A Host Mom writes:

Hello! I am writing because I have a bit of a princess situation on my hands — a princess situation with nuance. I am looking for advice on how to try to make this work.

Our new AP, 19 years old, arrived about a month ago from a Western European country. She is our 3rd AP – 1st was wonderful, but left to return home to university after nine months. 2nd was horrible – simply put, was mean to my kids. She didn’t even last a month with us. Had a temporary nanny for three months until new AP’s arrival.

I already have two kids. I don’t want a third. I want to be able to feel comfortable leaving AP in charge. How long do we give this situation to work? What else can we do to help her grow up and toughen up? Thanks so much for your advice!

My focus in interviewing for this AP was to be sure that we found someone who was nice and gentle. It was also important to us that she be committed to developing a social infrastructure here quickly. She is nice and gentle – she is good with the kids (obviously this is the most important thing to us and the reason that we’re not willing to rematch at this point) – and has already made lots of friends.

The issue is, I think, in how she was raised and the expectations that has created in her mind; instead of the princess mindset coming from “I deserve this,” instead, I think it’s just how she has learned to be treated. She is certainly not self-sufficient. I think her parents doted on her. I think they coddled her and treated her as a child and she simply was raised to expect those things from “parents.” We were very upfront about our expectation that she join our family as an adult, with all of the attendant responsibilities.

I think she is experiencing culture shock of a different type – the shock that comes with having “adult” expectations thrust upon her.

We have addressed each issue as it arose and have been firm and consistent. She seems to understand each time I provide this feedback and mostly works to rectify the issue. She’s never been negative to me about the feedback.

It’s just that as we address one issue, another comes up! I don’t think she realizes her sense of entitlement. I have been at the point multiple times where I believe that there really can’t be any more issues to address, then another crazy one comes up.

A few examples of the “princess” behavior:

Again, she is good with the kids, but each issue has caused me to question her underlying sense of responsibility – her ability to have my kids’ interests at heart at ALL times, versus her own kid-like (self-absorbed) interests.

I trust her at home with the kids, with me here (I work from home). I do not trust her to walk my oldest to school. I do not trust her to take my youngest out in the stroller. I don’t think she could handle a morning without my husband or me working alongside her to get everyone ready. My husband and I have been upfront about this and have told her that she needs to work to gain that trust.

I have kept our LCC in the loop and she will talk with AP as well (I asked her to do this yesterday).

Dear Host Mom —

You seem to be putting a lot of effort into being positive and optimistic, so I feel a little mean in saying this but –  Rematch.

Unless you have already seen your au pair start to ‘get it’ and start to take on a more adult and self-sufficient approach to things, you need to rematch. You are not going to be able to change her perspective and her behavior very quickly, if at all. It will take a lot of effort to nudge her towards self-sufficiency; this effort may or may not pay out in the end, but it will take a lot out of you. If you don’t want another child, you need to get a different au pair.

Your situation is exacerbated by your being a work-at-home parent. As long as you are in the house you are theoretically her safety net. She doesn’t have any psychological incentive to be self-sufficient, because you will always be there. And, you don’t have the opportunity to just leave her alone to work things out, which a work-outside the house parent would. She doesn’t have the upbringing, and you don’t have the work situation, that will move her towards self-sufficiency with any urgency.

Even if you put all the ‘princess’ concerns aside, you comment about not trusting her to get the basic job done would have urged me to suggest rematch. When you can’t trust an au pair to do the job, you should not keep that au pair.

I appreciate that you tried very hard to find an au pair that had the loving qualities that were so lacking in the au pair who came before her. That you were concentrating on qualities you really needed, and somehow missed whatever signs of a princess that this au pair might have displayed, probably makes it harder to recognize that this relationship cannot be saved.  (Dear Host Mom, that list of examples is to long to be “a few”.)

Start planning for a rematch.

Get the kind of childcare help and au pair relationship that you need and that you deserve.

See also:

Choosing an Au Pair: How to Avoid a Princess
Choosing Your Next Au Pair: Beware of the Contrast Effect
Classic Case: We’re in rematch… Now what?
Have you ever regretted that you initiated a rematch?

Images: Princess Kitty from Mi’Tu Princess Kitty from emilybean

Seasonal Schedule Shift Syndrome:

AuPairMom’s fancy name for “when your au pair gets grumpy because all of a sudden the whole schedule changes, and now s/he has to work an occasional Saturday night.”

