June 2010

Have you ever regretted that you initiated a rematch?

by cv harquail June 29, 2010
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A host mom emailed to get my opinion on whether or not to go into rematch. This host mom and her family have a less-than-great au pair, one who is kind but can’t seem to complete tasks. Who is on time but ultimately not reliable. And, she’s not very smart. She’s so ‘not smart’ that […]

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Driven to the edge because my Au Pair can’t drive

by cv harquail June 28, 2010
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What happens when your au pair candidate says she can, but then it turns out she can’t? And, what if you said she didn’t really need to, but then you realized she did? When we consider the characteristics and skills we want our au pair to have, we usually think about what we or our […]

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Doubling Up on Au Pairs: Two Times the Challenge

by cv harquail June 27, 2010
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I’ve been hoping to get the host moms who have two au pairs at a time to write guest posts for us explaining how they make this work for them. It’s hard to find the energy and mind space to write reflectively about your au pair experiences… so believe me I understand the gap between […]

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Orienting an Au Pair when Host Mom can’t be there

by cv harquail June 26, 2010
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Dear AuPairMom, I have organized an au pair to come and help us for a month at the end of June. (This came through a work contact and I have spoken on the phone with the au pair and her mom) . My problem now is that I need to travel to the UK for […]

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When your Au Pair becomes more religious and observant

by cv harquail June 25, 2010
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Dear AuPairMom, I’m writing on behalf of my friend, who is a nanny. I think that the situation she’s in might also be relevant to au pairs, and so I’d like to share it with you for consideration. My friend is an awesome nanny. She has worked for her non-religious family for the past 2 […]

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Where oh where is my soon-to-arrive Au Pair?

by cv harquail June 25, 2010
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You’ve found her/him, you’ve matched, you’ve sent follow up information, exchanged a few happy emails, and then all of a sudden… … Your au pair goes quiet. Time to panic? Dear Au Pair Mom, We are excited about our soon-to-arrive au pair. She seems great, but I am starting to worry. I haven’t heard anything […]

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Who’s Hoo? List of Contributors

by cv harquail June 25, 2010

Add your screen name and a brief description to our new List of Contributors!

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Would you ever hire an AWOL Au Pair?

by cv harquail June 23, 2010
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That’s a rhetorical question. A host mom just sent me a link to a discussion forum wherein a parent was asking for help finding an au pair. This parent doesn’t want just any au pair. This parent wants an au pair who has gone AWOL– who has left an official au pair program & host […]

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Is Your Host Family Handbook Too Long?

by cv harquail June 21, 2010
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Eleven Au Pairs and 12 revisions after first being written, our Host Family Handbook is now, officially, “long”. Excluding examples of kids’ and au pairs’ schedules, and excluding the basic information about emergency phone numbers and the like, our rules/guidelines section runs 16 pages, with almost 4500 words. Is that too long? Host Family Handbook: […]

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What exactly is a Host Family Handbook?

by cv harquail June 21, 2010
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We’ve got a lit of different terms floating around to describe the written information that we give our au pairs. We call them handbooks, manuals, guidelines, and rules. (And who knows what our au pairs call them!) For the purposes of our conversations here on AuPairMom, let’s try to lock down the terminology. A Host […]

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