Does the punishment fit the crime here?

by Texas HM on June 4, 2019


First off, let me just say that I am not a fan of judging the decisions or policies of other host families. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa and that is your business and ultimately only you can decide what your family is comfortable with and can/will tolerate. But… since this AP admits her mistake and wants to poll the group for context on how other families would view this situation and react I figured we could hear her out if she is willing to accept the feedback! :)

“Hi. I’m an au pair and have been with my family for about 7 months now.
Recently, they went on holidays for a weekend and I stayed at home alone. I asked them if my friend who was coming to visit from my home country could sleep here. They said no and I understood their decision. However, during her visit, the place I arranged for her to stay in, didn’t open the door at around 4am. My first instinct was to bring her to my house and let her sleep here and we’d be both gone in the morning. I did that, texted my HF right away apologizing and explaining the situation. That my friend had no other resources and I couldn’t leave her out on the street.
When they came home from their holiday, they told me they were extremely unpleased and they want to fire me for breaking their trust. I apologized, explained my regret and poor handling of the situation and they still didn’t care.
Help me try to understand if I am the one who’s absolutely wrong here, or if they are overreacting. – Not Home Alone AP”

Did this AP make the right decision bringing her friend to the host family’s house? Is the host family overreacting in deciding to transition over this (assuming this is the only issue)? Does the fact that she notified the family, admitted the mistake and apologized make a difference here? What did this AP do right? What did she do wrong? What should she have done instead in this situation?

{ 13 comments }

Aspie Mom June 4, 2019 at 6:18 pm

The problem is she had already asked and the family gave her their answer. She made the choice to break their rule. Ultimately, the family sets the rules of the house. If she broke one rule, why should the family ever trust her to follow the rest of the rules? I think the AP had other options. At 4 am she and her friend could have gone to an all night breakfast place to have coffee or breakfast until the friend’s host was available. We could certainly discuss whether the family had other options, but I don’t think they are outside of their rights to let her go.

TexasHM/CCAP LCC June 4, 2019 at 6:38 pm

Agreed. Host family was not at home and explicitly said friend could not stay at their house. My guess is (could be wrong) that the APs went out for the night thus the 4am heading to a hostel or whatnot that wouldn’t open the door.

I regularly tell my kids “your problem is not my problem” in an attempt to get them to realize that they need to attempt to fix things themselves and realize that what may seem urgent to them might not be at all for me. In this case, you made your problem their problem by bringing a stranger into their home even after they explicitly told you not to do so. This would have definitely caused a major strain on our relationship and triggered at least a support meeting (if you were an amazing AP that had no other issues). If there were any other cracks in the relationship this likely would have led us to transition as well.

Also your friend made her problem your problem but you allowed her to do so. She should have found another place to stay (not wanting to pay/wanting to save money does not override HF rules about guests). If you had a phone you could easily google other hostels, hotels, motels etc nearby. I’m not advocating for doing this but I’ve known APs that have slept in cars (especially if they got back late and leaving early) to save on hotel costs.

In this case you did what was more convenient for you/your friend rather than respecting your host family’s private home and relationship/trust in you. It’s a huge risk opening your home to a foreign stranger (just like it’s a huge risk coming halfway around the world to live with strangers!) and boundaries are boundaries. I have had several families in my group in the last year allow an AP to stay home and all of them made it very clear what the rules were and that if any of them were broken they were going to have to transition and all of them loved their APs so it’s not about them not doing a great job. Luckily all were very respectful and there were no issues but I have to assume those families meant what they said and would have transitioned if that trust was broken.

We all make mistakes. Learning from them is the key!

Gem June 4, 2019 at 10:12 pm

Dear Au Pair,

My answer depends a bit on why you are asking.

Your host family is within their rights to rematch because of this. They explicitly told you that your friend could not stay and that was obviously very important to them. Different families have different priorities.