When school ends and ‘summertime’ begins, family schedules change.

Rhythms for your kids’ days may change, as may your own work schedules. And, your au pair’s work schedule will change align with everyone else’s.

Supposedly, at some point in our parenting journey, we host parents start to get the gist of the seasons and what they mean to family coordination, and begin to plan ahead. I have not quite hit this place, but I  look forward to it.

For host parents, the Seasonal Schedule Shift means that you have to reorganize daily schedules and weekly rhythms, add or subtract lunch, snack and dinner-making, calculate your au pair’s on & off duty hours and patterns, and get a whole new set of activities coordinated and organized. You want to do this smoothly, because you want it to be easy for kids to transition from a school-year to summer-time schedule without feeling disrupted or out of control.

(Note: Even the schedules of very little kids change with the seasons. The seasonal shift may correspond with new nap times, new playdate times, the end of Kindermusik and the start of the kiddie pool, etc. So it’s not all due to ‘school’.)

I think many of us host parents overestimate the degree to which an au pair (or anyone else in the family for that matter) is thinking ahead as the seasons change. In my family it always seems to come as a surprise that school is ending, day camp is upon us, the town pool closes at 7 on Mondays, and that the library has great craft activities.

For au pairs, the Seasonal Schedule Shift can be problematic. Why?

• Au Pairs have to learn all the pieces of any new routine.

They’ve got the current schedule down, and now they have to learn something new. They may feel anxious about managing the day camp bus scene, or driving to the town pool, or whatever.

• Au Pairs have to adjust their own personal schedule to the family’s revised schedule.

This can be harder than you’d think, because we forget how hard au pairs work to coordinate their off-duty times with each other and build their social lives around who is off duty & when.

• There’s no guarantee that your kids and Au Pair will even get into a routine… Not all 10 weeks of summer vacation are spent dong the same things, and the schedule can change dramatically from week to week.

That means that the Tuesday afternoon spin class is no longer an option, because they now have to take kids to swim team practice. Until August, when we’ll be at the beach and you won’t be able to go to spin class at all.

• The amount of time that your au pair works may change.

Many of us with kids in school full time only use 30 or so au pair hours in a given week… but with shorter times at day camp, or weeks when there is no camp, or weeks when camp is a half-day, you may end up scheduling them to be on duty all 45 hours.

• You au pair’s total weekly on-duty hours may change.

Instead of having your au pair be off-duty every Saturday night because you’ve used up their on-duty time during your work week, day camp may free ups a few of his/her hours so that you can your DP can actually go out on a weekend day or evening.

If there is anything the average au pair resents, it’s something that messes with her social life– especially in summer, when livin’ (and partyin’) are supposed to be easier.

To Reduce Seasonal Schedule Shift Syndrome, try this:

1. Make each new routine as clear as possible. Write it down, organize it on a daily agenda, sketch it out on a weekly calendar.

2. Be as clear as possible about what hours s/he’ll be certain to be off-duty, and what times may be changing week to week.

3. Offer an overview of the full summer’s plans. Plot out what is expected all 10 weeks– to the best of your ability. Note when “Magic for Muggles” camp ends and “Robotics” camp begins. Mark changes in drop off & pick up times clearly on your family calendar.

4. Plan ahead to discuss changes in weekly on-duty hours. Be explicit about what it used to be, what it is going to be, and that this is fair.

As we’ve discussed before, the most difficult situations to manage are those where the Seasonal Schedule Shift means that your au pair will be working more hours and/or be on duty during desirable socializing hours. S/he will have to get used to the “new normal” and you’ll need to help with that.

For example, explain that the 30 hour weeks will end with school and that 45 hour weeks will be normal. Where work hours increase to a full 45 hours, acknowledge that this is more work, that pay stays the same, and that this is still fair. Be able, gently, to point out that the previous six months s/he has (only) worked 30 hours per week, which is 67% of a full week. Having it lighter before doesn’t mean this new schedule is heavy– it’s normal.

Even if you went over all of this before you matched with your au pair, even if s/he knows it all ‘intellectually’, there will still be some emotions involved in making the Seasonal Schedule Shift. Be prepared, be empathic, and be kind.

Seasonal Schedule Shift Syndrome is something we can anticipate, but it is not likely something we host parents can prevent. Changing our routines is hard, changing our work expectations is hard, and dealing with ongoing variation is particularly tough. And, it’s part of life.

