally tolerate things like some cartoon violence for an older child. My son is almost 8 and he has learned long ago the channels that may be on when his 3 yo sisters are around.
We now have a discussion with the au pair about appropriate music to listen to when the kids are around (after my 5 year old started singing “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick, disco stick” – thanks to Lady Gaga and our disaster au pair. I give them this example and they all seem to understand that music needs to be carefully chosen and some stuff out there needs to be “filtered” for the kids.
NW Mom, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it! That is one of the songs that I always quickly flip to a different radio station if it comes on when the kids are in the car. My 3 yo’s love to sing I’ve Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas…pretty funny but they only know 2 lines of the song.
In fairness, a non-English speaker hearing the phrase ‘disco stick’ probably isn’t going to associate it with it’s actual meaning! :p
I had a similar issue with “BarbieGirl” I guess APs english is not developed enough to understand that “you can comb my hair, undress me anywhere” isn’t really what I want my 5 yo DD singing! She still doesn’t get it and we are at the point now of just outlawing anything but pre-approved CDs
my host family and i agreed on “clean” radio stations that could be played in the car when i was driving the kids. the music was always in the background though so that we could still have a conversation. occasionally, we would turn the music up and sing along if there was a song playing that the kids liked.
i agree that ipods should be banned during working hours and it is ok imho to not allow her tv/computer access during on-duty times. if she is off-duty but watching the tv when the kids are around the shows should be child appropriate. unless she watches tv in her room where i believe it should be ok for her to tell the kids to give her some quiet time for herself.
A bit off topic, but something to make you laugh
:
I loved the movie “Mamma Mia!”. And so I got the CD with the soundtrack. As my host kids liked it too,we listened to it while in the car. One time, we had the song “I need a man after midnight” on… So the 6-year-old asks why the girl needs a an after midnight. Oh boy! I never thought about ABBA songs being “dangerous”… I told her that she wanted to stay up late and needed a drive home (lame, I know…), to which she answered “She wants a kissing boy, right?!”. Well, yes, you got it girl *g*
Good thing my HPs thought it was quite funny, too.
After that, I carefully listened to all the songs we heard on the radio or somewhere else.
My kids sing along with MANY songs in Portuguese, and there are Spanish presets on the radio in the car I share with our Au Pair. As long as the music isn’t misyogynistic, I encourage it.
I-pods are so isolating, though, that I think I prefer using the radio or the stereo in the living room to plugging herself in and “tuning out” while on duty at the house. I find them anti-social. Fine when you’re off duty, of course, but not while watching the kids.
iPods on duty are not acceptable.
I often listened to the radio while watching the kids, but would never use my iPod (or anything else with earplugs!) when responsible for kids, who knows what could happen just because I can’t hear the kids or am too distracted to pay attention to them for just a few minutes!
When I asked a question, I meant playing ipod music on a device with speakers, ihome for instance. That makes it almost like a radio, just with no commercial breaks:)
Being au pair, I used to plug my ipod in the ihome, and nobody had any problems with that.
All right, that makes a difference
I think as long as it doesn’t distract you from taking good care of the kids, it should be fine (as long as the music/the lyrics are okay for the children!)
That is fine- no problems there! I meant, iPod with ear buds in. I DID have an AP do that while she was working. In fact there were times that she’d complain that she missed stuff (like the gong in the kitchen!, )but oh, yeah.. Had on her headphones, and couldn’t hear anything.
Yes, you are the parent. There will be double standards. She can’t have the car out all night, she cannot have boys overnight, she may not talk on her cell phone and drive (my dh does this constantly), etc.
The way I’ve handled it is to mention at the outset that she will see us doing things that we have specifically told her she may not do. We recognize this may seem hypocritical at first, but we have MANY obligations as parents that she does not have and so we, as a practical matter, require more deviation. And, we are the parents, so that’s that. I try to approach the whole issue in a very friendly, humorous, but still direct way.
None of our au pairs have had an issue with the inconsistency and, frankly, nor should they. We permit plenty of flexibility for them if kids are sick, weather is really bad for days and everyone is stuck inside, etc., so they are free to solicit us if they need to bend the rules here and there which is of course understandable.
I’m with you. And as we tell our kids, “When you’re a parent, you get to make the rules for your family.” Our years of life experience have given us the right and lots of knowledge to be able to make decisions that you may not agree with, but that’s just the way life goes – get over it!
