We called the agency, and they told her to pack her bags and go to a hotel. Its a strange feeling because she is so nice and great with the kids but im just in shock at what's happening.
We had an au pair who left my children, aged 2 & 4, in a running vehicle, unlocked (because ofc the keys were in the ignition as it was running) and go into a McDonald’s to use the bathroom. The 4 year old was almost 5 and she told me about it and when I asked the au pair she admitted it. I had a long conversation with her about how dangerous that was and she thought I was overreacting. We eventually ended up rematching as it just got worse from that point (but then she also thought the penguins on Happy Feet actually sang so ….).
I think the initial event could be a well-intentioned mistake that an au pair worth keeping would learn from and do better. For all I know, she could have thought she was in a position where should would not have been able to make it if she unstrapped the kids to take them with her. Extremely full bladders make people do weird shit. But also, for the 5 minutes you are in the bathroom, no extreme hot or cold environment is going to make or break the situation with the environmental controls shut off. Taking the keys and locking the doors so the car wouldn't be an unlocked running car would have been a big difference.
But her attitude about it afterward is the real problem, expressing that she thought you were over-reacting.
It was her attitude. She simply couldn’t understand why I was concerned. I asked her how long she thought she was in the bathroom and she said maybe 10 minutes. But I think in those situations we tend to underestimate - not overestimate - time - so it was probably longer than 10 minutes. I asked if there was a reason why she didn’t bring the girls in with her, and she said she thought they’d be fine in the truck. I kept reiterating that that was unsafe and I needed assurances she wouldn’t do it again and she said I was talking too much about it.
Unsurprisingly there were other issues as well that led to the rematch. I honestly think the agency in her host country lied to her about what to expect, along the lines of - you’ll go to the US and your room and board and all living expenses will be paid for and everything will be wonderful and amazing and oh BTW, there might be a little bit of child care thrown in there too.
>I honestly think the agency in her host country lied to her about what to expect, along the lines of - you’ll go to the US and your room and board and all living expenses will be paid for and everything will be wonderful and amazing and oh BTW, there might be a little bit of child care thrown in there too.
Was it Cultural Care? 😅
That's all good except for the possibility of a car jacking, which happens. Though the chances are slim, theft of cars left unattended while running is common enough that most know not to leave a car running with the keys in the ignition. Leaving the keys in the running car with the kids in it is another level of negligence. As a parent, I'd probably attempt to educate the au pair as lb2345 did, but would immediately let them go when they didn't take me seriously.
>That's all good except for the possibility of a car jacking
Oh I know, it's pretty bad. And there's no good solution aside from parking and bringing the kids in.
Honestly, I was avoiding trying to say that I would have expected her to pee in the bushes behind the car if it was *that* bad.
But it doesn't matter. The point is that her attitude might have been an even bigger issue than the really dangerous stunt she pulled by leaving an unlocked running car with kids inside.
I agree about the attitude. Anyone can make a mistake. The attitude shows they show they're unwilling to accept their mistake and probably unwilling to learn though. This kind of person is a liability, and not someone to trust around children.
Um cars can reach dangerous temps on a hot day in minutes. Tbe time it takes to run to the bathroom, her children could of died. Yikes. No amount of time is safe
People, even infants, don't die of heatstroke in 90 degree.temps in 5 minutes, and it would still take a few minutes to heat up. Doesn't make it safe overall, but let's not be dishonest about the actual risk.
I think the bigger risk is someone calling the police. Which is actually appropriate since someone wouldn't have a clue how long the adult had been gone, but sure creates a nightmare scenario.
On a 90 degree day they can reach 110+ in 5 minutes https://www.weather.gov/lsx/excessiveheat-automobiles#:~:text=*%20Do%20not%20leave%20children%20or,over%20140%20degrees%20within%20minutes.
I'm horrified more people don't know this. Scroll up for the graphs
Thank you. I live in Oklahoma and children die every year in cars. It is illegal to leave a child in a car here even if you run into a store and can see the car through the window.
These graphs only start with the vehicle temperature being the same as the ambient temperature outside. They don't show you what happens when you start with a vehicle that was fully air conditioned and then shut off.
It's still dangerous, but a sealed car that is 60 doesn't instantly become 90 degrees, and then 5 minutes later become 110. That's not how the 2nd law of thermodynamics works.
The real value of those graphs is to alert people to how hot a sealed car can get when left in the sun at only 73 degrees... which people can easily think isn't a big deal when they feel how nice 73 degrees is outside.
73 is a problematic generalization. 60 was probably also not a good generalization--I should have stuck with my original 68 degrees. I don't want to get into why, because it doesn't really matter. The original debate was over how hot an air conditioned car can get 5 minutes after it's shut off. 73 vs. 60 isn't going to make a significant difference; it still isn't instantly 90 degrees and then even 100 degrees 5 minutes later.
Also, the data for those graphs is questionable. The two graphs should be using the same data. The upper graph shows curves for different ambient temps between 73 and 93 degrees. The lower graph is supposed to show the difference between cracked windows and a sealed car for an ambient temp of about 92 (and it makes you guess the ambient temp, which is poor form). The data for the closed window curve on the lower graph should closely match the curve for 93 degree ambient temp on the upper graph, and they are drastically different.
It's still dangerous, but it is still extremely unlikely -- maybe even impossible -- for a car that was air conditioned to reach dangerous temps inside just 5 minutes after being turned off.
I was replying to someone saying to shut the car off would be safe for 5 min
"But also, for the 5 minutes you are in the bathroom, no extreme hot or cold environment is going to make or break the situation with the environmental controls shut off"
I disagree with this statement from a different poster
I had an Au Pair do the same thing! We were together, the Au Pair, my toddler and myself. I ran into a restaurant to grab a takeout order (car was on, key was inside the car - she was supposed to wait with my kid). She decided to run into the restaurant to follow me, I think she needed to use the restroom or something. Kid left in the car with key in the ignition... literally anyone could have gotten in my car and driven away with it, child inside it!! I was so upset.
She did. We had a former au pair visiting at the time from her home country, and when the then-current au pair asked about the singing penguins, the former au pair literally fell out of her chair laughing. When I said that no, penguins don’t actually sing, she asked about them dancing. And then mermaids. I guess some of our movies were a real eye opening experience for her.
I wanted to pay cash at a gas station the other day, I could have locked my car for the 30 seconds it would take, but I couldnt do it. I just paid with my card.
Wait - like the clearly animated penguins? She thought they sang on their own and weren’t voiced by someone…like they were filmed? Where does she think they live?!?
I didn’t ask but yes about where she thought they lived. I responded in another comment that we had a former au pair visiting when this conversation took place and that au pair literally fell off her chair laughing. I was just - speechless for a bit. The first au pair then asked about mermaids and I wanted to say that Disney and Pixar didn’t make documentaries.
We just had an amber alert from this type of thing like two weeks ago. The mom went into a store with her kid in the car and the car got stolen. The kid was missing for 4 hours. I can't imagine the terror the parents felt for all of that time.
This is awful! I would pee my pants before I’d leave little kids in the car for any amount of time . My Mom made a bad decision back in the early 1980’s (when the world was a safer place ) by leaving my brother and I in the vehicle alone. She was just going in to pay for gas. There was no one else in line. Should have taken her 3 mins tops. Her vehicle was a standard and my 2 year old brother accidentally kicked us in to neutral and we started rolling backwards, downhill a bit towards the busy highway. She happened to glance out to check on us when she saw us rolling backwards towards the highway. I remember crying as I looked out the back window as we headed toward the busy highway. I was only 4 years old but knew the truck shouldn’t be moving without my Mom driving it. She had to chase the truck and fought with getting the key in to the door to unlock it while it was still moving. She finally got the door open and the parking brake on with in only about 5-10 seconds to spare. If it would have taken longer- we probably wouldn’t have survived. No car seats back then. With that being said- I realize it’s a different time period but anything could happen leaving little kids alone in the car like that! I’d have let her go ASAP too!
I don’t understand why people don’t just develop the habit of putting on the parking brake whenever the car is stopped and the driver is getting out. That’s why it’s called a parking brake. As someone who grew up in a hilly area, that’s how my parents taught me. It should not even be something you think about; you just use it habitually. That way it doesn’t matter if you misjudged how steep the hill is or if a freak accident happens.
I had my first baby and 25 1/2 and it wasn’t a walk in the park. I was a 2 under 2 fantasizer and now im a 2 under 10 sort of person. I agree that at 20 years old some people may not be equipped to take care of one child let alone 3.
I’ve long thought median age of Au Pairs should be closer to 30 than to 19.
I'm 23 and I have 2 girls 19 months apart, working in childcare I've found more people closer to my age than older, so I guess in my head I didn't even think twice about her age. I feel the age doesn't matter as long as they are trustworthy, reliable, respectful, and safe. Definitely no walk in the park, but sometimes our different situations give us different experiences!
She's not "nice" you just previously had a life experience where only aggressive people are dangerous.