In rematch, will this count against you? Yes, for some families and not as much for others. If there are no other red flags, my husband and I would be fine with it. From us, you get points for texting immediately and not trying to hide the situation. However, we don’t have any curfews for our au pairs nor do we ever limit guests (which apparently is unusual). We do have other requirements which I’m sure some au pairs would feel are completely unreasonable. Regardless, when talking to a prospective host family this situation is something that you should be prepared to talk about and take responsibility for. Don’t be defensive and don’t bad mouth your current host family.

Would I do the same thing as you? Probably, if I felt that was the safest option for my friend. However, that doesn’t mean I would be relieved from the consequences of my decision.

Momo4 June 5, 2019 at 11:38 pm

I completely agree with this.

Piro June 4, 2019 at 10:25 pm

For me this would not be a relationship I would want. I have been an AuPair and hosted AuPairs. Not allowing friends/family to stay in the house equals not trusting your AuPair. I don’t mean random strangers but friends from their home country. If the AuPair is to be part of family they should be able to host friends. Thus this dilema is hard for me to comment on as I think there is no trust between the host family and AuPair if the host family does not allow the AuPair to be the judge of a visitor (especially when the Host Family is out of town so it would not bother them).

TexasHM/CCAP LCC June 4, 2019 at 11:13 pm

I completely disagree. We’ve had many au pairs and many have had friends and family visit and they were more than welcome in our home – while we were there hosting them. They trusted their AP by allowing her to stay at their home alone – that takes a huge amount of trust – and trusted that she would respect their ask to not have anyone in their home while they were away and that trust was broken. We don’t know the whole story here – it’s possible things were shaky before this. It’s not about having someone in the house bothering you, it’s the liability of having anyone in your home. What if the guest breaks a toilet and floods the house causing thousands in damage? Steals something? Breaks a very expensive antique or TV? Gets injured? Drinks underage in the home and ends up in the hospital or any other crime is committed (host family could be held responsible it was on their property). It’s a huge risk leaving your AP at home alone but like you said many HFs trust their APs so are willing to make an exception and let them stay “home” alone but bringing ANYONE else into that mix regardless of where they are from is usually more risk than most host families are willing to bear.

Anna June 5, 2019 at 6:32 am

You don’t seem to understand that whether or not the offence is big in your eyes, you brike their trust. They have to trust you with their kid every day, and now they are not sure they can. They give you instructions about their kid, but now they are not sure that you will not substitute your judgment when it is convenient. They trust you to stay in their home, but now they are not sure they can. Of course rematch is a natural consequence of the loss of trust.
Please don’t tell us you didn’t have any other options for your friend. I presume you had a car, you could drive to a hotel or a motel. The problem is you treated your family’s Hime as an option, when they told you no.

SeattleHD June 5, 2019 at 8:46 am

Too much missing from the story.

Is not allowing friends to stay a general policy or one they only started for this trip or for this au pair because of prior experiences?

What exactly led to the “locked out at 4 am” situation? Planes don’t land at 3 am.

In general we have allowed all kinds of friends to stay and wouldn’t have made that rule, and indeed would have taken the au pair with us on the trip anyway.

We even had another local au pair get locked out of her own house so she came to ours until the host family would be up the next morning (weird passive aggressive host family)

And finally there’s a safety issue – wandering the streets at 4 am is generally unwise, so I would rather they were safe than doing that, but again begs the question of why they were out and about at 4 am in the first place.

MarthaBoston June 5, 2019 at 1:36 pm

Agree with “not enough information” in order to make a full determination if this is an overreaction. We’re only getting one side here.
In my opinion, if the AP is responsible enough to watch my children, then I will extend the courtesy of letting a friend sleep over for a night even if I’m not home. On the other hand – I am sure that the HF had reasoning to not let the friend sleep over.
Beyond that, I think it was the kind/human thing to let the AP friend sleep over… I can’t tell why the friend wasn’t able to access their sleeping arrangements at 4am (going out and raging and getting locked out of a hostel is different than something like a delayed flight where she was locked out of a hostel for not checking in at a normal hour). I can’t see where it’s appropriate to not offer a place for the friend to crash for a few hours from a safety perspective.
Hotels are not going to let someone book a room at 4am (they typically do their night audit around 2am for the night so the system won’t let you book someone for that night after the night audit is run). I would also give a slight edge to the AP for letting the HF know as soon as it happened – it could’ve been easy for the AP to not say anything (assuming there are no cameras in the house) and HF would’ve never known, but I as an HF definitely appreciate honesty and transparency, even when I might not like the actual facts of the situation.

