If you would like to feel like an extremely generous and reasonable person, then go to the ‘au pairs’ section of Mumsnet and scroll back a bit. For every reasonable request about pay or holiday, there’s someone complaining that the teenager they’ve imported has an attitude about washing their pants, or forgot to de-lice the dog. Today’s classic of the genre: a person who doesn’t want to allow her au pair two weeks off to say goodbye to and then bury her grandfather.
She writes: ‘My au Pair has been with us [for] about 4 months. Very sadly her Grandfather is ill in hospital and will likely pass away over [the] next few days. She has asked can she go home for 2-3 weeks to be with her family at this sad time and then be there for the funeral (4 day mourning period). My husband and I have been very sympathetic but gently suggested she go to say goodbye (3 day round trip, which will coincide with a couple of her non working days), and then come back to our house and resume her childcare duties, before returning home for the 4 day period (5 day round trip).’
‘...I feel we are being accommodating and sympathetic but no reasonable employer would grant such a long time off for a grandparents death? Her contract refers to compassionate leave being discretionary. Would appreciate any views? Am I being unfair in asking her to come back to work between saying goodbye (three days off) and the funeral (likely to be at least a week later)?’
Now, if she were a normal employee at a company there would be an argument that taking two weeks of leave was a big deal. But au pairs are not employees - as many of the comments below the post are quick to point out.
Au pair translates as ‘on par’, and the idea is that the au pair should be a kind of family member who helps out with general domestic chores in exchange for room, board and a small stipend. Au pairs in London will earn around £100 a week for about five hours a day. Which would be £2.50 an hour and therefore illegal, if they were an employee. Which they are not.
The poster then goes on to explain that the au pair going home for two or three weeks would be problematic for their lives, writing, ‘we will have to take time off from work to cover childcare when she goes to say goodbye, and then again when she returns for the funeral. We think this is fair but she is adamant that she needs to be with her family for at least 2 weeks to support them in funeral planning etc, and wants to leave tomorrow. Realistically, this may be closer to 3 weeks and regardless would leave us with a very big childcare problem.
‘My husband and I are both in 'crunch busy' periods at the moment, we have no family nearby and I am loathe to arrange emergency childcare for my 3, 7 and 8 year olds as find such arrangements are unsettling and stressful for all. If she is gone for 3 days then back for a week or so before going for 5 days that will be somewhat easier but still prove challenging.’
Au pairs are not supposed to be left alone with young children, and the idea is not that they have ‘sole charge’, but rather that they do bits of childcare with older children or take care of younger children while a parent is in the house.
The responses to the post are pretty universally unimpressed - some more politely than others.
‘I think you've got a young adult, who may well be experiencing their first close loss, and need to go with what they think, rather than your childcare needs. And realistically, if they go for the first 3 days in your suggestion, what's to stop them just not getting back on the plane 2 days later?’
Other Mumsnet users offered the suggestion that what the parent in question actually needs is a full time nanny who is an employee - not an au pair.
‘If she was a nanny being paid 30k a year then I’d think you were reasonable but given this is a young women who is supposed to be like a big sister, I don’t think you are being reasonable. I doubt she will come back if you try to impose this on her.’
The poster has not returned to the thread to justify her stance at time of writing.
THE INTERNET IS OBSESSED WITH...
...the woman whose husband is convinced she'll die in childbirth
...the woman who refused to be exclusive until her partner proposed