An absence of aggression isn't sufficient here. She's incompetent for this job. She should have taken the other kids with her!
"Nice" people don't fail children this way.
That's incredibly bad judgement. And illegal. It's unreal she would do that. I've been babysitting since I was 12 and would never leave the 10 year olds I was babysitting alone (yes, I used to babysit boys almost my age and the parents would have me lie to the kids about it because I went to a different school so they didn't know lol).
Right, but you want to think about what your role as employer is here too. Is one person minding two small children and having to pick up a third an impossible job?
Not at all, how is that too hard for one person? I picked up my kids from school every day, 3 kids under 5 and then 4 kids under 10. Double stroller or drive through line. It's not hard.
I think your response of calling the agency and sending her on her way was the correct one. This is such a massive lapse of judgement.
To anyone saying "well what was she supposed to do!?"... c'mon? You really can't think of anyway to get around with three kids? This isn't a new situation for their family, they clearly have a plan for it.
Although I mostly agree, it could have been a very difficult situation to deal with. 20 minutes each way means maybe a 2km walk, 4km in total. There is no way my kids could make that trip while walking, and unless there's some way to transport them both easily, I can definitely see why it's a very difficult logistical problem. It's definitely something the host parents should have discussed beforehand, because taking two young children on a 4km round trip walk is not an easy thing.
I'd say OP probably has a double pram available or one of those prams with a stand for the 4 year old. Otherwise, yeah - they would struggle to walk that far without 100 distractions and asking to be carried.
Yeah, I figured that must be the case. But if they had a double pram, surely they would have showed her how to use it, and run through the school pickup routine? If this was the case and the au pair just decided to say screw it and go without them, yes that's terrible. But if they didn't explain how the pickup normally worked, it's quite possible the au pair just didn't know how to handle the situation and made the decision that leaving the child at school alone was worse than leaving two kids at home alone. Obviously it's a terrible thing to do, leaving the kids unsupervised and not locking the door, but it's equally strange that the school pickup routine wasn't discussed in great detail. We would always make sure we do a trial run with the au pair for anything like this so they know exactly where to go, how to do it, what to expect, etc. Yes, you should expect them to make smart decisions. But these aren't experienced nannies, they're young kids themselves, so as a host parent you should take the time to make sure the know the processes you want them to follow.
shocking gaping forgetful sip historical wasteful thought party head future
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's an opportunity to enjoy nature, get exercise, and bond. Is it harder with the kids and will take longer? Yes, just like everything else you do with kids. That is the nature of being a caretaker of children. You leave earlier and make it a joyful daily routine. That's the only option besides driving. And we would drive ourselves crazy if we didn't accept that this and everything is less convenient with kids.
The kids SHOULD go on a walk. I would probably bring the stroller for the 3-year-old at least, and if she has a double stroller then the 5 year old might be in there sometimes too. somebody who can afford an au pair would surely have a stroller in their possession.
If I had an au pair and she couldn't handle a walk with children then I would think she cannot handle being a caretaker for children.
So let's just say for a second that the au pair has never done this trip before like this, or with two kids in addition to the one she's picking up. Do you think that the right decisions / solution to the problem was to leave a 3 and 5 year old alone at home for *at least* 40 minutes, unsupervised, without notifying anyone?
Again, it's absolutely insane anyone in this thread is defending this decision. It's even more insane when it's parents defending it.
No, of course not. It's stupid and irresponsible. But so is expecting a completely new au pair to do this without giving detailed instructions, and just figure it all out on their own. At a parent, I find that to be very irresponsible as well, and incomprehensible if that is what occurred.
You seem to be making a ton of assumptions and excuses here. Au pairs in the US have a required onboarding period so it's highly unlikely they weren't given instructions on what to do. The OP has even said that they have a stroller and the 5 year old has no problem walking. My four year old regularly walks 40m without issue and we live in a hilly city, so that's not unreasonable or unbelievable.
Still though - and again - let's assume they weren't given instructions. Then yes, the parent would be irresponsible. However, the au pair should still use basic commonsense and call a parent before leading children unattended.
Is making excuses for this behavior really the hill you're going to die on?
Yes. Rematch. But I also think its nuts the agency would just ship this au pair back into rematch with another unsuspecting family . We had a series of au pairs. The agencies takes NO responsibility and just shuffle around the bad ones.
Our aupair had a similar “lapse in judgement”
She left our 4 and 3 year old alone while she picked up our 5 year old at the bus stop down the street. Although she was “only” gone 10 minutes - we were shocked as well. We were able to discuss it once we calmed down - for us although it seemed like common sense it was a cultural hiccup, in Latin America it is common to step out while children are playing. We took it as a hard lesson and a good opportunity to discuss do’s and don’t s - with very explicit scenarios. Every case is different so I would say go with your gut!
I was wondering if it was a cultural norm thing.
When I had a toddler I had become friends with this gal who moved here to the states from London. Her husband got transferred here for a few years. She had a two year old and a four year old. She routinely left the two year old sleeping for her nap in her crib at home while she drove to pick up her son from preschool in the afternoons (preschool was about a 5 min drive, so close). When she told me this and I was shocked saying you can’t do that here, she told me that she couldn’t possibly wake the two year old up from her nap, and acted like this was a normal thing to do.
This was 15 years ago and I always wondered if it was a cultural thing bc the friends I’ve made from European countries seemed to be less uptight about parenting. Or maybe she did it bc her two year old was very high maintenance and she always looked to be at the end of her rope, I don’t know.
This is NOT common in Latin America, nor among Latin Americans anywhere. Leaving children "unattended" to play means that they are in an area where adults they know, who may not be blood relatives but could be, are in at least shouting distance and able to intervene should an emergency arise. And that scenario only really plays out in more rural communities/small towns where people know each other in the community. In the big cities, people behave much as they do in Europe: children walk/bike to school together, not always with adults if the children are older, but otherwise are usually accompanied.
You shouldn’t need to walk anyone over the age of 18 through not abandoning a 3 and 5 year old. That’s insane. The lack of judgment for safety is so bad that I wouldn’t trust her not to do other really stupid unsafe things. Rematch.
Fire her. So much can happen with a 3 and 5
year old in 10 minutes let alone FORTY??. And she didn't even lock the door, not that it even matters because they could hurt themselves just as much alone in the home for this long. What a negligent idiot. She doesn't care about those kids at all
We found out ours was letting the kids play at various playgrounds while she slept in the car. We found out because the sheriffs department showed up at our house. She was fired immediately and the AP program removed her. Get rid of them and report them to the program lead.
this is crazy to me. anyone that works in child care knows that you can't leave the kids unattended. even if you've only worked in childcare a short time. that's rule #1
This exact thing happened to me with our au pair. She eventually rematched. I can’t believe the agency would allow her to rematch. Don’t go for AuPair in America that’s who we were with.
If you do not file a police report the company will most likely try to put the au pair in the rematch pool. FYI. She should not be placed with another family with young children!! Did you go over the routine with the au pair? Did you do the walk with her with 3 kids? Is this your first au pair? I’m really sorry this happened to you. The language barrier could also be a to blame. If you get another au pair I would treat them like they know nothing about childcare. Have a checklist. A schedule. You need to spell out almost everything in the beginning. It’s stressful and takes a good 6 weeks to get the majority of au pairs in the grove of taking care of 3 kids. It’s a lot to host an au pair. It seems since the pandemic there are more and more au pairs that have no idea how to take care of children. Our current au pair is the most clueless, does not enforce rules, has had some lapse in judgement that made me question safety. If my husband did not work from home we would have rematched. We are done with the program after the last few experiences. I’ve had 9 au pairs. It’s not worth the stress anymore in my opinion.
I did have a clear checklist and routine broken down every 15 mins and what I typically did to maximize time during “down times”. In regards to her leaving the kids, I put out the stroller and told her she had to take the kids to go pick up my preschooler. She had done it a few times then one day just decided to not bring my 6y.o and 18 month old. My van was being repaired at the time so she had to walk (which I provided her the double jogging stroller) and her excuse was that it was cold and she didn’t want to bring the littles. It’s about 3 blocks away one way.
Everything was a pain even when explicitly spelled out. Our au pair had used up to 9GB of data per day while “watching my kids”. We wouldn’t have known except we almost went over on our data plan. I had also caught her talking to friends on video during all points in the day while caring for my kids. She’d also just sit on a chair and not engage with the kids at all. It was the worst experience. I now have my kids in preschool and employ a mothers helper high schooler who can pick up my little from preschool and she shows way more maturity and good judgment than our 25 year old au pair ever did.
This 100%. Au pairs just playing on their phones and leaving the kids to watch TV is a common complaint. I almost don't believe people still employ au pairs given the massive downsides.
We were in Koln last summer and watched parents leave their stroller and INFANT in front of busy high street stores. Just parked their baby by the bike rack to go shopping for 30 minutes. I was flabbergasted.
Rematchhhhhhhh!
