With each au pair and au pair relationship, a host family develops experience and– if we’re lucky– also a bit of wisdom about the challenges of hosting an au pair successfully. Even when we have a so-so au pair, or a flameout au pair, we can learn something useful for the next time. And, when we have a good or great au pair, we can feel really inspired to do even better.

Experience into Learning, History into Wisdom

Turning your family’s experience into wisdom can be a little tough, though. Often we don’t know how much we’ve learned, or what we’ve learned, until we have to put it into practice a second time. For example, if you’re bitten the bullet and initiated a rematch, you might be more inclined to do it sooner rather than later the next time an au pair is not working out with your family.  

Experience can also be useless when it comes to “the next time”. With experiences we hope never to repeat, we get learning we hope never to use again. Remember when my au pair shared how she was afraid I wasn’t Christian enough? Not gonna be repeated. Please.

Over time, we develop a history– what happened, with whom, what we think worked, what didn’t, who was at fault, how it got fixed and how we changed our expectations about the au pair relationship. As I look back, I can see times when I thought I’d ‘learned’ something, only to find that what I’d learned wasn’t helpful the next time. Sometimes experience helps, sometimes it’s misleading, sometimes it’s irrelevant.

Incoming au pairs are usually curious about the kinds of experiences we’ve had with previous au pairs. We tell them what we think happened, what we tried to do, and why.

They know that we get weary from bad situations, and that we hope to be able to repeat good situations. They listen to our explanations about what our previous au pair relationships were like, and they try to extrapolate and make a prediction about the year ahead. Too bad that the past doesn’t influence the future in a simple, direct and predictable way.

Which is why, I think, that many of us have the same concerns about what to tell an incoming au pair– or not– as host mom SG:

I have a question that I have not seen discussed here before. We are hosting our fourth au pair and so far we are off to a good start.

(In part that’s because this site has helped me develop my ‘party girl screening’ interview questions!)

So far we have hosted a great au pair, a challenging au pair (and asked for a rematch), and a rematch au pair. Our rematch au pair did well until she decided to extend. As soon as the paperwork was signed she became a wild party girl- complete with a late night call from the police requesting that we come pick up her and our car after an excessive rate of speed incident!

Obviously, this relationship continued to decline. Because we did not choose to extend with her, I “count” as an unsuccessful experience.

My question is this: If our au pair asks about our previous au pair experience, how much do I tell her?

I don’t want her thinking that we rematched on a whim and make her feel nervous. And I also don’t want her to find out that we had a rematch and conclude that we are a mean, quick-to-rematch host family, either hard to satisfy or impossible to live with.

How do other families handle the question of what they share with an au pair about their au pair history?

SG, for all of us (parents and au pairs) it’s important not to assume that a host family’s “goodness” is reflected in its au pair track record.

Sure, if you had 4 au pairs and each one asked for a rematch, you should start to wonder whether you have the right host family approach. And any potential au pair would be sensible to be wary.

But since it takes two to make this relationship work, it’s likely that the au pairs involved in a rematch may also have contributed to the lack of success in that relationships. And of course, sometimes rematches have nothing to do with relationship problems, but with challenges at home and other issues.

For me, I think the most important thing is to explain (1) what you learned about yourself as a family, and (2) how you have adjusted your expectations, guidelines, preferences, etc. to accommodate this learning.

What else should we consider when we talk about our history?

When you initiate rematch, can you ask your Au Pair to leave immediately?

When this question popped up over the weekend, I shuddered.

It brought me back instantly to our flame-out au pair, the one who announced on the last day of school that she wanted a rematch because she didn’t want to work weekends in the summer.

We were rather furious, given the long list of accommodations we’d made to try (in vain) to keep her happy. But worse, we were on our way the next week for a family vacation. Our outgoing au pair hadn’t planned to join us anyway, but when she assumed that she could stay in our house, when we weren’t home, after our ‘relationship’ ruptured painfully, there was no way in wherever we were going to let her stay. We simply couldn’t trust her in our home, alone.

