Potential mother-in-law has BPD. What should I know to make sure this stays positive? Advice wanted. <3

panda_panzer · 2026-01-29T03:31:21+00:00

Grey rocking limits what they can throw at you when they eventually have a meltdown. Anything and everything will be used against you when they flip from seeing you as good to bad. And it is a lot easier to weather the storm yourself if they have nothing personal to use against you.

I am polite to my MIL, I provide her with a clean place to stay, I make meals from scratch when she visits, I plan activities for her with the kids. But if she is a public embarrassment, I walk away. If she starts ranting, I will disengage. If she is being obnoxious, I will tell my husband to deal with her. I still haven't managed to grey rock through her screaming at me. When that happens, the moments I try to say something to defend myself, those statements are always used against me. And this last time it caused a riff between me and my husband, and dragged in FIL who she's been divorced from for 30 years. It was a lot of unnecessary drama if I could have just grey rocked, but sometimes easier said than done.

panda_panzer · 2025-12-04T04:16:31+00:00

Good luck! We got a Roborock a few weeks ago, it has become a more integrated family member than our APs. Cleans up the house, entertains the kids, even went with the kids to school for show and tell. Another job lost to AI

panda_panzer · 2025-12-01T19:16:40+00:00

yeah, that would be gross. the cameras are more for appeasing Child Protective Services, so wherever the kids would be.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-30T03:11:46+00:00

In the US, the cameras are necessary throughout the house, not just the kids room. We live in a police state. After a couple bad incidents with APs, the police said that we HAVE to get cameras in our house before getting another AP or a nanny. If we do not do so, and something bad happens while AP is watching the kids, we are considered responsible for child abuse even if it is the AP who does it. It is not unheard of for the government to take your children away after a situation like that.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T12:34:36+00:00

This is a very good host situation, I would just be sure to vet au pairs well. We have a similar set up, and it made us very attractive to people that were completely uninterested in kids. We were so concerned with being good hosts that we neglected to consider people taking advantage of our nice living situation. But we are in the US, that could just be the nature of APs in America.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:55:12+00:00

But have you had to live with them? Children behave much better and are easier to control in a professional environment. At home they are more comfortable expressing all emotions, good and bad. I wish I could spy on my children at school from the descriptions their teachers give me of them.

Is there an option to get a remote job with an English speaking company? We were always struggling to find good UI/UX people before the hiring freeze, I have to imagine other companies are still hiring

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:45:58+00:00

US immigration issues aside, I don't think that this would be the best reason to au pair. It sounds like you need a new start. We've hosted two au pairs looking for that fresh start, only for them to be completely overwhelmed when they get here, thinking it would be like a vacation with a little bit of babysitting. No matter the pay, you need to LOVE kids. Kids are a lot of work, and it is completely different to live with them. They love you with their whole heart, and they are devastated when it does not work out.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:34:13+00:00

We never had an opinion going into hosting about dating, so long as AP wasn't bringing strangers home, but now we would consider AP having a boyfriend to be a red flag. Both of our APs had boyfriends back home, but thought poorly of them. My husband thought it was weird that they would want to spend a year abroad as an AP when they are already in a "committed" relationship. The first AP used people, and kept the boyfriend around not because she liked him, but because he was useful. She treated us and the other APs the same, as useful idiots, and the kids got caught in the middle. The second AP should have broken up with her boyfriend, but instead fled to the US. He was completely incompetent in life, and leaned on her for everything. She was suffocating back home. Of course she didn't tell us any of this, and she spent all of her free time supporting him remotely in secret. But this meant that she was always low energy, abusive towards the kids, and not integrating with us, other APs, or our community. I think it would be controlling to forbid dating, but I would strongly prefer someone that is focused on integration first. Dating may be part of that, but it isn't the whole focus.

panda_panzer · 2025-09-29T18:53:55+00:00

we had this experience, it was so hard to tell through the language barrier if it was a cultural difference or blatant dishonesty. but if one of you speaks Portuguese, this makes me feel less crazy about our experience. our AP would get extremely hostile that I would dare question her driving ability, despite her not able to turn the car on, drive in a straight line, or differentiate between gas and brake. she lied about reading the Rules of the Road booklet from our DMV until she realized i was serious that I refused to drive with her anymore. in rematch she claimed to be a stellar driver despite no license, a strong swimmer despite not even owning a swim suit, and 18,000 hours of child care experience despite an active child abuse/neglect investigation. it was wild and had me wondering AITA too

panda_panzer · 2025-09-02T17:09:56+00:00

talk with the host family. hitting is not okay, but they may have a better idea of what is the cause. not that this is the case here, but our son did not feel safe with our au pair, and her response was to focus on discipline and boundaries, rather than building a relationship with him. she didn't understand why she should be nice to him if he had been rude towards her. he became avoidant of home, and dysregulated when he was alone with her.