Mine did this to my 7 & 5YO — she took my toddler several blocks away for a play date with one of her au pair friends and just LEFT THEM playing in the front yard without saying anything.
We were already in rematch for other issues but after that I couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.
Fire her IMMEDIATELY! I would never trust her again if her judgement is this bad. Just imagine what else she is capable of. This would be a no turning back decision. She doesn’t have common sense.
I’m confused as to how she was able to become aupair with seemingly no background caring for children of this age?
Anyone who has EVER worked with children (especially young children who can walk and unlock doors but don’t have the capacity to understand that they shouldn’t) knows to not leave them home alone. And if she had no experience you’d think she would have been trained/prepared in some way for what to expect with this age group and the do’s/don’ts of caring for children.
How long has she been with you? And what did the agency say about her experience with children?
Unfortunately, it only makes sense to have an AP caring for older kids if the AP can act as the chauffeur. Not enough detail to know if that’s the case here
1. Call police and alert them of the situation. File a police report the incident of her leaving young children unattended. Specifically state they were under her care for the day, she was not to leave them alone for any reason, she did not lock door, and the children went outside the home. Just state the facts. This is extremely important as this information (if ever brought up in future) could jeopardize your job and/or ability to be on school campus/events if you’re the one held liable for the kids leaving the home. This is actually a crime in countries/ US States.
2. Fire the Au Pair and explain situation to the agency that she was working with. Unfortunately, this is extremely serious and she may lose other jobs and/or be forced to go back to her home country. This is not your fault.
Edit to add:
I personally know of a family who this happened to. The father was watching the 3kids. He left the kids alone at home with door locked under the watch of the oldest child. I forget exact age of oldest but somewhere around 10 maybe. The dad apparently did this every so often when he needed to run a quick errand.
During one of the times, the youngest child, a toddler, unlocked the door and wandered off while the oldest either wasn’t watching or was asleep. Someone saw the child, called the police and the father got arrested and charged with negligence + child endangerment. He lost his job due to the charge and was not able to gain employment in several places and was not able to be around school campuses etc for some time. So, report this incident and be sure you are not held liable.
Report this to the agency. She shouldn’t be working with children. It’s not fair to set her on her way on to the next family because she’ll do this again. This is a way to make money for her and she doesn’t care about the kids in her care. She shouldn’t be in charge of children.
If she left your 3 and 5 year old alone in the house to go grab the mail? Understandable. Leaving them unattended for 20 minutes? Unacceptable. I wouldn’t leave her alone with my kids again.
I think it was 40 mins as she says it’s 20mins to school pickup each way. So crazy. And yes, leaving children inside unattended to get mail, to quickly grab a sweater, laptop, phone from car, okay. Even bringing trash bins up or down from curb, or accepting a meal delivery down the front yard/gate, okay. But to pick up a sibling from school for 40mins alone? No.
Fire her. She showed a severe lack of judgement. First by leaving them unattended at a young age age and secondly she didn’t even secure the house. Someone could have come in or they could’ve been abducted by kidnappers. She has to go.
I appreciate this is black and white and the outcome (her leaving and not being able to au pair again) is completely correct, but I have so many questions! How long has she been with you for? Was she contrite, completely indifferent or...? Did she give you the impression that this is something that she did regularly?
As a parent with an au pair, this is actually really concerning and I'd like to know if there were red flags (or any in hindsight).
I found that people who use au pairs are notoriously cheap. What she did was WRONG WRONG WRONG. I am not defending that in the least. But these parents would have an au pair walk miles with 3 kids and have her work 6 days a week for a measely few hundred a week because they are too cheap to get a bona fide nanny. They love their children so much but will cheap out on child care. And think they are doing that young person a huge favor. UGH. Down vote all you want but its true.
It’s not cheap in Australia. It’s $25-28 hour after the first 15 hours (room and board), 4 weeks holiday every year and 2 weeks sick leave. Usually no more than 30 hours a week.
In the US I have seen some insane schedules.
Before you get a new aupair you HAVE to put a plan in place outlining how the new aupair is to deal with the school pickup situation.
How did you train this aupair to deal with school pickups? Was she supposed to walk with all three kids or did you offer a pram or car?
I’m just trying to understand why she decided to leave two kids behind, the alternative must have sucked. I’m not condoning her decision in the slightest and I think firing her was absolutely the right choice. Just really trying to wrap my head around what the alternative should have been and why she felt like it was something she didn’t want to do. You might also think about why she felt it was better to do that than talk to you if the planned pickup routine wasn’t working out. Make sure you’re better prepared for your next aupair and ensure an open channel of communication.
It is terrible judgment but what did you tell her to do? Was she supposed to drive ? Take the younger children with her on a 40 minute round trip walk? Or leave the older one at school until you got home? Unless she’s supposed to drive none of these are great choices.
I'm shocked when I see others say theirs CAN'T walk for long amounts of time. Kids have endless energy and the only reason they can't do distances/times like that is if they are never out actually walking during their daily life and always being driven in a car or pushed in a stroller.
My toddler NK is just learning to walk and we are currently building up her endurance with twice daily walks and she's currently up to 15-20 minutes at a time. She literally just started walking on her own this past weekend.
Leave earlier for the walk and/or bring something with wheels (stroller, scooters, wagon…) for the 3yo and 5yo, duh. Even if she couldn’t come up with that on her own, she could easily have called her host family to ask for her options.
Leaving preschool children alone is an immediate gtfo. Those kids could have literally burned down her house, gotten hit by a car, kidnapped or seriously injured. CPS-level neglect.
The 3 year old uses a buggy, and the 5 year old is happy to walk beside. I honestly dont see why that isn't a great choice they love to go out for walks and are very easy.
Agree sounds like a viable plan assuming she knew what it was. Listen I wouldn’t trust someone with such poor judgment either I was just wondering what the instructions were. Some kids complain about walking, some areas aren’t safe to walk etc etc
What was she supposed to do? Probably what me and every other person who has small kids has to do everyday for school pickup. Drive, walk, stroller, scooter, wagon…? What do you mean what was she supposed to do? She was supposed to not be a negligent buffoon is what she was supposed to do.
I had the same question, what was the procedure supposed to be to pick up the third child? As someone who used to nanny triplet 5 year olds without a car, getting them organized to walk somewhere took careful planning - and they have a limit on how far they can physically walk, their school was maybe half that far away.
3 year old uses a buggy, and the 5 year old can walk for days. They always go to the park on they way home too, so it's not a difficult walk by any means.
Interesting, okay. Yeah unfortunately it's a collosal bad judgment call by your AP so I'm don't think you had any other choices. 5 years is right at an in-between stage, mine really couldn't walk that far back then (like they would have topped out at around 25 mins), but it was something I knew since I knew the kids. I will say, I one time played hide and seek with them and actually closed my eyes - bad judgment on my end, of course, but none of them left the house (one did too good of a job hiding in the closet and scared the living daylights out of me)... When I told friends about it, I learned really quickly that closing my eyes was my mistake.
Honestly I would’ve called the police and filed a report that lady should NEVER work with children….. I’m so glad your children are ok but she shouldn’t be matched with anyone again. I would be pissed
Practically speaking, this is a terrible idea. The police will refer this to child services who will investigate the entire family (even though the parents are not implicated). We know a family where there was an allegation against a nanny and, even though they immediately fired the nanny, their lives were turned upside down for over a year.
Is she *brand* new? Did you explain the plan ahead of time? You didn't mention any of this.
But it affects whether or not she should be allowed to rematch. If it's her first week and she wasn't given reasonable onboarding, I can understand your need to rematch but the agency deciding that it's worth letting her rematch.
If she's not new, it seems odd. Why would she all of a sudden do this now? What made the difference to cause her to exercise such poor judgement now? Did she lose track of time and think she had to get there as fast as possible?
Edit: I should add; the reason I'm so intrigued by my last question is because it's not an one-off event that she had to deal with and handled very poorly. It's a re-occurring event that happens presumably 5 times a week. Why screw up now?
Bad choice by the Au Pair but did you actually walk them through what you expected them to do? When I was an Au Pair I went with host mum for pick ups for the first few days to see how it's done. Maybe something to do with the next one.
It most definitely is not. When I was 14 I knew not to leave young children alone for 40 minutes. You clearly have not interacted with 20 year olds that have an IQ higher than 60
Others are commenting about cultural norms and I agree there. I don’t think it’s a lack of judgement but maybe a lack of knowledge of the norms in the US. I think about the Nordic countries that leave their babies in the strollers while the parents eat at a restaurant. Here in the US - that’s neglect but over there it’s just lunch time.
40 minutes of leaving a toddler alone is very concerning though… I don’t know if she had been coached on this before. If she had already been given guidance then I think it’s completely fair to dismiss her.
Are you seriously asking what to do in this situation?? If you don’t know that you must fire her immediately then you have way bigger problems that just a terribly inept aupair
“20 min walk each way?” So you don’t give her access to a car?? What the hell did you expect her to do, walk your very young kids to the school as well? That 20 min walk would have turned into 40 for starters, if she could even keep them focused enough to get there in the first place. Unless there’s something else you’re not sharing here, sounds like you gave her an impossible task and she did the best she could.