The best we can do is:

• • Anticipate the issues
  • Be ready with plans and explanations,
  • Be available to ease the transitions, and
  • Make it as easy as possible for our au pairs to (continue to) do a good job.

Do you have other ideas for reducing Seasonal Schedule Shift Syndrome? Share them, below!

See Also:
When your Au Pair complains about working too many hours, but still less than 45… what can you do?
When Your Au Pair Breaks Your Psychological Contract
What’s the cure for “Summer Fever”?
It’s YOUR vacation, not hers. Okay?

Image: Zoe at the beach by mathewingram

We all want to be generous, and we all want to be appreciated. There’s nothing like having a third car for your au pair to use to make you aware of the tension that can exist when you want to be generous and want to be appreciated.

When we bought our first Volvo wagon to give our precious new baby a fancier, safer "ride" than my 8 yr. old Nissan, we decided to hold onto the Nissan and use it as an "Au Pair Car". Like the archetypal "station car" in a John Cheever story, the Nissan was intended only to get you there and back safely. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, but it ran well, was safe enough, and was in great shape.

Our first au pair drove respectfully and safely, as did our second, third, and fourth au pair. It wasn’t until our fifth au pair made a right turn from the left lane and smashed the front fender into someone else’s that the car started to look kind of junky. And it wasn’t until our sixth au pair that the third car was taken for granted.

Up until that sixth au pair (who was in every other respect a FABulous au pair), I really loved having that third car. It seemed like a nice ‘carrot’ to tempt a desirable au pair, it relieved me of having to coordinate my driving plans with my husband’s or the au pair’s, and I was never blasted out of my seat at ignition by a radio set at high volume and tuned to a heavy metal station. Quite an assortment of benefits!

But, when I discovered that our sixth au pair was driving to another state to follow her boyfriend’s band, explicitly and implicitly ignoring the rules about car use, I realized I had let it go too far. I had traded that sense of "one less hassle for mom" into "just another thing I’m supposed to have. And I can use it as I darn well please, thank-you-very-much."

So, we had to set up few new practices and rules. Here are some of the things we did, and that you can try, to reduce the sense that the "third car" is something your au pair is entitled to.

We changed the way we talked about the car.

1. We stopped calling the third car "the au pair car" or "your car". We started referring to the car as "the silver car". [Also, my husband and I trade off who drives which of the other two cars when we are home, so we don't have a situation where one car is "Mom's" and one car is "Dad's", leaving the third car implicitly to be the "Au Pair's".]

We began to vary who drove the car, so that it wasn’t always and only our au pair who drove it.

2. I started driving "the silver car" occasionally when it was last in the driveway or just more convenient (as long as I wasn’t putting out our au pair. It was and is still critical for her to feel that she is more or less free to come and go when she’s not on duty.)

3. I put a car seat in the back seat, and another spare car seat in the trunk. This was in part to make it possible for the au pair to take the kids somewhere in the silver car in an emergency, in case my husband and I both had taken the other cars with their car seats. Although our au pairs almost never took the girls anywhere in the third car, the car seat was another kind of reminder that this car was for the extended family, not just for the cute single girl and her friends.

4. When Grandma & Grandpa came to visit, they got dibs on the silver car too (never when our au pair was off duty). I paid for their gas. This way, the car was used as an ‘extra car’ for whoever needed it, and the need was negotiated. This helped make it less hers alone, and more like the 3rd car.

We asked our au pair to take a little more responsibility for car.

5. Also, we made it a practice to have our au pair take her car (oops, I meant) the third car out of the driveway in the morning to park it on the street, to continue to re-park it on the street when she went back and forth during the day, and then to pull it into the driveway last thing at night. This helped me and my husband not have to be car jockeys when we needed to get out of the driveway in a station wagon, and it also made the station wagons easy for the au pair to use for the kids when she was on duty.

6. We asked our au pair to take the car to get its oil changed and to check the tire pressure… in her on-duty time.

While this tactic might seem like a way to have the au pair take ownership for the car (and it may have done that) this was intended to encourage her to think of the car as something that cost money. We didn’t ask her to pay for the oil changes (we paid for that and other maintenance) but we did ask her to pay to have the car professionally washed and vacuumed. (Of course, when my parents in law came, I took the car to the carwash myself.)

We treated the car like an expensive and valuable family possession, not like some hand-me-down.