Personally, I dislike television and rarely watch it myself. I consider it an enormous waste of time and brain power. My daughter never watches it with me (not that she’s interested) and my son never gets more than his hour (or on weekends and holidays – 2 hours) regardless.
I always tell pregnant moms that giving birth is the easy part – raising them to be people with whom you actually want to spend time is the hard part.
Today I was released from work early (anticipated snow), and modeled for my au pair behavior that I wish she was use with my son. I called out to him as soon as he came in from the bus and welcomed him. We chatted. Then, I cajoled him into going to the Library with me (it was work, it took effort on my part, but I didn’t give up as I think she often does when he shows disinterest in an activity), and then I made a batch of cookies with him. I did not watch TV or study in front of him (in fact, I closed my textbook as soon as he came home, to make it clear to him that I welcomed his presence).
While we as parents juggle more than we expect our au pairs to do, I do think it is important that we try to maintain the same standards. If I want my son to have an independent life as an adult, he has to start learning to do all of the things that go into maintaining a household — not all at once, but as he can handle them. He needs to learn to cook, to clean, to do laundry so that when he leaves the home he has skills for life. Encouraging him to participate in my activities, even though they slow me down, will serve both of us better in the long run. (Granted he’s 9, and it’s a lot easier than when he was 2 or 3, but I didn’t plug him into the TV when he was younger either.)
We do have a rule in our house that our children have to obey the rules of the person in charge, and we give guidelines to the au pair as to what the rules should be (no running in the road, no eating in the living room, being polite and respectful), but we tell the au pair if that she considers some of our rules too lenient and make her uncomfortable, she may be more strict. There are some to which are firm, and one of them is limiting exposure time to media.
I think if your rules vary too widely between parents and au pair that your children will be confused by them. You unwittingly set up the au pair to be the baddie and encourage their bad behavior to get what they want from you – more TV, more sugar, more whatever.
I agree that as a host parent there cannot be this great divide and exaggeration between what you do and the au pair is allowed to do. That being said, however, I don’t think we are talking about as host parents plugging our kids into TVs or bribing them with sugar cookies whenever we are home. I’m sure we all strive to limit the TV watching and other mind numbing activities, but the reality is that there are often times when these can be used as tools keep the kids safe while I’m occupied with another priority. I’m thinking more on a much grander scale — yardwork, snow shoveling, household repairs — stuff you simply cannot do effectively or safely with a child around (or at least a child under 5) and that an au pair, regardless of State Department regs, would ever be asked to do by any reasonable host parent.
It’s important to note in this regard that the double standard works both ways, as is mentioned below. Although au pairs are part of our families, there’s no question that stops when it comes down to the heavier household lifting. And, of course, our roles are totally different. My au pair’s time is not divided between mulitple priorities during her time with the kids. Mine often is.
If I don’t expect the au pair to have tv on when the kids are awake, and she is ‘on duty’, then I don’t do it either. I am not a big proponent of tv, and frankly, I don’t want my children to get into that habit. It becomes a double standard, or which many au pairs can become resentful. I have heard a few complain about things that they are not allowed to do (such as internet while on duty) that the host parent will do. When it comes to tv, there are too many adult subjects, commericals, etc that the children can be needlessly exposed to. Perhaps the new host mom needs to reconsider her own actions in light of hosting an au pair. With all the noise in the world that children will be exposed to- such as ipods, games, etc as they age, perhaps not always having the tv as background can be good. You will be surprised at how much you can get done without it.
I think you should understand that your Au Pair is also an adult. She/he is already compromised by the fact that she is living in your house and has limited decision making abilities. This issue of the television is something I feel you could give up in order to set a better impression and example for the Au Pair. As someone who once worked as an Au Pair I will say that observing the interaction between the parents and the children in the beginning was one of the most important tools that I got. Honestly, should you choose to insist that you deserve this privilege and she does not, don’t be surprised when your Au Pair thinks of you as illogical and unfair.
Notimportant,
If you want privileges distributed equally, why not responsibilities too? After all my au pair is the third adult living in the household. Then let her do her share of cooking for the family, taking out the trash to the curb, grocery shopping and house and toilet cleaning. I don’t ask for that. I don’t share housework equally. So I don’t share privileges equally either, because I am doing housework if I let my kids watch a movie on the computer (and we don’t even have a TV in the house).
I just feel that if I were working for you and you couldn’t give up something as small as the tv even after forbidding me to watch it, I might think of you as illogical and inconsistent. Of course I can understand when it comes to inviting people over or using a car. But honestly, the tv?