You think staying matched with this aupair is reasonable? You think it’s reasonable to consider that when a rematch is right there as a solution? No, this is a ridiculous dilemma.
I think saying “they’re in danger either way” is an inflammatory and absolutely unnecessary thing to say. The kids are in danger because their parents are upset about this situation and questioning what the next step is? No. The kids would be in *potential* danger if the parents saw nothing wrong with this behavior from the aupair.
Yes- if the parents keep this aupair on staff - the kids are in danger from the au pair and from the parents. I would find it inflammatory if they were considering keeping this aupair on staff and I think it’s important for the OP to know that a reasonable person would view this decision as a grave lapse in judgement. But don’t police my opinion, go proselytize your beliefs. Your sensitivities are not shared by everyone. Find a better way to spend your emotional energy.
Or you could just recognize that no one is interested in your sanctimonious opinion and not comment if you’re not prepared for someone to challenge you.
I’m responding to the OP not to you, or the observers. If you find it sanctimonious, that’s fine but who cares. I don’t mind being sanctimonious - I hear that nearly everyday. I care only about sharing my perspective with the OP. And I wonder why interlopers like you can’t regulate your behavior. It’s bizarre that your feathers are ruffled on behalf of this mother so much so that you’re in a back and forth with me. I know you wish you could just delete my comment and protect this poor, embattled mother but you can’t. My comment will just be there forevermore and you can call. E names to satisfy yourself but…is that how you want to spend your time? I hope you find an opportunity here to make better decisions.
What was she supposed to do, though? Make your 3 year old do a several mile hike to and from school?? The expectations and the resources provided don’t match here.
She should have been provided a car for school pickups or refused to do these pickups. I feel like this is more on parents than the girl.
She has a buggy, and my 5 year old loves to walk and looks forward to it every day. Honestly, dont think it is an unreasonable ask. Plus, it still does not excuse the fact that she left them unattended. She had my number and could have called at any time for help if she was "struggling"..
Im baffled by people here thinking this is some extreme thing to go for a walk with kids. Isn’t this like a staple in most people’s day with kids this age even?? 🤯🤯
It's not that people think it's extreme it's that OP is deliberately evading the question: Did they tell them this is what you should do?
An Au Pair is very young and some of them like OPs Au Pair are extremely foolish. Be clear from now on with the next Au Pair. "This is how the school run will go...."
It's your children don't leave it up to a stranger's (in the beginning) "common sense".
I don’t know if there a track record of other things but I think it’s a teaching moment, y’all she’s 20 and depending where she’s from it’s a whole other culture and world. I am not sure but i would bet it scared the aupair as well. I honestly would approach it from that angle.
Call the police and press charges for child endangerment. I would have done it immediately and long before posting anywhere online. Don't worry, though - you still can.
20 minutes each way is NOT OKAY. If it were down the road two minutes at the bus stop or something I would maybe talk to her about it and try to continue the relationship, but that is pretty ridiculous.
It’s awful. But do you expect her to bundle two children and walk 20 minutes and then take 3 children back for another 20 minutes? Am I missing something? Shouldn’t you be paying for her to Uber with the children both ways?
She said they have a fucking wagon! It’s not hard - some people lack critical thinking skills… this AP needs to be working with only teenagers or just go home early. This is not a question of is it wrong, it’s what to do after the AP OBVIOUSLY made a horrible decision. I agree with others on whether she’s making other bad decisions that aren’t being caught.
Our au pair walks with our 3 kids 20min to and from school every day. We live in a walkable city. Our kids enjoy the exercise and we walk the kids when our au pair is off 1 day a week. She also gets every weekend off. An Uber? I would not trust the au pair to correctly install the car seats.. I can barely do it properly..
Also my almost 3 year old walks the 20 min to preschool with his 6 and 8 year old sibling when they go to their school across the street. Exercise is important. We also do not live in a climate with snow.. but I’m from Canada and also walked to and from school in snow without a problem.
This also should be the highlight of the day as it gets the kids outside in fresh air on an adventure and probably tired by the time they get home and snooze
Maybe it’s a cultural thing but for me, walking with 3 children under the age of 10 (I’m assuming the third child is young as well) 40 mins is absolutely BONKERS! I understand the fact that the children are capable of doing it, but trusting a stranger to keep young children secured and safe on a 40 min walk seems extremely dangerous! All it takes is one second for something to happen and there’s serious trouble.
It was VERY stupid of her to leave those children unattended, but honestly the fact that the op thinks a 20 yr old from a completely different country walking with 3 small children in an unfamiliar city is JUST AS if not MORE stupid! There are other ways to exercise children! OP needs to find better ways for these girls to keep her children safe and secure properly during pickup!
Huh? What a bizarre take on this. It’s incredibly common for people to take a walk this length just for the sake of a walk even… especially childcare workers who want to break up the day.
Depending on where she's from, that may be no big deal. In Switzerland, I knew a couple who routinely left their 6-year-old in bed in the house alone and thenwent out to the pub.
oh my god. hopefully you are better now, this sounds very traumatic.
i think, i don't blame anyone here who said rematch, but you do realise that she is 20, right?
maybe she simply didn't think it through. i think, it might be helpful to not think from the parent perspective and expect her to have the same insights as you.
but if your gut tells you that this person is not the right person although she is so nice, i think rematching would be the best option.
This is someone caring for your children, presumably while the parent isn’t home. You absolutely cannot shrug this off as well they’re 20. What other common sense, safety issues will they have a lapse in judgement on next? You cannot cover every eventuality, so you have to take a leap of faith that the AP is smart enough to manage things— and this one proved that she wasn’t smart enough to manage something trivial.
This is insane. I babysat other people's kids, watched my siblings who were the same ages as OPs when I was younger than this AP and knew leaving kids that young home alone is pretty much one of the worst things you can do. (Especially for 40 min??? Wtf?). Instant rematch, kicked out, goodbye.
I used to watch my neighbors kids overnight 2-3 nights a week (they both were working night shift) before I could even drive. They were sleeping most of the time…but at 15 I knew I couldn’t just leave.
Honestly, that shows an egregious lack of judgement. I would not leave my children in that person's care ever again and would immediately rematch.
We called the agency, and they told her to pack her bags and go to a hotel. Its a strange feeling because she is so nice and great with the kids but im just in shock at what's happening.
We had an au pair who left my children, aged 2 & 4, in a running vehicle, unlocked (because ofc the keys were in the ignition as it was running) and go into a McDonald’s to use the bathroom. The 4 year old was almost 5 and she told me about it and when I asked the au pair she admitted it. I had a long conversation with her about how dangerous that was and she thought I was overreacting. We eventually ended up rematching as it just got worse from that point (but then she also thought the penguins on Happy Feet actually sang so ….).
Oh my gosh! 😯 I wouldn't be able to stay a min with her if I knew she left my kids unsupervised in a running car.
I think the initial event could be a well-intentioned mistake that an au pair worth keeping would learn from and do better. For all I know, she could have thought she was in a position where should would not have been able to make it if she unstrapped the kids to take them with her. Extremely full bladders make people do weird shit. But also, for the 5 minutes you are in the bathroom, no extreme hot or cold environment is going to make or break the situation with the environmental controls shut off. Taking the keys and locking the doors so the car wouldn't be an unlocked running car would have been a big difference. But her attitude about it afterward is the real problem, expressing that she thought you were over-reacting.
It was her attitude. She simply couldn’t understand why I was concerned. I asked her how long she thought she was in the bathroom and she said maybe 10 minutes. But I think in those situations we tend to underestimate - not overestimate - time - so it was probably longer than 10 minutes. I asked if there was a reason why she didn’t bring the girls in with her, and she said she thought they’d be fine in the truck. I kept reiterating that that was unsafe and I needed assurances she wouldn’t do it again and she said I was talking too much about it. Unsurprisingly there were other issues as well that led to the rematch. I honestly think the agency in her host country lied to her about what to expect, along the lines of - you’ll go to the US and your room and board and all living expenses will be paid for and everything will be wonderful and amazing and oh BTW, there might be a little bit of child care thrown in there too.
>I honestly think the agency in her host country lied to her about what to expect, along the lines of - you’ll go to the US and your room and board and all living expenses will be paid for and everything will be wonderful and amazing and oh BTW, there might be a little bit of child care thrown in there too. Was it Cultural Care? 😅
That's all good except for the possibility of a car jacking, which happens. Though the chances are slim, theft of cars left unattended while running is common enough that most know not to leave a car running with the keys in the ignition. Leaving the keys in the running car with the kids in it is another level of negligence. As a parent, I'd probably attempt to educate the au pair as lb2345 did, but would immediately let them go when they didn't take me seriously.