Jennc June 5, 2019 at 3:58 pm

Well I’m wondering was this a male guest ? That may be a major discomfort thing . Aupair should have made plans to stay with her friend elsewhere. But it’s possible host family also requires her to be home to supervise house too who knows . Otherwise I think that if you have an adult living in your house and they otherwise make good decisions and are trusted to keep your kids safe and have a friend over for a weekend night shouldn’t be a big deal. Sorry but sounds also like possible over the top host parents. Yes everyone is entitled to their house and rules but I hear so many asinine rules from host families . My aupair coming to me really isn’t even allowed to have friends because of “ safety issues for host kids” . Ultimately she broke their rules whether stupid or not or whatever their reasoning … if she’s a good aupair in every other way then they sound like they’re Being a little melodramatic but I’m a 7 or 8 year host pArent with 3 kids and had real issues both with aupair, my own family etc so this seems tiny to me. Yeah wait till your own kids really break your trust .

PhillyMom June 5, 2019 at 7:56 pm

No matter how we will try to look at this issue- you broke your family trust in you. We all have different requirements and rules (we would allow our Au Pair relatives to stay with us, but not friends), and you have asked for permission for your friend to stay, but nevertheless went against their will. I am also wondering , what would happen if something like flood or fire happened in the house and would homeowners insurance cover it even though it was not caused by the family?

Momo4 June 6, 2019 at 9:21 am

I have to agree with the “not enough information given” view point.

Over the years I have decided that there is no house rule so restrictive or ridiculous that there isn’t a HF out there who has it. Rules are rules, and the type of HF who has really strict rules is also likely to enforce them equally strictly, be rigid in their interpretation and unwilling to make exceptions.

Personally, I have no curfews, always let AP friends and family stay over, and an extremely laid back and tolerant HP. I think that what this AP did sounds reasonable give the circumstances she presents, and although I might be annoyed that she and her friend didn’t have better back up plans, I would consider it part of the “life experience” that people at this age are in the process of acquiring. (Admittedly, dealing with the “learning experiences” of APs can be one of the most aggravating aspects of hosting.)

But it may also be that her HF has 7 months worth of built up annoyances, things that in and of themselves never seemed worth making a big deal out of but which are all adding up, and this is the final straw. Of course ideally the family would deal with each of these annoyances as they arose, but we all know it’s easier to say than do.

From the moment I first talk with my AP I am continually assessing them. What is their attitude, their work ethic, how reliable are they, what is their relationship to time, authority and rules, how do they relate us, how helpful are they even when it is not part of the job, how are they likely to respond to different situations, what are their friends like and what is their relationship to these friends like… All these and more factor in to my overall assessment of them, and my sense for how much I feel I can trust them in different circumstances. Trust is not a monolithic single thing, it is multifaceted and circumstantial. I may very well trust my AP to pick the kids up from school and bring them home safely, but not trust them to drive the car out of state.

At 7 months in, behavioral patterns are well established. By this point you really know how you feel about your AP, whether they are one of your rockstars, just barely adequate, or somewhere in between; and also when your AP may be starting to get sick of the job. But there are still months to go… If your AP is really great at 7 months, and there have been no problems, it’s hard to imagine why you would rematch over something like this, unless there were more issues and you were looking for a reason to rematch in which case this might just be a good excuse to do so.

So I have to think there are more sides to this story, and without knowing them it is hard to do anything but speculate about the situation.

Taylor B. June 19, 2019 at 5:29 pm

If I trust my AP, this wouldn’t bother me and if I were completely happy up until this point, I would not ask for a rematch. We give our AP the same rules we give our older kids and this would have been perfectly acceptable for our older kids, therefore, perfectly acceptable for our AP.
To me, it also sounds like there is more to the story and maybe this was the tip of some built up frustrations.

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