The family I worked for held themselves, the children, as well as me to the same standards. If they did otherwise, they always gave a more legitimate explanation than “because I have more responsibility than you”. I also shared many of the responsibilities with the mother even when I was not working but there is a limit to what responsibilities I could take part in, such as taking the children to the doctor or paying the bills. But, yet I still had the same basic rights as every member of the family.
It is of course your house and you can make the rules.
Except for the fact that in the US you are not allowed to make the au pair do cleaning(probably because too many families abused this chore), you could probably ask her to cook some meals and do some grocery shopping.
I second Anna’s post! I think that is a very true, but often overlooked point – that an au pair does not have anywhere near the amount of household responsibilities that the host parents have. I think that is fine and it makes sense (it is ‘our house’, after all), however, I think APs typically don’t have any awareness of this. APs can see these types of situations (double standards or different sets of rules) as “unfair”, without seeing the bigger picture. And it’s one of those things that is very hard for a host parent to point out to their AP without sounding like we’re complaining. It’s probably a tough concept for the AP to grasp though, until they actually experience life as a parent, or at least running their own household and everything that comes with it (grocery shopping, cleaning, paying bills, laundry, the list goes on…). I sometimes think , ‘if only I knew how much free time I used to have before we had kids!!’
I think most au pairs do the kids’ laundry as part of their job. Also taking out trash, buying groceries, cleaning etc is something i would think most au pairs help their host families do!? i know i did and i know most of my au pair friends did as well.
that being said i think it’s only fair to tell the au pair not to have the tv on during working hours. my host family had a no-tv-rule during the day and that was fine by me.
Not necessarily. I’ve had plenty of au-pairs that were slow to even put the kids’ laundry away after HD and I washed it. (Most of them, in fact). Most of them never do much in the way of cleaning either- kids’ toys just get thrown wherever, nevermind actually putting stuff where it should go. Garbage? I think of the 15 or so au-pairs I’ve had, 3 have actually taken out the garbage.
Honestly, I appreciate when they do that stuff. I praise them. I say thank-you, but most never get it.
Kids’ laundry folded and put away — yes. all of them, pretty promptly.
picking up and putting toys away in right places — variable.
I have NEVER had an au pair either help me haul garbage and recycling to the curb, or take a full kitchen trash bag out to the can (even ones with stinking, rotten meat that hits you like a green cartoon cloud the minute you open the front door. Does one not smell stench in your 20’s?). I have had one of them who would occasionally pull the empty cans back behind the hedge after the trucks had come (could count on one hand how many times it happened, though).
(I don’t want my au pair taking my kids to doctor. That’s definitely a parent job.)
We have a triple-standard in our house! I hate TV and only use it during the day if DD2 is asleep and DD5 needs to be quietly occupied. AP is not allowed to use TV during the day at all. And HD apparently will die if the IV is not on at all times whilst he is present in the building! LOL or at least it seems that way because he can’t walk past it without turning it on. AP gets to see my displeasure with DH and his TV thing (he doesn’t even watch it!) and she knows what the rules are. There are lots of things in our life like this – I have strong opinions and fixed rules and he agrees in principle but breaks the rules constantly (he can’t stand to say no). Any AP who is going to survive with us has to realize that the rules are the rules and while I won’t divorce DH for making my life harder, I will rematch for an AP that does. Do as we say, not as we do.
We have a similar set-up. I’m not that into TV, while my husband couldn’t survive in a house without one. To be honest, when I was a new mom with my first child, I had the best of intentions to limit tv time and make sure it is always 100% appropriate and educational. Well, real life and another child later, I admit we do have the tv on quite a bit. While I certainly don’t plug the kids into it so that I can ignore them (and expect our AP not to do that either), it is extremely helpful to have them watch Barney for 30 minutes while I cook dinner. Otherwise, I’d have my 3 yr old literally clinging to my leg while I’m putting a very hot pot on the stove. Sure, we could probably live with less tv time, but frankly it’s not at the top of my list of concerns.
It’s definitely ok to have double standards about things like the telly being on, just not about the big rules that kids can pick up on. Like AP can’t give the kids sweets or must enforce certain amount of hours spent reading/doing activity books but the HP’s don’t enforce these things themselves when they’re home with the kids during the week.
My HF doesn’t have any rules about me having the telly on during the day and i like background noise so it’s almost always on one of the satellite radio channels.