Privacy and Your Room
Principle: Bedrooms are private space, and we should all do our best to respect each other’s privacy in other parts of the home.
- We will respect the privacy of your bedroom and, if at all possible, enter it only with your permission or in case of emergency.
- You should not enter our bedroom without permission. This is an important boundary to respect, because it’s an important way that we all maintain a sense of privacy. Often if we are in our bedroom or in the family room, we close the door only part way because we want to be able to hear the girls if they need us. When this is the case, just treat it as though the door is closed.
- You are responsible for cleaning (vacuuming/dusting) your room, your bathroom, the third-floor hallway, and when necessary the third-floor landings (stairs). Please vacuum once a week with the serious purple vacuum (not the “Dustbuster”, which isn’t really powerful enough). Please let us know if anything in your room breaks or seems to need repair, or you need anything.
- Be aware of making noise with music or the TV, and let us know if we’re making too much noise. We’ll consider 8 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. as quiet time.
- Don’t leave open food containers or dirty dishes in your room.
- No open flames, candles or incense in the bedroom or bathroom.
- In the summer, turn your air conditioner off when you leave your bedroom. In the winter, do not leave windows or doors open when the heat is on. Turn hall lights off.
- Please respect our privacy and don’t talk about our family business with other people. We will also respect your privacy in this regard.
- Be respectful of the neighbors in regard to making noise outside, especially at night or early in the morning. Ask your friends not to honk their horns in the driveway or on the street. If they’re coming to pick you up, asked them to come to the door. Also, when you are expecting friends, keep your ear open for the doorbell or for their knock. Often, we are otherwise engaged and not really available to answer the door.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I am looking for some suggestions…
We are looking to have some space away from our au pair on her time off. I have heard of au pairs that go out with their friends, go out to eat on their time off, but ours hangs around the house esp on her full-day off, she has expressed that she is trying to save her allowance. I even got her a local gym membership so she would have a place to go. She often comes to us during her down time to socialize or ask us questions. In the beginning we were okay with this, but months in, as a family we really need our home to ourselves once in a while. I don’t want to hurt any feelings. Any suggestions are appreciated.
@ mk, are there any free activities going on in your town? is there a magazine that informs you on events at bars/theaters/parks etc.
unless you live in the boonies, there’s always something to do that does not cost much or nothing at all.
i would talk to her about maybe taking 25 dollars of the allowance aside to spend each week. after all, she is working and she should be spending what she earned. i understand her saving attitude, but i think she will be out more when she realizes that she can have a fun night with friends that only cost her a coke or coffee (eg poetry slam at a cafe). it’s important she gets to take some time off (and allows herself to unwind). that doesn’t seem to be happening or is she a couch potato that doesn’t want to do anything?
in general, i think the bedroom issue is very sensitive. just as much as hostparents want their privacy, the AP wants it too. and this is a concept that sometimes the children don’t understand. i believe the AP room is like a magical place. kids know it’s off limits so they go there deliberately. it’s important for the parents to step up and make it clear that this is AP’s room and up to her to allow the kids in. and when she is not home the room is off limits.
i know that many AP’s feel uncomfortable when they notice that someone has been in their room or went through their stuff.
likewise, the parent’s room/rooms is off limits and should be. however, if you set these limits then keep this in mind when asking the AP to do things such as clean up kid’s toys. if the toys are in your room then she will not pick them up. or she picks them up (thus does what you asked her to do) but violates the bedroom rule.
i had the case once, where the phone in the kitchen didn’t work and the only usable phone was in the parents bedroom. i felt very uncomfortable using the phone because we had set the bedroom limit. but then again, when i wanted to call the parents at work or to organize playdates, i had to go into the bedroom and use it…it was a strange situation.
mutual respect is important and being clear about privacy and where the limits are helps the AP/hostfamily relationship. and it is something that should be asked once in a while (are you ok with the kids’ behavior regarding your room? are you fine with how we value privacy at this home? do you feel your privacy was intruded? and vicversa of course)
Hi well there is always something to do… If she does not go out the house Can she watch tv at home? does she have access to a computer?…Are there some au pairs around?
there are a lot of reasons why some au pairs dont go out. For example I have a friend that saves every singe penny because in her home country her family can’t afford too much so she pays almost for everything sending them money.
