Anyone have experience with Au Pairs

[barkley]

i think a person considering this would need to check out prospective agencies realy well before 'signing on'. it's one thing to get involved with a job and becoming unsatisfied with the situation quit and go on to another-it's an entirely different thing when you are working in a foreign country and you have limited or no knowledge of the native language.

au pairs seem to be increasing in popularity in our area-and by and large the ones i've encountered have been well treated, but i don't think it was quite the experience they had thought it would be. it just seems that while both the au pairs and the parents have signed on to whatever the supposed expectations of numbers of hours of child supervison it always ends up being so many more. the parents find that the leisure of having 'in home' child care extends to the au pair 'not realy careing for but just keeping an eye on the kids' when the parents are involved in other activies in and around the home, while running errands and such (does'nt sound bad-but if you've been careing for the kids all day and it's supposed to be your 'off time' it seems unreasonable to be constantly called upon to be providing primary supervision of the kids-one parent may do it for another naturaly, but i don't think it's naturaly what the au pair should be expected to do). i've also known a few parents who entered into these situations fully planning to 'share' the au pair. they look at how much it's theoreticly costing them to house/feed/pay the au pair and cut costs by bringing a friend's child into the daily childcare situation 'who won't cause any problems'. well the other child may be wonderful and their parents may be wonderful but that child may operate under a different set of rules/expectations and they view the au pair very differently than the 'in house' kids-so it can cause difficulty in the home (and it's more of a work load than the au pair signed up for).

i also knew some au pairs who attended the communty college i went to some years ago. nice, careing girls-but clearly frustrated that they could'nt have the social life they had hoped for (not unreasonable, but with only one weekend a month off 'for sure'-and that one set by the parents schedual not by the au pair's made hard for getting involved in activities with people their own age, and while they had weeknites off, they found that in their age range most of the people they would have liked to interact with were either in college classes or working part time jobs-in fact most of the au pairs seemed to have lives totaly revolving around the people they worked/lived with). they openly discussed their amusement and frustrations of going 'on vacation' with the families-they enjoyed going to other places but found it less than relaxing to still be expected to do allot of the routine child care and again-to have to plan their activities/excursions around the parent's desires (general consensus was that it was'nt ever truly a vacation for them because they were still 'on call' for their jobs-many expressed they would have preferred to have had 'real vacations' of less grand porportions that allowed them total alone/free time). we've observed this on vacations as well-we've encountered some realy nice people who honestly believed their au pairs were having the times of their lives coming along on cruises and to places like wdw. well they appeared to be enjoying themselves, but i think they would have been enjoying it much more if the kids were'nt housed with them in the same staterooms, the families were'nt dining with them for every meal, AND the au pairs had the same freedom to go off and do the evening activities the parents were doing EVERY night 'because x said she wanted to be in the stateroom anyway so we knew it was'nt a problem for her to keep an eye on the kids' (all i could think was 'does'nt this person ever get privacy? does it occur to you that she might have wanted to go out but because you are 'treating' her she feels obligated not to change her plans as you've so quickly done?'.

it just seems like unless you would enjoy living with your employers, and able to live in a situation where work duties/household 'part of the family' expectations/'guest' priledges can get realy blurred you might want to consider other ways to see the world.

 

[laurie31]

I know you said you didn't want to study, but both my brother and I spent a semester abroad during our junior year (I guess lots of people get that "itch" then? ) and there was precious little studying and lots and lots of travel

I chose a program in London. I only had 12 hours of class and they were arranged so we had 4 day weekends for travel, plus we had a three week break in the middle for travel. I got a eurail pass and went all over Europe. It was awesome. My brother went to Italy and loved it. He is an architect now, and that's what he studied there. He used to spend hours sitting on a hill above Florence making sketches.

However, if you REALLY don't want to study AT ALL, consider finishing college and then just going to Europe for 4-6 weeks and traveling either on your own or with a friend. Europe is very easy for those under 26 to travel around - (that was the age for "cheap student stuff" when I was there, anyway). You can get a Eurail pass and stay in hostels. It's a great way to see the world and meet people from all over. I did this during my 3 week break and it was great. I had a friend who did it after graduation for six weeks. She just went somplace that looked interesting to her and got a job there for a bit, then moved on whenever she wanted. She had a blast! There's all kinds of options Whatever you do, don't quit college when you're so close to graduating! You can google and find out the differences in lifetime income with vs without a diploma.

 

[UnderTheMistletoe]

We had Au Pairs growing up- 1 from Denmark, 3 from Germany, and 1 from the UK- from 1992-1997. They were fantastic for us- like big sisters!

However, our Au Pairs were very, very lucky. They had the use of their own car, and had a full bathroom and bedroom downstairs (our house was built to accomodate an in-law suite). They made $100/week and had to pay only for the gas they used. Duties included picking us up after school, helping with homework, getting us to/from swimming and hockey practice when needed, starting dinner, and light house work (we had a house cleaner that came twice a week so it wasn't much for the Au Pairs). Of course, they were always working during the summer months becuase we were home all the time. Our Au Pairs almost always came on family vacations and were on vacation with the rest of us, too. In fact, a lot of times, their other Au Pair friends paid their own way and came on vacation with us becuase they had been left at home by their families...

We knew of a lot of Au Pairs that had it nowhere near as lucky. Some were expected to share a bedroom with the oldest child, for example. Others only had the use of a car on certain nights a week (and it was never Friday or Saturday night). So, while there can be very, very positive, the experience can also rapidly deteriorate.

If you want to see the world and are interested in providing childcare, then this is a great route to go. Remember the language barrier, too. I can clearly remember my Kindergarten brother introducting Tanya at a family function about 5 days after she arrived from Germany. He said, "This is Tanya. You can say anything to her and she just smiles." Tanya did struggle initially with reading English, but could always speak it. Indeed, she was my brother's first love. The other hilarious one was, "It's BACKuum Tanya not WHACKuum."

I am fairly certain the name of the organization through which we always went was EF Au Pairs.

 

[salmoneous]

Yikes! I resent the implication that families that host Au Pairs are weird.

Sorry - didn't mean weird as in horns growing out of their heads or anything. Just quirky. In particular, the families that have au pairs tend to have very different social histories and backgrounds than the families of the au pairs themselves. Not better, nor worse - just different. To all the au pairs I knew, the lifestyles of the rich and powerful all seemed weird.

 

[UnderTheMistletoe]

Sorry - didn't mean weird as in horns growing out of their heads or anything. Just quirky. In particular, the families that have au pairs tend to have very different social histories and backgrounds than the families of the au pairs themselves. Not better, nor worse - just different. To all the au pairs I knew, the lifestyles of the rich and powerful all seemed weird.

Huh. I tend to think that's a broad generalization that you have made in your own mind. A stereotype or prejudice, if you will.

 

[nuke]

I take a yearly trip to the Hershey Spa and a couple of years ago we got to talking with two girls in the hottub. They were AuPairs for local families and were on their day off. They were gracious about their families but also complained about the time involvement not being what they were promised back home. They had 2 hours a night off and if they were lucky 1 day a week. The day we met them they had to schedule 2 months in advance with their families! They also spoke of feeling taking advantage of a bit. Both were looking forward to the summer when they were done with the assignment and could go off and explore the US before returning home.

I understand what you are saying Salmoneous. The Au Pairs are probably coming from middle class homes and being put into wealthy households. It would be a bit "weird".