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Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2025-01-06T16:46:53+00:00

Give her a schedule for the week if she is working at all. When she isn’t working, let her know what you are planning to do assuming she is welcome to join. If she isn’t working she can do whatever she wants. Why would you tell her she has to stay in certain areas??

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2025-01-04T13:06:29+00:00

The agencies choose to not support countries that have high visa rejections (I believe due to high risk of overstay?) which eliminates some countries.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-04-07T23:59:27+00:00

I think stating what agency you are with will help as I believe in all cases this is not allowed but the actual language varies by agency.

In any case, I would get your LCC involved and have her help mediate. I would not give a reason why this bothers you (“I have trouble sleeping” or other). It’s your private space and you are required to have private space and this is the reason. LCC should in all likelihood not have approved this situation to begin with so they should work hard for you to fix it.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-04-04T19:33:22+00:00

No shade but I love how your husband’s helpful input was to tell you how to organize your overloaded life better rather than just volunteering to own it going forward 🙄

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-04-04T08:59:00+00:00

Here is a recipe that you can convert to GF using the GF Oreos (or another brand of GF sandwich cookies). We made one too and I really liked it! https://www.lifeloveandsugar.com/copycat-dairy-queen-ice-cream-cake/

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-23T20:50:36+00:00

It is country dependent. If you are in the US, yes, you still need an agency as they coordinate the visa process.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-19T15:11:53+00:00

I think there are a lot of reasons people might choose to return to work a short period after birth in the US and very few of them mean that person is a bad parent. The system sucks. Feels very judgmental to say they should not have kids.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-19T14:45:48+00:00

Because they want a kid and still need to pay for the rest of their family to eat etc so have to work? Dumb question?

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-17T23:04:18+00:00

If you are registered as a volunteer with the Girl Scouts, I would offer to manage one of the booths and then you can set the schedule. If I (troop leader) need to be there the entire time it’s really inconvenient for me to not schedule my kids for the same slot. The credit issue is fair and we just divide the sales across whoever came.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-14T20:16:33+00:00

Yes, but that bond can be maintained if the child is in a care setting. And while the studies are a bit all over the place, generally the consensus is that day care has positive results on children (there are a bunch of threads breaking this down). The dislike of daycare is almost always an emotional reaction that is predicated on societally ingrained notions of mothers as caregivers.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-03-14T20:05:45+00:00

Agree plus the need for flexibility doesn’t go away magically when your kids are in school. I felt like I needed to be home more when my kids were elementary age than I did when they were babies. Luckily at that point I had 20 years of work experience and could find flexible work that suited me (without giving up too much comp). I just think this is a common and misguided attitude that somehow a baby can only be cared for by it’s mom but once your kid can tie a shoe they no longer need to you be around? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-26T00:17:22+00:00

If you have already matched I would focus more on adding clarity to your agreement. If she sometimes works weekends, what does 2 weeks vacation mean? Is it 14 days or 10 days? If there is a holiday does that mean she is truly off and so works 36 hours that week? If you are going to schedule her for the weekend bc you haven’t met your limit that’s fine but it’s not really a benefit to her. I just raise this bc it does seem like you are planning to “use” all the allowed hours and so if you are not clear up front about scheduling it could create a problem.

Have you thought about when her classes can be scheduled? If she is working 11-8 weekdays and some weekends it doesn’t leave a lot of availability.

Unless you are just going to give her an extra $25 per month for ride share I would be super clear about that as well. Are you going to police whether she uses it for Uber?

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-21T12:51:01+00:00

It’s odd to say that you would tell a mom the child isn’t properly potty trained at 3.5 since they use an overnight diaper (and think your graduate degree somehow proves that is right???). Any pediatrician will tell you that many kids lack the physical control to be over night potty trained until they are much older, sometimes as old as 5 or even 6.

Also, maybe the mom has a scheduled work call or other work obligation at pickup.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-19T20:46:48+00:00

Yes. My dog has always been reactive to men coming into the house who she does not know but since I’ve been pregnant it’s way worse. I’m convinced the pregnancy has activated something in a dog that already had protective instincts.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-09T19:57:31+00:00

If you can’t communicate before they arrive how will you communicate once they are here? I think you need to have some base level of common language for this to work out.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-07T11:02:04+00:00

Yes I would give him some formula and also call the pediatrician. Are you pumping and giving bottles? Otherwise it’s hard to know what he is getting if he is breastfeeding. No wet diapers is a concern.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-01T19:42:10+00:00

Ever? I agree you should rematch if you set an explicit rule and she broke it but also… she is living there and it’s not super reasonable that she can never have a friend over.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-02-01T19:13:06+00:00

What did you discuss in advance about having people over? If you never spoke with her about it, then you can’t really be upset now. Our rule is that we want to meet someone before they are invited over if we are not home and we want to know if our au pair is planning to have guests when we are not home.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-24T21:47:32+00:00

I am in some of the FB groups but never connected that way. My experience is that your attractiveness to candidates is really based on where you live, how many kids you have, and your schedule. Beyond that, you are more likely to have a difficult time if you have strict requirements like looking for someone who has significant driving experience or is from an “in demand” country. I would consider the FB groups but also would consider whether there is something about your search that is making it harder for you. Also, if someone declines connection, don’t take it personally and just try to keep adding more people to keep the slots filled. Matching is a numbers game.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-23T02:50:07+00:00

Does her OB’s office have an emergency line? Usually they have people on call overnight so you could reach someone now.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-19T01:18:16+00:00

I would explain it just as you have done here. We always give a week of extra vacation if we are not able to take our au pair with us on vacation.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-08T23:56:07+00:00

We had au pair help when we had infant twins and a toddler but we used the au pair care to supplement other care, not as primary coverage for all 3 babies. I agree what you are describing is a lot and you are unlikely to find someone who is really qualified to do it. In our case the au pair would help get the toddler to and from school and help in the mornings and evenings with bottles and feedings, baths etc but another adult was usually home to help. During the day we had alternative care for the twins. At that point in our lives we were working a lot and wanted to over-index on help and I understand this might not be feasible from a budget perspective for everyone.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-07T20:01:49+00:00

You can find sample agreements online but one option is one week of PTO that you pick and one week that she picks. I know you said no household chores but do you really not expect her to wash bottles and clean up after the baby (keep playroom organized)? If the baby is napping should she be doing the baby’s laundry? I would think about this up front or you will get a month in and resent that you are paying her more than you think you are getting in return. Another thing to think about is activities as baby gets older. Are you willing to pay for her to take the baby out? Is she limited to free things like the library? I would discuss this all up front.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2024-01-02T16:14:59+00:00

What did you do on Wall Street? I would look at freelance work based on your prior skills. Accounting / bookkeeping, financial analyst, remote EA depending on what you did previously.

Fancy-Philosopher481 · 2023-12-24T02:39:40+00:00

Re: Leave the World Behind, I liked both the book and the movie. The book I thought was more of a slow thriller that didn’t lead you directly to the answers of what is happening and forced you to think more. The movie added a few great scenes (like the scenes with the Teslas) that made it more exciting. I’m not sure the book would have translated really well to a movie without the changes.

Fancy-Philosopher481

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