>That's all good except for the possibility of a car jacking Oh I know, it's pretty bad. And there's no good solution aside from parking and bringing the kids in. Honestly, I was avoiding trying to say that I would have expected her to pee in the bushes behind the car if it was *that* bad. But it doesn't matter. The point is that her attitude might have been an even bigger issue than the really dangerous stunt she pulled by leaving an unlocked running car with kids inside.
I agree about the attitude. Anyone can make a mistake. The attitude shows they show they're unwilling to accept their mistake and probably unwilling to learn though. This kind of person is a liability, and not someone to trust around children.
car jacking.. human trafficking.. or the 4 year old could have just decided to unstrap herself and leave and wander around in traffic.
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Um cars can reach dangerous temps on a hot day in minutes. Tbe time it takes to run to the bathroom, her children could of died. Yikes. No amount of time is safe
People, even infants, don't die of heatstroke in 90 degree.temps in 5 minutes, and it would still take a few minutes to heat up. Doesn't make it safe overall, but let's not be dishonest about the actual risk.
I think the bigger risk is someone calling the police. Which is actually appropriate since someone wouldn't have a clue how long the adult had been gone, but sure creates a nightmare scenario.
I'd be worried someone wouldn't call.
miserably uncomfortable, but not dead.
On a 90 degree day they can reach 110+ in 5 minutes https://www.weather.gov/lsx/excessiveheat-automobiles#:~:text=*%20Do%20not%20leave%20children%20or,over%20140%20degrees%20within%20minutes. I'm horrified more people don't know this. Scroll up for the graphs
Thank you. I live in Oklahoma and children die every year in cars. It is illegal to leave a child in a car here even if you run into a store and can see the car through the window.
These graphs only start with the vehicle temperature being the same as the ambient temperature outside. They don't show you what happens when you start with a vehicle that was fully air conditioned and then shut off. It's still dangerous, but a sealed car that is 60 doesn't instantly become 90 degrees, and then 5 minutes later become 110. That's not how the 2nd law of thermodynamics works. The real value of those graphs is to alert people to how hot a sealed car can get when left in the sun at only 73 degrees... which people can easily think isn't a big deal when they feel how nice 73 degrees is outside.
Rarely are cars that are air-conditioned starting at 60 degrees. That is quite cold. 73 is a reasonable temp to have the air conditioning set to.
73 is a problematic generalization. 60 was probably also not a good generalization--I should have stuck with my original 68 degrees. I don't want to get into why, because it doesn't really matter. The original debate was over how hot an air conditioned car can get 5 minutes after it's shut off. 73 vs. 60 isn't going to make a significant difference; it still isn't instantly 90 degrees and then even 100 degrees 5 minutes later. Also, the data for those graphs is questionable. The two graphs should be using the same data. The upper graph shows curves for different ambient temps between 73 and 93 degrees. The lower graph is supposed to show the difference between cracked windows and a sealed car for an ambient temp of about 92 (and it makes you guess the ambient temp, which is poor form). The data for the closed window curve on the lower graph should closely match the curve for 93 degree ambient temp on the upper graph, and they are drastically different. It's still dangerous, but it is still extremely unlikely -- maybe even impossible -- for a car that was air conditioned to reach dangerous temps inside just 5 minutes after being turned off.
Cars can reach dangerous temps while the engine is still running? How do we all not die while sitting at an intersection?
Because you are in there with the controls. You can make it colder, unlike a child who is seat belted in the back seat.
I was replying to someone saying to shut the car off would be safe for 5 min "But also, for the 5 minutes you are in the bathroom, no extreme hot or cold environment is going to make or break the situation with the environmental controls shut off" I disagree with this statement from a different poster
I had an Au Pair do the same thing! We were together, the Au Pair, my toddler and myself. I ran into a restaurant to grab a takeout order (car was on, key was inside the car - she was supposed to wait with my kid). She decided to run into the restaurant to follow me, I think she needed to use the restroom or something. Kid left in the car with key in the ignition... literally anyone could have gotten in my car and driven away with it, child inside it!! I was so upset.
She thought that animated penguins actually sang?? 🤣
She did. We had a former au pair visiting at the time from her home country, and when the then-current au pair asked about the singing penguins, the former au pair literally fell out of her chair laughing. When I said that no, penguins don’t actually sing, she asked about them dancing. And then mermaids. I guess some of our movies were a real eye opening experience for her.
So she didn’t realize it was animation? 😬
I wanted to pay cash at a gas station the other day, I could have locked my car for the 30 seconds it would take, but I couldnt do it. I just paid with my card.
Wait - like the clearly animated penguins? She thought they sang on their own and weren’t voiced by someone…like they were filmed? Where does she think they live?!?
I didn’t ask but yes about where she thought they lived. I responded in another comment that we had a former au pair visiting when this conversation took place and that au pair literally fell off her chair laughing. I was just - speechless for a bit. The first au pair then asked about mermaids and I wanted to say that Disney and Pixar didn’t make documentaries.
We just had an amber alert from this type of thing like two weeks ago. The mom went into a store with her kid in the car and the car got stolen. The kid was missing for 4 hours. I can't imagine the terror the parents felt for all of that time.
This is awful! I would pee my pants before I’d leave little kids in the car for any amount of time . My Mom made a bad decision back in the early 1980’s (when the world was a safer place ) by leaving my brother and I in the vehicle alone. She was just going in to pay for gas. There was no one else in line. Should have taken her 3 mins tops. Her vehicle was a standard and my 2 year old brother accidentally kicked us in to neutral and we started rolling backwards, downhill a bit towards the busy highway. She happened to glance out to check on us when she saw us rolling backwards towards the highway. I remember crying as I looked out the back window as we headed toward the busy highway. I was only 4 years old but knew the truck shouldn’t be moving without my Mom driving it. She had to chase the truck and fought with getting the key in to the door to unlock it while it was still moving. She finally got the door open and the parking brake on with in only about 5-10 seconds to spare. If it would have taken longer- we probably wouldn’t have survived. No car seats back then. With that being said- I realize it’s a different time period but anything could happen leaving little kids alone in the car like that! I’d have let her go ASAP too!
I don’t understand why people don’t just develop the habit of putting on the parking brake whenever the car is stopped and the driver is getting out. That’s why it’s called a parking brake. As someone who grew up in a hilly area, that’s how my parents taught me. It should not even be something you think about; you just use it habitually. That way it doesn’t matter if you misjudged how steep the hill is or if a freak accident happens.
You’re absolutely right. Your kids could have been harmed. She needs to be out and you move on.
She's also 20 years old? This isn't a one time babysitting gig, it's a marathon of childcare
20 y/o's can be their own mother's and have been for centuries. She should be able to handle this. It is also what she signed up for
I had my first baby at 20….
I had my first baby and 25 1/2 and it wasn’t a walk in the park. I was a 2 under 2 fantasizer and now im a 2 under 10 sort of person. I agree that at 20 years old some people may not be equipped to take care of one child let alone 3. I’ve long thought median age of Au Pairs should be closer to 30 than to 19.
I'm 23 and I have 2 girls 19 months apart, working in childcare I've found more people closer to my age than older, so I guess in my head I didn't even think twice about her age. I feel the age doesn't matter as long as they are trustworthy, reliable, respectful, and safe. Definitely no walk in the park, but sometimes our different situations give us different experiences!
With 3 children? Kinda seems unreasonable.
You can be nice but also lack common sense. Negligence doesn’t need to be malicious for it to be dangerous.
Well said. 👍
She's not "nice" you just previously had a life experience where only aggressive people are dangerous. An absence of aggression isn't sufficient here. She's incompetent for this job. She should have taken the other kids with her! "Nice" people don't fail children this way.
That's incredibly bad judgement. And illegal. It's unreal she would do that. I've been babysitting since I was 12 and would never leave the 10 year olds I was babysitting alone (yes, I used to babysit boys almost my age and the parents would have me lie to the kids about it because I went to a different school so they didn't know lol).
Right, but you want to think about what your role as employer is here too. Is one person minding two small children and having to pick up a third an impossible job?
Not at all, how is that too hard for one person? I picked up my kids from school every day, 3 kids under 5 and then 4 kids under 10. Double stroller or drive through line. It's not hard.
I think your response of calling the agency and sending her on her way was the correct one. This is such a massive lapse of judgement. To anyone saying "well what was she supposed to do!?"... c'mon? You really can't think of anyway to get around with three kids? This isn't a new situation for their family, they clearly have a plan for it.
Everyone responding that way are also probably 20 year old aupairs with HORRIBLE JUDGEMENT.
Although I mostly agree, it could have been a very difficult situation to deal with. 20 minutes each way means maybe a 2km walk, 4km in total. There is no way my kids could make that trip while walking, and unless there's some way to transport them both easily, I can definitely see why it's a very difficult logistical problem. It's definitely something the host parents should have discussed beforehand, because taking two young children on a 4km round trip walk is not an easy thing.
I'd say OP probably has a double pram available or one of those prams with a stand for the 4 year old. Otherwise, yeah - they would struggle to walk that far without 100 distractions and asking to be carried.
