2 Au Pairs
We’ve been hosting au pairs for several years and recently ran into a really difficult situation, and I’m honestly trying to understand whether this is a maturity issue, social media expectations, a bad fit, or something we could have handled differently.
For context, we live in a large Southern city and have three young kids. We decided to overlap a second au pair for a few months because our first au pair had generally been a good fit and we liked the flexibility/help with our schedules.
Our au pairs work about 20–25 hours/week because our children are in school/camps during the day. We provide:
- $300/week stipend each
- car access + gas stipend
- groceries (they add items to a shared list)
- gym membership
- vacations/travel with the family
- private room and standard au pair benefits
We also travel frequently and do fairly high-end family trips (Mexico, Costa Rica, Florida, etc.), which was openly discussed in our profile/interviews because we thought it would be a positive part of the experience.
The issue started with our newer au pair (here about one month). Every boundary became a major emotional issue. For example, we had repeated issues with food intended for family dinners being eaten during the day, so we eventually created a separate “dinner drawer” to organize ingredients for planned meals - we share meals with the au pairs but they are welcome to prepare food as well. We tried to have calm conversations about it multiple times, but instead of engaging she would shut down, cry, or avoid the conversation entirely.
Then we had a disagreement about gas/car usage. We provide a gas stipend that covers child-related driving plus additional allowance for reasonable personal driving. The issue arose when unlimited personal driving was expected to be fully covered as well. We have household guidelines written out clearly, but she later claimed she hadn’t read them or did not remember the conversation.
The hardest part for me emotionally is that I later overheard both au pairs mocking my husband and me in our own home — making fun of us for asking about their weekends/trips and speaking negatively about our family. It honestly shocked me because we’ve spent years trying to create a warm and supportive environment for our au pairs.
I’m also concerned because there have been moments where our 3-year-old was not being supervised appropriately, including being left near a bathtub full of water unattended.
At this point we’ve decided to rematch with the newer au pair because the dynamic has become unhealthy and uncomfortable for everyone involved.
What I’m struggling with is understanding:
- Are our expectations unreasonable?
- Is the program changing culturally?
- Are younger au pairs entering with very different expectations due to social media/travel culture?
- Is having two au pairs creating a comparison/resentment dynamic?
- Has anyone successfully managed two au pairs long-term?
- Are the perks we’re offering still considered generous, or is this becoming more standard?
I genuinely thought that by lowering hours (20–25/week), offering travel, flexibility, gym membership, car access, etc., the au pairs would feel happier and more balanced. Instead, it feels like the more we tried to accommodate and repair things, the more resentment developed. It honestly started to feel like they were ganging up against us
Would really appreciate thoughtful perspectives from both host families and former au pairs because this has honestly been very discouraging and confusing for us.
UPDATE: We were doing a two-month overlap because we had an international trip planned and our first au pair wasn't able to travel with us due to her visa ending. Now, we are going without the help. We were considering having 2 - but we are concerned that is not a good idea.
The APs were from Europe and Australia and 20 years old (I think the age was a big issue) - english was not an issue - so they definetly understood the written rules which we discussed in person.
We told the new au pair we were going into rematch, and she just said, "Okay," and booked a flight out herself and is leaving the program altogether. the original au pair apologized and said that she got fed into the negativity and she was told information that was not true about us.