Another case could be what happened to me at the beginning, I was the only Latina au pair in the neighborhood and also the newest, the other girls were all from scandinavia (2 finish and 2 swedish and 1 danish) and had spent here more than 9 months so they had their group and when the LCC introduced me with them, they were really mean to me …by making fun of my accent, my skin color, my clothing, the music I like etc.. Finally like 3 months later I knew a chinese girl and a brazilian from another company and I Could have social life after all.
Also you will have to think, do you provide transportation for your au pair?
Is her 1 1/2 day off on a week day when her friends have to work?
Look sometimes it happened …I had tuesday afternoon off and all wednesday off but the other girls had to work or took classes those nights so I was off but alone :(
you have to talk to her and find out if there is an special reason why she wants to save or if that is the excuse to not go out. GOOD LUCK
Oh well I live in a beautiful town in colorado and my family has been nice so far but there is an aspect that is annoyig me ad I want to deal with it withpout being rude. My questions is Where is my privacy and/or respect for me?? …I mean Is my bathroon supposed to be shared with host kids just because they like it more than theirs?? When I am off in weekdays I like to go to my room to skype with my family but it is really not nice to do that when my host mom is giving the children a bath in my bathroom when they have a huge one upstairs…just because is their favorite room in the house??.. what if I need to use it …I made a commet about that but apparently it did not work because she keeps on doing that. (I wonder if she wants to spy me?) … Another fact, as I am not allowed to drive, 2 months ago I bought MY OWN bike to use it when I need to go out plus I have always loved being active, but it made me really angry and I let her know my anger to my host mom one day that I decided to go downtown biking and the bike was not i the garage, so I asked her if she knew something about that and she just said ” Oh I let my friend borrow your bike for two days, I hope you don’t mind”….When she noticed me that upset she just said “i’m sorry” but she did not even asked me If her friend could use MY BIKE!!!!
I really need her to understand that even if i am friendly and open to help as much as I can I also need my time, my privacy and the respect for my personal stuffs.
@Colorada — There is no excuse re the bike – you bought it, it is yours. I completely agree that you are justified in being annoyed and offended by this.
Re the bathroom, it is hard to know if that is an invasion of your privacy, or a misunderstanding. I understand from your message that your bedroom and a bathroom are downstairs? (is this correct?) Do you have to walk through your bedroom to get to your bathroom? Or is it just “the” bathroom that happens to be downstairs, and thus it is the one you use? did your HF tell you that this downstairs bathroom is “your bathroom”?
It isn’t a requirement for an au pair to have his/her own bathroom; many au pairs share bathrooms with children. We have six children and our au pair shares the bathroom with them (children take showers in a downstairs 3/4 bath, but brush teeth, brush hair, use toilet etc. in the “family bathroom” which is shared with AP.) AP showers/bathes in this bathroom. And when we have guests, the guests also shower and bathe in the “family bathroom”. So it is clearly not hers, and she might want to use it sometimes and there is a child(ren) in there using it so she has to wait to shower or primp. (She can use the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, so she’s not having to wait in a “desperate” situation.)
What I’m getting at is, is it possible that you think this is “your bathroom” but your HF thinks it is “the downstairs bathroom”, and thus it is perfectly normal and logical to them that they will use it to bathe the children?
I agree. Your bike is your bike and should be returned to you. Gently say, “I purchased that bike with my own money and would really appreciate having it back as soon as possible.” If that doesn’t work, then call your LCC.
If your HM doesn’t have to enter your bedroom to bathe her children, then it’s not “yours” it’s everyone’s. If you have a door that closes between your bedroom and the bathroom, then close it. AP #1 had a bedroom next to ours and the kids’ and shared a bathroom with everyone! (We had a toilet and shower in the basement that AP #2 & 3 used – we trained ourselves to ask if it were okay for us to use it when they were present, but as it was down the hall from their bedroom, it was fair game.) APs 4-7 have had an ensuite bathroom that no one but they use (our special needs child has her own bathroom that everyone uses).
You need to get your bike back. This is an opportunity for you to 1) practice being a bit assertive about being treated fairly and 2) test whether your HM is going to ‘have your back’ for the rest of the year. I would NEVER loan out something that belongs to our au pair without asking. And in this situation I would hesitate to even ask, because I wouldn’t want to put a still fairly new AP into a situation to have to make a decision like that. And 3) you could use this opportunity to ask GENTLY about when you will be able to drive since you had assumed you would be able to when you got here (or whatever she told you before you arrived) and because you need to be able to get around town for errands, social life, etc.
