April 2010

Do Au Pairs need a ‘bill of rights’?

by cv harquail April 30, 2010
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A reader sent me a link to an article in Slate, about a proposed ‘Bill of Rights” for domestic workers in New York State. (You can read the article in detail, here.) The proposed legislation would guarantee New York’s 200,000 domestic workers sick days, overtime, a day of rest, protection under discrimination laws, and notice […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: How much does the home country matter?

by cv harquail April 29, 2010
choosing an au pair, au pair selection advice, how to choose an au pair

Host parents are often asked why they’ve chosen an au pair from a particular country, and whether an au pair’s home country matters. How do you answer that question, without sounding like you’re stereotyping too much? When it comes to having preferences for countries, we feel very comfortable prioritizing home countries based on language— if […]

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My Au Pair Dresses Like a Tramp. Help!

by cv harquail April 27, 2010
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Au Pairs and their appearance– another dicey topic. We don’t like to think that an au pair’s physical appearance affects how we (or others) respond to her, but the ugly truth is– appearances are influential. When we (American) host parents react to an au pair’s appearance, we’re invoking preferences, expectations and interpretations based partly in […]

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Au Pair Asks: How can I gently decline my Host Mom’s advice?

by cv harquail April 26, 2010
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One of my guilty pleasures as a host mom has been to think that I’ve been able to give my au pairs some good advice. After all, I’ve had a lot of life experience, I’m opening-minded, I have relevant professional experience, and — let’s face it– I usually know what I’m talking about (grin). Therefore, […]

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Extending Legally, Without an Agency: Ideas?

by cv harquail April 25, 2010
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We would like advice on how to extend with out au pair legally, but by using a lawyer instead of going through our current agency. We want to disconnect from our agency, gently. To put it mildly, our experience with our agency & LCC has been a great disappointment. They are the only agency that […]

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When Your Au Pair Breaks Your Psychological Contract

by cv harquail April 24, 2010
July 19: Balancing act (58/61) by theDQT

[ Note: I think this might be the longest AuPairMom post I’ve ever written. It was a long train ride and I think I got carried away.] Host families and au pairs call it mutual expectations, and management scholars call it the “psychological contract”. The idea behind a psychological contract is that we agree to […]

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Recent Widower / Single Host Dad: How to find the right au pair?

by cv harquail April 21, 2010
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Readers, Here’s a specific question about choosing the right au pair for a family that has lost their mom through tragedy. We had one host dad comment on our earlier post about single parents, and I know that there are at least two other host dad-readers who have lost their wives and who have hired […]

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We interrupt this vacation…

by cv harquail April 19, 2010
worthwhile_r2_c2

Hi AuPairMom readers — I didn’t think it would be this long between posts — we’ve gone off for a long-awaited family vacation and gotten sidetracked by volcano-related drama. Let it suffice to say that, since we leave for home from Rome, at the end of the week, we expect to slip underneath the ash […]

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Au Pairs and the Single Host Parent

by cv harquail April 18, 2010
sureshot coffee

We haven’t talked much about the specific challenges of host parent – au pair relationships when there is only one parent, a single parent, involved. There are some challenges that are specific to the gender & orientation balance, of, say, a female au pair and a single host dad, or a male au pair and […]

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Au Pair Advice: New App to Manage Texting While Driving

by cv harquail April 14, 2010

Local mom and blogger Kristen Kemp wrote a post so important that I’m borrowing heavily from it to share with you all. It’s all about: Parental Control Feature to Stop Texting While Driving If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that most host parents are preeetttyyy concerned about safe driving. Talking […]

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