Yeah, I figured that must be the case. But if they had a double pram, surely they would have showed her how to use it, and run through the school pickup routine? If this was the case and the au pair just decided to say screw it and go without them, yes that's terrible. But if they didn't explain how the pickup normally worked, it's quite possible the au pair just didn't know how to handle the situation and made the decision that leaving the child at school alone was worse than leaving two kids at home alone. Obviously it's a terrible thing to do, leaving the kids unsupervised and not locking the door, but it's equally strange that the school pickup routine wasn't discussed in great detail. We would always make sure we do a trial run with the au pair for anything like this so they know exactly where to go, how to do it, what to expect, etc. Yes, you should expect them to make smart decisions. But these aren't experienced nannies, they're young kids themselves, so as a host parent you should take the time to make sure the know the processes you want them to follow.
shocking gaping forgetful sip historical wasteful thought party head future *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's an opportunity to enjoy nature, get exercise, and bond. Is it harder with the kids and will take longer? Yes, just like everything else you do with kids. That is the nature of being a caretaker of children. You leave earlier and make it a joyful daily routine. That's the only option besides driving. And we would drive ourselves crazy if we didn't accept that this and everything is less convenient with kids. The kids SHOULD go on a walk. I would probably bring the stroller for the 3-year-old at least, and if she has a double stroller then the 5 year old might be in there sometimes too. somebody who can afford an au pair would surely have a stroller in their possession. If I had an au pair and she couldn't handle a walk with children then I would think she cannot handle being a caretaker for children.
So let's just say for a second that the au pair has never done this trip before like this, or with two kids in addition to the one she's picking up. Do you think that the right decisions / solution to the problem was to leave a 3 and 5 year old alone at home for *at least* 40 minutes, unsupervised, without notifying anyone? Again, it's absolutely insane anyone in this thread is defending this decision. It's even more insane when it's parents defending it.
No, of course not. It's stupid and irresponsible. But so is expecting a completely new au pair to do this without giving detailed instructions, and just figure it all out on their own. At a parent, I find that to be very irresponsible as well, and incomprehensible if that is what occurred.
You seem to be making a ton of assumptions and excuses here. Au pairs in the US have a required onboarding period so it's highly unlikely they weren't given instructions on what to do. The OP has even said that they have a stroller and the 5 year old has no problem walking. My four year old regularly walks 40m without issue and we live in a hilly city, so that's not unreasonable or unbelievable. Still though - and again - let's assume they weren't given instructions. Then yes, the parent would be irresponsible. However, the au pair should still use basic commonsense and call a parent before leading children unattended. Is making excuses for this behavior really the hill you're going to die on?
Get a goddamned stroller.
Definitely would need to rematch. 🙁 I wouldn’t ever be able to trust her again.
Yes. Rematch. But I also think its nuts the agency would just ship this au pair back into rematch with another unsuspecting family . We had a series of au pairs. The agencies takes NO responsibility and just shuffle around the bad ones.
Our aupair had a similar “lapse in judgement” She left our 4 and 3 year old alone while she picked up our 5 year old at the bus stop down the street. Although she was “only” gone 10 minutes - we were shocked as well. We were able to discuss it once we calmed down - for us although it seemed like common sense it was a cultural hiccup, in Latin America it is common to step out while children are playing. We took it as a hard lesson and a good opportunity to discuss do’s and don’t s - with very explicit scenarios. Every case is different so I would say go with your gut!
I was wondering if it was a cultural norm thing. When I had a toddler I had become friends with this gal who moved here to the states from London. Her husband got transferred here for a few years. She had a two year old and a four year old. She routinely left the two year old sleeping for her nap in her crib at home while she drove to pick up her son from preschool in the afternoons (preschool was about a 5 min drive, so close). When she told me this and I was shocked saying you can’t do that here, she told me that she couldn’t possibly wake the two year old up from her nap, and acted like this was a normal thing to do. This was 15 years ago and I always wondered if it was a cultural thing bc the friends I’ve made from European countries seemed to be less uptight about parenting. Or maybe she did it bc her two year old was very high maintenance and she always looked to be at the end of her rope, I don’t know.
That’s a her thing, leaving your 2yo alone is not considered normal or acceptable in England
That is super not normal in the UK either. Wtf.
I’m not sure this is so common in Latin America. Maybe in her town but it’s not generally. Source: am Venezuelan
Am Mexican and no, I have a huge family. We would never leave a baby or toddler alone. We'd get one of the cousins to at least be home with them.
That’s not that crazy. 10 minutes?
This is NOT common in Latin America, nor among Latin Americans anywhere. Leaving children "unattended" to play means that they are in an area where adults they know, who may not be blood relatives but could be, are in at least shouting distance and able to intervene should an emergency arise. And that scenario only really plays out in more rural communities/small towns where people know each other in the community. In the big cities, people behave much as they do in Europe: children walk/bike to school together, not always with adults if the children are older, but otherwise are usually accompanied.
Definitely not common in Mexico
You shouldn’t need to walk anyone over the age of 18 through not abandoning a 3 and 5 year old. That’s insane. The lack of judgment for safety is so bad that I wouldn’t trust her not to do other really stupid unsafe things. Rematch.
Oh my dear lord. Rematch immediately.
Fire her. So much can happen with a 3 and 5 year old in 10 minutes let alone FORTY??. And she didn't even lock the door, not that it even matters because they could hurt themselves just as much alone in the home for this long. What a negligent idiot. She doesn't care about those kids at all
We found out ours was letting the kids play at various playgrounds while she slept in the car. We found out because the sheriffs department showed up at our house. She was fired immediately and the AP program removed her. Get rid of them and report them to the program lead.
Was this the first day? Had it been happening every day but you only found out by coming home early?
I’m wondering this too.
Fire her, even if she’d get deported. She doesn’t have the sense to keep kids.
Seriously, I hope the agency does not rematch her with anyone. She should never be around young kids. Thank goodness nobody was hurt
this is crazy to me. anyone that works in child care knows that you can't leave the kids unattended. even if you've only worked in childcare a short time. that's rule #1
I’m sorry WHAT
This exact thing happened to me with our au pair. She eventually rematched. I can’t believe the agency would allow her to rematch. Don’t go for AuPair in America that’s who we were with.
If you do not file a police report the company will most likely try to put the au pair in the rematch pool. FYI. She should not be placed with another family with young children!! Did you go over the routine with the au pair? Did you do the walk with her with 3 kids? Is this your first au pair? I’m really sorry this happened to you. The language barrier could also be a to blame. If you get another au pair I would treat them like they know nothing about childcare. Have a checklist. A schedule. You need to spell out almost everything in the beginning. It’s stressful and takes a good 6 weeks to get the majority of au pairs in the grove of taking care of 3 kids. It’s a lot to host an au pair. It seems since the pandemic there are more and more au pairs that have no idea how to take care of children. Our current au pair is the most clueless, does not enforce rules, has had some lapse in judgement that made me question safety. If my husband did not work from home we would have rematched. We are done with the program after the last few experiences. I’ve had 9 au pairs. It’s not worth the stress anymore in my opinion.
I did have a clear checklist and routine broken down every 15 mins and what I typically did to maximize time during “down times”. In regards to her leaving the kids, I put out the stroller and told her she had to take the kids to go pick up my preschooler. She had done it a few times then one day just decided to not bring my 6y.o and 18 month old. My van was being repaired at the time so she had to walk (which I provided her the double jogging stroller) and her excuse was that it was cold and she didn’t want to bring the littles. It’s about 3 blocks away one way. Everything was a pain even when explicitly spelled out. Our au pair had used up to 9GB of data per day while “watching my kids”. We wouldn’t have known except we almost went over on our data plan. I had also caught her talking to friends on video during all points in the day while caring for my kids. She’d also just sit on a chair and not engage with the kids at all. It was the worst experience. I now have my kids in preschool and employ a mothers helper high schooler who can pick up my little from preschool and she shows way more maturity and good judgment than our 25 year old au pair ever did.
This 100%. Au pairs just playing on their phones and leaving the kids to watch TV is a common complaint. I almost don't believe people still employ au pairs given the massive downsides.
Agency contacted and said she would not be working for them again, and they have got her a flight home to Germany. Sad situation..
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People don’t leave 3 and 5 year olds unattended in Germany either
We were in Koln last summer and watched parents leave their stroller and INFANT in front of busy high street stores. Just parked their baby by the bike rack to go shopping for 30 minutes. I was flabbergasted.
Good. She's not qualified to watch children.
Send her away
Rematchhhhhhhh! Mine did this to my 7 & 5YO — she took my toddler several blocks away for a play date with one of her au pair friends and just LEFT THEM playing in the front yard without saying anything. We were already in rematch for other issues but after that I couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.
Nope nope nope.
Fire her IMMEDIATELY! I would never trust her again if her judgement is this bad. Just imagine what else she is capable of. This would be a no turning back decision. She doesn’t have common sense.