Aside:
[I just don’t understand HMs who make sure they hire APs who can drive but then don’t let them for two months. How does walking/biking for two months make you a safer driver? Unless it’s about American roads and conventions that need to be TAUGHT (an AP can’t just pick this stuff up without an online or in-person class) not driving doesn’t improve your driving skill — practice is what improves driving. ]
Opportunity number 2:
As for the bathroom–many APs do share with kids. But if the HM and kids have to go through your room to get to the bathroom, that is an invasion of your privacy. If you are off duty, you should be off duty, uninterrupted (except to be called for dinner, etc). You need to address this, or it will get worse as you get more and frustrated but don’t say anything. This could ruin your year. OR you could figure out what you are going to say and have a tough but important conversation, and stick up for yourself. Again, this skill only gets better with practice. And it doesn’t mean that you are no longer a friendly and flexible person. You will be a friendly and flexible person who is not a doormat. Much better! :-)
thank you for the advices I have my bike back :) talkig about the bathroom well it is inside my room and sometimes when I am havig “private time” skyping or watching a movie they just go and my host mom gives the bath there. It has happened before that even if I am off she wants me to help her bathing the children, i dont really feel comfprtable because they also use my stuff (soap or shampoo) that I bought with my own money !! and well she told me that the bathroom was mine not to share but apparently she is cintradicting herself. :)
If the bathroom is in your room, meaning they have to walk through your room to get to it, then that is just plain weird and very inconsiderate. That is only acceptable if there is a special reason, such as the other bathtub is not working and they are using yours until it gets fixed. I would suggest talking with your LCC and getting her input. Since there are multiple instances of the family not respecting boundaries (the bath and the bike), it sounds this may be an ongoing issue. If they are an otherwise good host family, hopefully it can be remedied by a nice but honest conversation between you and your host mom, or possibly your LCC talking with them about the importance of respecting privacy and boundaries, particularly if they are a first time host family.
I agree. As a HM, I would find it in appropriate to bathe my children in my AP’s bathroom. In fact, the only time I enter the AP bathroom is for the annual scouring in between APs (so far all who have used the bathroom have done a good to excellent job at cleaning it before they depart, I just try to scour it so it looks new (although I’ve never been able to rid it of the outgoing AP’s preferred fragrances in 3 days!).
Ask for a time to chat after the kids go to bed. You need your HM to respect your privacy, your work-time limits, and to permit you to create a safe haven for yourself to retreat when you are not working. If she doesn’t respect your boundaries, neither will the kids. There’s a difference between being invited in and imposing.
Hi, I’m an au pair in France and I have been reading this blog through all my preparation to come here. Three weeks into my new job in Paris and everything has been fantastic, but on the bedroom/privacy issue I wanted a little input about something.
I try to keep a firm boundary about never entering the HPs bedroom, especially since HM travels a lot and I don’t think it’s decent for a young lady who’s inhabiting a house with an adult male to EVER enter his bedroom for any reason, even though neither of us would ever behave inappropriately. It just wouldn’t be right, and I drew a line on my tour of my new home and haven’t crossed it since.
Here’s the thing, though — the youngest girl gets very upset when her mother goes on long business trips and we have tears especially around bedtime. To fix this, her older sisters set a policy before I arrived of occasionally letting her sleep in her parents’ bed when their mom is away… whether or not her father is going to come home late at night from an opera or meeting with friends and occupy the bed after she’s asleep. But I’m responsible for getting her up in the morning, and I need to have access to her to take her back to her room to get dressed for school. The past few times this has happened and HF has been home, I’ve woken one of her big sisters to send them into the bedroom and get the five-year-old up and out to me (HF is not a morning person and is somewhat dead to the world at the early hour she needs to be up). This isn’t exactly convenient or fair to the older sisters, so I don’t know whether to knock vigorously and wake HF or ask him to wake his daughter when she sleeps in his bed, or to try and find a different way for her to deal with her separation anxiety from her mom, or what. I can’t quite bring myself to cross what to me is a boundary of decency and enter the room of sleeping HF to get his daughter ready for school!! Any advice would be appreciated, and I certainly hope to have a nice conversation about this when HM returns from her trip.
