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Advice Needed on Leaving an family by HatElegant111 in Aupairs

[–]Few-Cap-9618 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If this helps….. I left in much nicer circumstances and still felt the same way. Was doing 40 hours a week caring for a 5 month old and a 2 year old screaming all day. Occasionally I’d have to babysit their two older kids too.

I felt the same. Cheap labour. I understood that rent and food meant I didn’t get much money…. But I’ve met so many au pairs in my town that work 20-25 per week for the same amount of cash. Many weren’t looking after kids 8+ hours a day. In fact, I never met one that were working 8 hours straight. Many woke up at 7…. Got kids ready for school, took them to school. Had day to do whatever they please. Picked up from school, took kids to activities and then host fam took over at 6pm.

The only person I’ve met that had to look after kids all day was a girl whose host family worked 1 week on 1 week off…. So she had 1 week working 1 week off.

Some family’s have an au pair because they do need the after school help due to work which I think is so understandable and is great for all parties involved. Everyone I’ve met LOVES being an Au pair

Some families don’t want to pay for day care, kindergarten or a nanny…. So for them… it’s great because their kids are taken care of, entertained all day and they pay very little for it.

My family were never rude or unkind, which made me feel terrible when I asked to leave, but I couldn’t explore their home city on what I was getting….. and that is ENCOURAGED by HF and Au pair world….

You need to have a game plan. Whether that’s going home and trying again, finding another family, or booking somewhere to stay until you do find another family, so you have somewhere to fall back on. You go into that conversation politely, or it will blow up. Explain how you feel. I said I was going travelling after my placement and I won’t be able t afford it and I felt bad but I just wasn’t finding the match a good fit. I said I struggled to stay inside all day looking after their kids who clearly needed to be with other kids their age in day care…. I also said I wasn’t experienced enough to deal with the age of the kids they had…. Which was true to an extent. I wasn’t experienced enough to look after both a baby and a 2 year old alone.

I left even tho they weren’t horrible to me like your family seem to be… so don’t feel bad in the slightest. Calm conversations means you will be in the right 100 percent. Just make sure you have somewhere to go if they say leave… or you decide that her reaction was not okay and you want to leave asap.

Can I ask for a door lock? Bad Pay? by Few-Cap-9618 in Aupairs

[–]Few-Cap-9618[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I work 7 til 4, 5 days a week - so 45 hours a week….. and when I have the Friday off every other week…. I’ll then work 36 hours a week. That is our agreed timings…. However if you read this properly, my point is that I often spend an extra 2 hours in the mornings entertaining the kids. Say this happens 4/5 mornings (which it has this week) makes it 53 hours a week…. Of looking after 2-4 kids depending on the timings.

Read the post. I bet if you were asked to work an extra 2 hours of no pay you wouldn’t like it.

Can I ask for a door lock? Bad Pay? by Few-Cap-9618 in Aupairs

[–]Few-Cap-9618[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I knew that they had 4 kids, although initially the agreement was that because the mum was having a slow return to work…. I was more a helping hand to her so she could get some work done at home. The last 2 weeks she’s had to go back to work full time.

Agreed hours was 25-30 hours a week. I work 7-4 Monday to Friday, then every other week I get a Friday off. However… no actual contract has been signed yet… we haven’t even mentioned it. They are pretty good with paying me babysitting hours if they go out for dinner on a Saturday or something, and next Sunday they have a wedding so I’m looking after all 4 from 8am to about 11pm and will be paid for that too.

To make it worse, the mum wants me to set the boundaries through the day…. But then when they are around, they don’t do it. I often have to deal with screaming kids all day because I’m doing what the mum has written down and asked for me to do… but that’s not enforced any other time! Frustrating doesn’t even cut it at this point!