7. We reinforced the rules for using the car. We had always had the car curfew, a weekly mileage guideline and limited travel radius (7 miles around our house… including the nearest two malls but not including New York City). We began to be more consistent about applying these guidelines.

8. Also, we set up some guidelines around car-pooling with other au pairs so that other au pairs didn’t take advantage of either our au pair OR the third car. We didn’t want our third car to into the au pair clusters’ taxi, with our sweet au pair expected to drive everyone else. More on that in a forthcoming post.

9 We made it clear how much the car cost, and discussed it as an ‘on the job benefit’.

We told our incoming au pair how much the silver car was worth and how much extra it cost us to have a third car insured with an under-25 as the main driver. That really helped establish the car as an "extra", that we paid for it, and that it wasn’t something to be taken for granted. (Check the post on the cost of having an au pair to see how much this nets out to.)

Being Generous & Being Appreciated

Despite the fact that having a third car for our au pair is pretty generous, I’m sure that any au pair can find someone else with a nicer material situation. (Be sure to read the post on avoiding the "Amenities Arms Race" and the competition with other host families.)

We live in a town where there are many au pair families wealthier than ours, whose au pairs drive expensive SUVs and never pay for their own gas.  But there are also au pairs driving clunkers, sharing a mini-van, and riding the bus, the train, and the bike. For every au pair with a fancier ride, there’s another au pair who’s glad for a lift to Target and who is happy to chip in for gas.

There is often a tension between wanting to be generous and wanting to be appreciated… for both host parents and au pairs. This tension doesn’t have to be resolved just by managing the use of the spare car(s)— we can be generous in other ways (comfy room, occasional latte, a flowering plant on a rainy day) and ask that the privilege of a car be appreciated.

Ultimately, there are au pairs who will feel entitled and au pairs who will feel privileged. Happily in our family, we’ve had 9 au pairs who appreciated and enjoyed what we have been able to provide for them, and only two that behaved in ways that would have embarrassed their moms if their moms had only known.

It’s important to remind your au pair and yourselves that while there will be host families for whom the cost of a third car is nothing, for some of us that third car is an extra expense that is hard to justify.  We are now in the process of selling that third car, and so things will be changing in our family. With my husband commuting by train and my desire to reduce expenses, having a third car just so that I can avoid the hassle of negotiating who gets a car on Saturday afternoon (with two kids at soccer and an au pair off duty) seems like too much. But I’m ready to work on that.

For starters, I’m trying to make sure that I offer the material things that we can afford, and be even more generous in ways where money is irrelevant.

Are there other ideas that you have for helping your au pair appreciate the privilege of a third car? Do share…

Here is the original query from CT Mom:

How do you deal with use of the car when there is a 3rd car? We have a 3rd car, so obviously there is no need to “share” the car. Our current au pair is new (our last one just ended her year with us) so we’d like some ideas so this doesn’t become an issue this year.  For those with 3rd cars, please share your car rules! Thanks.

I need advice about car usage for our au pair. Our au pair has been with us for a little over 7 weeks now. She is doing a great job and has really blended well with our family. Part of her duties (driving) are to drop-off/pick-up our children from school 3 days a week & take them to a set weekly playdate. She is a good driver and we haven’t had any problems.

We have been completely flexible with personal usage of either of our cars, but I feel like this privilege is being a bit over used and need some advice.

A few details:

Our au pair is currently taking her first class ( to fulfill her education requirement), so of course she has usage of a car for this. She needs to travel 112 miles (roundtrip) for her class once a week, but also goes to some local churches 4 nights a week for ESOL classes (about 20 miles roundtrip for each), used a car to go to the gym every day on her break (about 6 miles roundtrip), and also uses a car several times a week to visit with friends, go to the mall, etc. on her days off.

Here is my dilemma:

• She is putting a lot of miles on the car weekly for personal/social usage. I am constantly getting in the car with a 1/4 to almost empty tank each time (I fill the car up at the beginning of every week). We want her to feel comfortable and be able to socialize, etc., but every single day of using a car is getting to be a bit much.
• Also, my husband travels a lot for his job, so there are many times when there is just one car here and if she is using it, I am homebound with the children.
• I’m also concerned about the wear & tear on our cars.

Can anyone help me with some “fair” limits for car usage? I really want to be fair and don’t want to be a monster about it, but I feel like I have a teenager in the house!
Anna

I think the simplest thing to start with, is to have her ask your permission every time she wants to take a car. It makes sense especially because there is no specially designated “au pair car”, but you only have two cars, yours and your husband’s. So, the rule is – if the car is home, you can’t take it and go.