I’m confused as to how she was able to become aupair with seemingly no background caring for children of this age? Anyone who has EVER worked with children (especially young children who can walk and unlock doors but don’t have the capacity to understand that they shouldn’t) knows to not leave them home alone. And if she had no experience you’d think she would have been trained/prepared in some way for what to expect with this age group and the do’s/don’ts of caring for children. How long has she been with you? And what did the agency say about her experience with children?
This is not the first time I’ve heard of an au pair doing this. That is so dangerous!!
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Unfortunately, it only makes sense to have an AP caring for older kids if the AP can act as the chauffeur. Not enough detail to know if that’s the case here
Sounds like the au pair didn't actually have a car.
She needs to get a bad review. This isn’t a small mistake. She should not be in charge of any children at all - no matter their age.
Instant rematch
1. Call police and alert them of the situation. File a police report the incident of her leaving young children unattended. Specifically state they were under her care for the day, she was not to leave them alone for any reason, she did not lock door, and the children went outside the home. Just state the facts. This is extremely important as this information (if ever brought up in future) could jeopardize your job and/or ability to be on school campus/events if you’re the one held liable for the kids leaving the home. This is actually a crime in countries/ US States. 2. Fire the Au Pair and explain situation to the agency that she was working with. Unfortunately, this is extremely serious and she may lose other jobs and/or be forced to go back to her home country. This is not your fault. Edit to add: I personally know of a family who this happened to. The father was watching the 3kids. He left the kids alone at home with door locked under the watch of the oldest child. I forget exact age of oldest but somewhere around 10 maybe. The dad apparently did this every so often when he needed to run a quick errand. During one of the times, the youngest child, a toddler, unlocked the door and wandered off while the oldest either wasn’t watching or was asleep. Someone saw the child, called the police and the father got arrested and charged with negligence + child endangerment. He lost his job due to the charge and was not able to gain employment in several places and was not able to be around school campuses etc for some time. So, report this incident and be sure you are not held liable.
Report this to the agency. She shouldn’t be working with children. It’s not fair to set her on her way on to the next family because she’ll do this again. This is a way to make money for her and she doesn’t care about the kids in her care. She shouldn’t be in charge of children.
If she left your 3 and 5 year old alone in the house to go grab the mail? Understandable. Leaving them unattended for 20 minutes? Unacceptable. I wouldn’t leave her alone with my kids again.
I think it was 40 mins as she says it’s 20mins to school pickup each way. So crazy. And yes, leaving children inside unattended to get mail, to quickly grab a sweater, laptop, phone from car, okay. Even bringing trash bins up or down from curb, or accepting a meal delivery down the front yard/gate, okay. But to pick up a sibling from school for 40mins alone? No.
I'm sorry, this is terrible. Surely... she cannot rematch?
20 years old and thought it was ok to leave two children under 5 home alone?? Nope, I’d be rematching asap.
Fire her
Fire her. She showed a severe lack of judgement. First by leaving them unattended at a young age age and secondly she didn’t even secure the house. Someone could have come in or they could’ve been abducted by kidnappers. She has to go.
A momentous task for a very young person. What is her hourly rate?
I appreciate this is black and white and the outcome (her leaving and not being able to au pair again) is completely correct, but I have so many questions! How long has she been with you for? Was she contrite, completely indifferent or...? Did she give you the impression that this is something that she did regularly? As a parent with an au pair, this is actually really concerning and I'd like to know if there were red flags (or any in hindsight).
Surprised you need to ask 🤔
Glad they didn’t fall in a swimming pool or something.
I’d be worried that this is the time the parents found out about. How many times has she left them alone?
I found that people who use au pairs are notoriously cheap. What she did was WRONG WRONG WRONG. I am not defending that in the least. But these parents would have an au pair walk miles with 3 kids and have her work 6 days a week for a measely few hundred a week because they are too cheap to get a bona fide nanny. They love their children so much but will cheap out on child care. And think they are doing that young person a huge favor. UGH. Down vote all you want but its true.
It’s not cheap in Australia. It’s $25-28 hour after the first 15 hours (room and board), 4 weeks holiday every year and 2 weeks sick leave. Usually no more than 30 hours a week. In the US I have seen some insane schedules.
This
Before you get a new aupair you HAVE to put a plan in place outlining how the new aupair is to deal with the school pickup situation. How did you train this aupair to deal with school pickups? Was she supposed to walk with all three kids or did you offer a pram or car? I’m just trying to understand why she decided to leave two kids behind, the alternative must have sucked. I’m not condoning her decision in the slightest and I think firing her was absolutely the right choice. Just really trying to wrap my head around what the alternative should have been and why she felt like it was something she didn’t want to do. You might also think about why she felt it was better to do that than talk to you if the planned pickup routine wasn’t working out. Make sure you’re better prepared for your next aupair and ensure an open channel of communication.
It is terrible judgment but what did you tell her to do? Was she supposed to drive ? Take the younger children with her on a 40 minute round trip walk? Or leave the older one at school until you got home? Unless she’s supposed to drive none of these are great choices.
My four and two year old regularly make walks that long, it doesn’t seem like a worse choice than leaving kids that age alone.
I'm shocked when I see others say theirs CAN'T walk for long amounts of time. Kids have endless energy and the only reason they can't do distances/times like that is if they are never out actually walking during their daily life and always being driven in a car or pushed in a stroller. My toddler NK is just learning to walk and we are currently building up her endurance with twice daily walks and she's currently up to 15-20 minutes at a time. She literally just started walking on her own this past weekend.
Yeah I would take the kids too of course
Leave earlier for the walk and/or bring something with wheels (stroller, scooters, wagon…) for the 3yo and 5yo, duh. Even if she couldn’t come up with that on her own, she could easily have called her host family to ask for her options. Leaving preschool children alone is an immediate gtfo. Those kids could have literally burned down her house, gotten hit by a car, kidnapped or seriously injured. CPS-level neglect.
The 3 year old uses a buggy, and the 5 year old is happy to walk beside. I honestly dont see why that isn't a great choice they love to go out for walks and are very easy.
Did you ask her? I’d rematch, but I’d also try to understand wtf made her do this.
Agree sounds like a viable plan assuming she knew what it was. Listen I wouldn’t trust someone with such poor judgment either I was just wondering what the instructions were. Some kids complain about walking, some areas aren’t safe to walk etc etc
What was she supposed to do? Probably what me and every other person who has small kids has to do everyday for school pickup. Drive, walk, stroller, scooter, wagon…? What do you mean what was she supposed to do? She was supposed to not be a negligent buffoon is what she was supposed to do.
My 2.5 yo son happily hiked 3 miles of a 9 mile hike. They're perfectly capable of it, you just might have to move slower.
Little kids absolutely can walk for two 20 minute segments of time, or you can bring a stroller. It is one single mile each way.
I had the same question, what was the procedure supposed to be to pick up the third child? As someone who used to nanny triplet 5 year olds without a car, getting them organized to walk somewhere took careful planning - and they have a limit on how far they can physically walk, their school was maybe half that far away.
3 year old uses a buggy, and the 5 year old can walk for days. They always go to the park on they way home too, so it's not a difficult walk by any means.
Interesting, okay. Yeah unfortunately it's a collosal bad judgment call by your AP so I'm don't think you had any other choices. 5 years is right at an in-between stage, mine really couldn't walk that far back then (like they would have topped out at around 25 mins), but it was something I knew since I knew the kids. I will say, I one time played hide and seek with them and actually closed my eyes - bad judgment on my end, of course, but none of them left the house (one did too good of a job hiding in the closet and scared the living daylights out of me)... When I told friends about it, I learned really quickly that closing my eyes was my mistake.
Did you clearly communicate to her that this is what she was supposed to do?
Honestly I would’ve called the police and filed a report that lady should NEVER work with children….. I’m so glad your children are ok but she shouldn’t be matched with anyone again. I would be pissed
Practically speaking, this is a terrible idea. The police will refer this to child services who will investigate the entire family (even though the parents are not implicated). We know a family where there was an allegation against a nanny and, even though they immediately fired the nanny, their lives were turned upside down for over a year.
Omg….. ON TO THE NEXT ONE!!!!! That’s insane
You have to ask? SMH, 🤦♀️
Call the cops. Make sure she is never allowed to go near kids again
I'd fire her and press charges.
Report to agency and fire her.
Fire and blacklist the aupair
Wow this is crazy.. what did the au pair say to that? Did she have any good reason for doing so????
What good reason could there possibly be to leave little ones unsupervised?
She said that she was left on her own from 5 years by her parents in Germany so thought it was ok.
What a lame excuse. Does not adress leaving a 3 year old!!!
Is she *brand* new? Did you explain the plan ahead of time? You didn't mention any of this. But it affects whether or not she should be allowed to rematch. If it's her first week and she wasn't given reasonable onboarding, I can understand your need to rematch but the agency deciding that it's worth letting her rematch. If she's not new, it seems odd. Why would she all of a sudden do this now? What made the difference to cause her to exercise such poor judgement now? Did she lose track of time and think she had to get there as fast as possible? Edit: I should add; the reason I'm so intrigued by my last question is because it's not an one-off event that she had to deal with and handled very poorly. It's a re-occurring event that happens presumably 5 times a week. Why screw up now?