Explain your issue to your HM, but keep it short and simple. Tell her you need to wake the little one in the morning, but are uncomfortable entering the room. Ask her how she would like you to handle it and let her suggest a solution. If she asks you to suggest a solution, be honest with your opinion. Don’t worry, I’m sure together you can sort it out.
One of the kids I au paired for used to get upset when his parents left the house and then would hide, often in his parents’ room. To search properly for him required looking under their bed, through their closet, and in their bathroom. I felt very very uncomfortable doing this. However, it was necessary and they assured me they understood I had to do it. They reminded me that I had written on my au pair application that I “wanted to be treated like a member of the family” and then pointed out that all family members were allowed to enter their room when necessary.
Would you be uncomfortable entering the room of a male member of your family? Maybe, if your HM does want you to enter the room to wake the child, thinking about your HD as your “adopted Dad” will make you feel better about it.
I am an au pair, the host mum goes to uni, she goes a few hours a day at the moment and I am on part time money, which is fine, except I seem to be having the kids full time, as she is always popping out or doing uni work, so I need to keep the kids occupied and quiet. I feel I should either be paid my full time wage, which I am due to be on in a few weeks when the host mum does a placement at a school, and will be out longer, or should i be stricter with my “time off” and say that i wont have the kids when she is home(is that a bit mean?) could anyone give me any advice to approach this subject with my host family? I feel like I have no time to myself, and am with the host family 24/7 which isn’t good for anyone.
Given your use of the word “uni,” I assume you’re living in Europe. You’ll need to talk to your HM about your schedule, and then discuss your need for a full-time stipend if she doesn’t adhere to it. The best way to gain time for yourself with a family that doesn’t adhere to time boundaries, is to physically leave – go for a walk, go for a coffee, meet friends, go to the library, but leave. If your HM is not scheduling the boundary between work time and down time, then push her to do so.
Steph- Are you in the USA?
The rules are really clear here. There is no such thing as “part time pay”. The stipend is the stipend regardless of how many of the maximum 45 hours they have you take care of the children/ child related chores.
Just a clarification: there are two different stipend guidelines for au pairs in the US.
Au Pairs are only allowed to work 20-35 hours per week. They are, by nature, part time. This stipend is required to meet minimum wage for the state.
Au Pair Plus are full time, seasoned au pairs who work full time. Their stipend increases significantly, and they can work between 36 and 55 hours a week. You aren’t required to pay overtime, but are required to meet minimum wage for every hour worked.
Just a reminder that Au Pairs deserve and earn fair pay as well :)
This is misinformation. ( for anyone new reading the blog)
The US government Au pair regulations clearly state a maximum of 10 hours a day /45 hours a week for Au Pairs.
There is a SEPARATE “Educare Au Pair” program with a maximum of 10 Hours a day 30 Hours a week for a lower stipend but double the education allowance.
There are also Extrodinaire Au pairs, that because of increased experience/education qualify for a higher stipend, but the maximum hours are the same as a regular Au pair.
It is against regulations to require any of these to work more hours than dictated by the program rules.
So over time “should be” a non-issue.
Here’s my situation: I work for a single mother with 6 kids who has to work (which often happens to be until late at night, and often goes out at night). And when she’s home, she’s often in the shower or getting ready to go out. Therefore, I always keep my door open so I can hear the kids and if there’s a problem, or, especially, in case the baby wakes up from her nap. It’s very rare that I close my door because I want the kids to be able to come in and ask me stuff if there mum is unavailable but in the house. But there seems to be no boundaries for rooms in this house, the kids think it’s fine to come in my room (and each others!) and mess up my stuff. On more than 1 occasion the 4-year-old has trashed my room. I’m always coming in and finding toys left in my room – my room’s not a dumping ground! And half the time I have no idea where the toy goes anyway. Is there anyway I can balance letting the kids in my room if they need something but to still respect it?? Anyone have any ideas?
I am in Australia, where there is no set pay by the government, it is at the family’s discression. I am supposed to have the kids a few hours a day while the HM is at uni, but when she comes home I still seem to be taking care of them, playing with them, giving them food etc. when the HM does her placement, she will be out all day and I will be on more money, which is fine. That to me, is full time work, full time pay. But it seems to be full time work, part time pay at the moment. Maybe I will take the advice of leaving when she is home, so she understands I am off duty. I just feel a bit uncomfortable doing this, as she expects me to look after the kids still. But thank you, I will make plans for a couple of afternoons when she is home.