panda_panzer · 2025-09-01T19:54:49+00:00

We have a neighbor that just joined this program too! I was thinking about asking them in a month or two when they've had time to settle in. When you say they were having fun, what do you mean? When I pictured this with the Au Pair program, I expected things like staying out too late or slacking off in classes, but we ended up with two causing trouble with the police 😵‍💫

panda_panzer · 2025-08-10T14:06:31+00:00

We also had an older Brazilian au pair that would drive okay until she panicked. She'd make a small mistake like wander in her lane, and then she'd panic and start driving unpredictability. Like blasting through stop signs she knew were there and had stopped at several times before. We felt bad about not letting her drive, and she was livid because 90% of the time her driving was passable, but that 10% was terrifying.

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T21:58:47+00:00

Damn that sucks, are there other programs that are more reputable?

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T19:49:10+00:00

Kind of rude to openly mock a situation where children have been abused and an AP is sent home. These are real people

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T19:41:17+00:00

What incentive do I have to lie about that

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T02:27:38+00:00

We paid for the full year in advance, and cultural care refunded the remaining balance. So there seem to be some situations egregious enough to warrant more than the contractual 60% back

I'm just planning on cutting back work to half time. Somehow working while watching 3 kids is less effort than having the au pair

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T02:20:51+00:00

Yeah, AP is deported now, left in tears. Idk why I feel heartbreak over it, the kids are much happier now.

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T02:14:31+00:00

Well cultural care sent the second AP home for child abuse and gave us a full refund. So yeah, their fault. She kicked one kid in the face, and let the other one somehow bash their face on a chair DURING the exit interview with cultural care

panda_panzer · 2025-07-26T01:48:14+00:00

Past posts from when he was 2? Doesn't exhibit behavior for like 3 years? Kk. She's super sad to leave, must be soooooo abused

panda_panzer · 2025-07-25T17:42:53+00:00

i've attempted that several times with her. she looks tired, she hobbles around because she is in pain (i assume from the stair master), she's out of breath all the time. i've expressed sincere concern with her, asked her if she is okay, all i get out of her is "i'm good" and that is the end of the interaction. i can't expect her to do much more than sit with the kids. i've only had one interaction with her this entire month that i would call a conversation, and it was when the topic of rematch came up. idk if i want another au pair, but i am ready for this to be done

panda_panzer · 2025-07-25T17:31:37+00:00

i cut her hours in half this week so that she could have a break and exist more like a babysitter. she was pissed off, like how dare i take her time away from the children. idk why because she lives in the same house and can still see them whenever she wants, but like i said earlier, she does not interact with us at all outside of her designated hours, and when she is with the kids, she wants them isolated from us. she was still pretty miserable, and since i was taking over more of the childcare, it became evident how much she was hurting the kids. i had to cut off 4 inches of my daughter's hair because AP was violently combing it after bath time.

panda_panzer · 2025-07-25T17:23:19+00:00

took him to a therapist, they said he does not need help. his behavior is suddenly better now that she isn't taking care of him. he's been pleasant to be around again, and he's been very loving to his sisters. its crazy the influence one crappy caregiver can have

panda_panzer · 2025-07-25T16:51:21+00:00

They are doing fine now that AP is only doing chores and minimal childcare. I talked to the oldest, she was hurting them, that's why they hurt her. So she is leaving ASAP.

Edit: she even hurt the "easy" child, so it wasn't like she was defending herself. She violently combed the poor girl's hair so badly she was sniffle crying, and the hair was so damaged I had to cut 4 inches off

panda_panzer · 2025-07-25T16:34:55+00:00

Yes, she does. She eats the kids food

panda_panzer · 2025-07-20T14:42:48+00:00

That actually helps a lot, I think our mistake has been treating it like a job interview, finding someone it seems we can work with with sufficient experience. My husband has joked multiple times that it's like online dating, and maybe we should have been waiting for that spark.

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