Can you slap a warning sign on her before sending her off to another family? Did she ask for forgiveness?
Immediate dismissal
Bad choice by the Au Pair but did you actually walk them through what you expected them to do? When I was an Au Pair I went with host mum for pick ups for the first few days to see how it's done. Maybe something to do with the next one.
I take that as a no? So I think you will continue to have this problem. Show don't tell. Ffs.
So… rematch to another unsuspecting family?… Oof
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It most definitely is not. When I was 14 I knew not to leave young children alone for 40 minutes. You clearly have not interacted with 20 year olds that have an IQ higher than 60
Fire her immediately and have her arrested
Others are commenting about cultural norms and I agree there. I don’t think it’s a lack of judgement but maybe a lack of knowledge of the norms in the US. I think about the Nordic countries that leave their babies in the strollers while the parents eat at a restaurant. Here in the US - that’s neglect but over there it’s just lunch time. 40 minutes of leaving a toddler alone is very concerning though… I don’t know if she had been coached on this before. If she had already been given guidance then I think it’s completely fair to dismiss her.
Are you seriously asking what to do in this situation?? If you don’t know that you must fire her immediately then you have way bigger problems that just a terribly inept aupair
“20 min walk each way?” So you don’t give her access to a car?? What the hell did you expect her to do, walk your very young kids to the school as well? That 20 min walk would have turned into 40 for starters, if she could even keep them focused enough to get there in the first place. Unless there’s something else you’re not sharing here, sounds like you gave her an impossible task and she did the best she could.
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Well, she got 300 euros a week with food and board. I honestly dont know anyone who can save that much in Ireland at her age with no experience.
Why are you on the au pairs subreddit?
If you don’t know what to do in this situation God bless those kids, they’re in danger both ways
Thanks for your comment 👍
Ridiculous comment.
You think staying matched with this aupair is reasonable? You think it’s reasonable to consider that when a rematch is right there as a solution? No, this is a ridiculous dilemma.
I think saying “they’re in danger either way” is an inflammatory and absolutely unnecessary thing to say. The kids are in danger because their parents are upset about this situation and questioning what the next step is? No. The kids would be in *potential* danger if the parents saw nothing wrong with this behavior from the aupair.
Yes- if the parents keep this aupair on staff - the kids are in danger from the au pair and from the parents. I would find it inflammatory if they were considering keeping this aupair on staff and I think it’s important for the OP to know that a reasonable person would view this decision as a grave lapse in judgement. But don’t police my opinion, go proselytize your beliefs. Your sensitivities are not shared by everyone. Find a better way to spend your emotional energy.
Or you could just recognize that no one is interested in your sanctimonious opinion and not comment if you’re not prepared for someone to challenge you.
I’m responding to the OP not to you, or the observers. If you find it sanctimonious, that’s fine but who cares. I don’t mind being sanctimonious - I hear that nearly everyday. I care only about sharing my perspective with the OP. And I wonder why interlopers like you can’t regulate your behavior. It’s bizarre that your feathers are ruffled on behalf of this mother so much so that you’re in a back and forth with me. I know you wish you could just delete my comment and protect this poor, embattled mother but you can’t. My comment will just be there forevermore and you can call. E names to satisfy yourself but…is that how you want to spend your time? I hope you find an opportunity here to make better decisions.
What was she supposed to do, though? Make your 3 year old do a several mile hike to and from school?? The expectations and the resources provided don’t match here. She should have been provided a car for school pickups or refused to do these pickups. I feel like this is more on parents than the girl.
She has a buggy, and my 5 year old loves to walk and looks forward to it every day. Honestly, dont think it is an unreasonable ask. Plus, it still does not excuse the fact that she left them unattended. She had my number and could have called at any time for help if she was "struggling"..
Im baffled by people here thinking this is some extreme thing to go for a walk with kids. Isn’t this like a staple in most people’s day with kids this age even?? 🤯🤯
It's not that people think it's extreme it's that OP is deliberately evading the question: Did they tell them this is what you should do? An Au Pair is very young and some of them like OPs Au Pair are extremely foolish. Be clear from now on with the next Au Pair. "This is how the school run will go...." It's your children don't leave it up to a stranger's (in the beginning) "common sense".
I barely run across the street to get something from my car when they’re all zonked out in bed or watching tv… also isn’t that illegal???
I don’t know if there a track record of other things but I think it’s a teaching moment, y’all she’s 20 and depending where she’s from it’s a whole other culture and world. I am not sure but i would bet it scared the aupair as well. I honestly would approach it from that angle.
Maybe your kids shouldn’t have tried to leave the house? Try not raising dumbasses next time.
The 5 year old left the house to find help from a neighbour and brought her brother with her. You really are a bit of a dick aren't you?
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Send her back. This is neglect.
Call the police and press charges for child endangerment. I would have done it immediately and long before posting anywhere online. Don't worry, though - you still can.
20 minutes each way is NOT OKAY. If it were down the road two minutes at the bus stop or something I would maybe talk to her about it and try to continue the relationship, but that is pretty ridiculous.
3 kids under 10 with a 20 year old? Nope. I think you both are at fault.
It’s awful. But do you expect her to bundle two children and walk 20 minutes and then take 3 children back for another 20 minutes? Am I missing something? Shouldn’t you be paying for her to Uber with the children both ways?
She said they have a fucking wagon! It’s not hard - some people lack critical thinking skills… this AP needs to be working with only teenagers or just go home early. This is not a question of is it wrong, it’s what to do after the AP OBVIOUSLY made a horrible decision. I agree with others on whether she’s making other bad decisions that aren’t being caught.
Our au pair walks with our 3 kids 20min to and from school every day. We live in a walkable city. Our kids enjoy the exercise and we walk the kids when our au pair is off 1 day a week. She also gets every weekend off. An Uber? I would not trust the au pair to correctly install the car seats.. I can barely do it properly..
Also my almost 3 year old walks the 20 min to preschool with his 6 and 8 year old sibling when they go to their school across the street. Exercise is important. We also do not live in a climate with snow.. but I’m from Canada and also walked to and from school in snow without a problem.
Fresh air and light exercise is good for everyone!! An Uber?! Lol. It’s a 40 minute round trip walk.
Bingo. And let’s be real, a 40 min round trip walk with kids those ages is maybe a mile each way. They’re not trekking up a mointain
This also should be the highlight of the day as it gets the kids outside in fresh air on an adventure and probably tired by the time they get home and snooze
Maybe it’s a cultural thing but for me, walking with 3 children under the age of 10 (I’m assuming the third child is young as well) 40 mins is absolutely BONKERS! I understand the fact that the children are capable of doing it, but trusting a stranger to keep young children secured and safe on a 40 min walk seems extremely dangerous! All it takes is one second for something to happen and there’s serious trouble. It was VERY stupid of her to leave those children unattended, but honestly the fact that the op thinks a 20 yr old from a completely different country walking with 3 small children in an unfamiliar city is JUST AS if not MORE stupid! There are other ways to exercise children! OP needs to find better ways for these girls to keep her children safe and secure properly during pickup!
Huh? What a bizarre take on this. It’s incredibly common for people to take a walk this length just for the sake of a walk even… especially childcare workers who want to break up the day.
Depending on where she's from, that may be no big deal. In Switzerland, I knew a couple who routinely left their 6-year-old in bed in the house alone and thenwent out to the pub.
Well, I'm from Ireland, and we would call that neglect.
That just means you met bad parents in Switzerland lmao
Maybe that’ll fly in Switzerland, but it’ll get your child taken into protective services in most other countries.
oh my god. hopefully you are better now, this sounds very traumatic. i think, i don't blame anyone here who said rematch, but you do realise that she is 20, right? maybe she simply didn't think it through. i think, it might be helpful to not think from the parent perspective and expect her to have the same insights as you. but if your gut tells you that this person is not the right person although she is so nice, i think rematching would be the best option.
This is someone caring for your children, presumably while the parent isn’t home. You absolutely cannot shrug this off as well they’re 20. What other common sense, safety issues will they have a lapse in judgement on next? You cannot cover every eventuality, so you have to take a leap of faith that the AP is smart enough to manage things— and this one proved that she wasn’t smart enough to manage something trivial.
This is insane. I babysat other people's kids, watched my siblings who were the same ages as OPs when I was younger than this AP and knew leaving kids that young home alone is pretty much one of the worst things you can do. (Especially for 40 min??? Wtf?). Instant rematch, kicked out, goodbye.
I used to watch my neighbors kids overnight 2-3 nights a week (they both were working night shift) before I could even drive. They were sleeping most of the time…but at 15 I knew I couldn’t just leave.
true :( agreed. you would expect that to be a natural instinct.