The usage priority is the parent’s, and you have to first ask if they need it and if they mind you taking it, and you have a full right to give conditional permissions – i.e. she can use it but has to bring it home by hour X.

As to gas, asking her to pay for personal gas usage is normal. You are not obligated to pay for that. You might want to help out if you live in the boonies, but its totally optional and is a perk. I don’t ask my au pair to pay for personal gas usage, but she uses the car very little, and never has to go very far (we live in a very lively and well -connected area). We also just have to cars – mine and my husband’s, and she always asks.

Franzi

i’m with anna, you should talk to your ap about the car use. especially when you need the car as well. if you establish an “ask before use” policy i think all sides should be clear about each other’s plans and needs.

if she is so busy socially (which is great to some extent) then maybe she can be picked up by one of her friends from time to time.
E2

We’re having a similar issue with car use right now…our au pair has been with us for a few weeks and is behaving as if the car is hers.

We’ve asked her to ask us first before using the car, but will need to reinforce this. We found with previous au pairs that if you don’t control the car use right away it becomes an entitlement and then correcting the behavior becomes a “big issue.”

We also ask our au pair to keep a log of miles driven and then to put in gas when she goes a certain number of miles. Worked ok with an organized au pair, but I’m not sure our current au pair has even written anything down.

Momof4

Thank you for your responses, it really helps!

I sat down with our au pair tonight and discussed the car usage. We went over her current routine of car usage and discussed mileage, etc.

She was a little defensive in the beginning because two of the girls she has befriended in our cluster have their own cars and two of her friends from her country who arrived when she did (also au pairs in the area) also have their own cars. She is under the impression that they don’t have any limits, etc. I have no idea! She also told me that ALL au pairs that she knows are given their own car.

Anyway, instead of having to keep track of all of her mileage, we came to the agreement that she can just pay x amount of money each week for gas based on her current usage, and when/if that changes we can definitely revisit the issue.

We also decided that if there is only one car here, she needs to find another mode of transportation (i.e. friend, etc.) so there is always a car here for emergencies or for me or my husband to be able to take the children out.

I talked to our LCC to brainstorm about it. She is going to chat with our au pair about how car usage iIs a priviledge and not a given.

We don’t live in the boony’s, but you do need a car to get to places in our area. All of the shopping malls, YMCA, etc. are within 3 to 8 miles from our house, so nothing is very far.

We have also established an “ask before you use the car” rule, so hopefully, that will help. I did ask her to try to give us some notice if she is going to want to use the car for a special outing, etc. because she is currently just coming down the stairs when she’s about to leave and asking for car keys without any notice. I had to say no today and she got really frustrated.

I don’t think she has any concept of how expensive cars are (we have an SUV & a minivan because we have 4 kids) or how expensive car insurance is, especially when you add a foreign driver. She doesn’t come from a poor family and had her own car in her country, so I think the having to have rules about car usage is annoying to her.

Anyway, wish us luck and thank you again for all of your responses!!
counselor

… Regarding the car. All host families should set the rules for the use of the car and everything else in advance and present a list of rules to the Au Pair in the beginning, or better during the matching process already. This sort of thing that happened to Mom of 4 and E2 is common. Au Pairs easily get the sense of entitlement if you don’t set the rules in advance.

You don’t need to feel bad about not having a designed Au Pair car. Around 50% of my host families don’t. The other 50% of Au Pairs get access to host mom or dad’s car.

Franzi

Mom of 4 and E2: it is true that setting up rules for the car after the au pair has been in the home for some time and had freedom of use will put some strain on the relationship.

Yes, having a car is a privilege not a given, however, if there were no rules before, the circumstance of having such easy access to a car can easily be taken as given.

From the point of view of an au pair it might feel like being “lured” into a match, (if the car was offered as …) with the car dangling as a carrot, and suddenly, there are rules and limits.

For your next match, i would already make the rules clear during the matching process. if you don’t want to seem too strict, explain why you set these rules. for example, my first family had a curfew on the car (not for me though). They explained this with the over-usage of the previous au pair who took the car over night without letting the family know where the car would be parked etc. that makes it easier for the future au pair to understand where your limits are regarding car usage.

Once the AP is in your family and proves to be reliable, rules might change. As for now, making the rules clear is all you can do, i think.