Luckily for her, one of her au pair friends took her in for the 10 days or so until she rematched. But if we’d had to put her up for those two weeks? That would have been the only thing worse than what actually happened.

Unless you are in one of those really rare ‘mutual’ rematch situations, rematches generate resentment, anxiety, and discomfort in your home. It’s clear that you, the host parent, are responsible for providing room an board for the departing au pair for up to two weeks– she can’t be kicked out on to the street. At the same time, we seem to hope that there is somewhere else s/he can go.

If the rematch is caused by some kind of egregious behavior by the au pair, sometimes the LCC will find a place for the au pair to stay temporarily. When the rematch is ’caused’ by the host family, other host families/au pairs and the LCC often offer their homes as a neutral respite. However, it remains the host parents’ responsibility to see that the au pair is safely housed, somewhere.

Here’s the query from the original poster, Jennifer, and the start of the comments. Join in with your advice.

Jennifer

Has anyone ever told an AP to LEAVE? We will be telling her in a couple of weeks that we want a rematch and I would like for her to leave immediately.

She has been with us 2 months and we have had many issues in this short time. Our most recent was giving her a hotel room while we were on vacation. We agreed that a GF of hers could go with her. Apparently 2 men flew in and stayed with them the whole time. She drove back to our house a day early (we agreed to this but thought it would just be her and her GF). The men came with her and stayed in our house. She also had her boyfriend here over. I don’t think any hanky panky went on but she is not allowed to have ANY male visitors and no visitors without our permission. She has lied the whole time about it.

Funny thing is she keeps posting pictures on FB. I even befriended her last week and she still doesn’t get it. I haven’t led on to knowing anything yet. The story goes on and on… Anyways, I want her to stay until school starts, even though my boys are just watching TV all day because she can’t get off the internet but they aren’t quite old enough to be home alone. I plan on telling her the weekend before school starts.

I don’t feel that I can trust her in my house while the kids are in school. I think she’ll be pretty mad about it. I’ve already told my LCC the situation. She’s not really any help. Can I tell the AP to just leave?

West Coast Mom

That’s what we did. But … we had the support of our LCC, and had all of our back up care plans in place before we sat her down for the talk. We said something like: we are breaking this match, and you need to go downstairs and pack your things and call [LCC]. She was gone within an hour and we never saw or spoke to her again.

Host Mommy Dearest

With our agency we were told that housing the AP for 2 weeks after going into transition is part of the contract, but that we could chose to have her work & pay her, or not have her work and not pay. We chose not to have her work and since she hid or was out when off duty before transition, and we saw even less after we were in transition, there were only a few moments of tension.

hOstCDmom

If you are with CC – look closely at the contract. It actually says that the Host Family is obligated to house the AP in transition for up to 2 weeks (and here is the key) IF THE TRANSITION WAS INITIATED BY HOST .

This may not be verbatim from the contract (I don’t have it to hand, but will excerpt and post later). We successfully argued this point with CC re one of our APs – the only one with whom we went into transition. AP said she wanted to go to another family, and that was ok with us (after a long list of her issues – she expected me to cook her 3 hot meals a day, including weekends/off days, even though that wasn’t what I was cooking for our family! She thought we were mean and unfair making her get a state driving license (only cost was $40 for the license, and we were paying for it, and this was because our auto ins required that she have a state DL!) etc.) Suffice to say her expectations of the program and ours were not aligned, but SHE actually initiated the rematch.

So we told CC – per your contract we are only obligated to house AP for 2 weeks if we initiate rematch. CC will need to make other arrangements to house her after X date (a date 2 or 3 days from when we communicated this position- we wanted to be reasonable.). We prevailed.

Taking a Computer Lunch

I would look over your agency’s regulations (Google is your friend if you can’t find it easily on your agency’s web site). If the LCC is not assisting you, then go over her head. My guess is that you’ll need the LCC to come and pick her up. Why not have the LCC at the table, when you have that final meeting, so she can take her home from there?

I would suggest that her pattern of bringing men into your home when your children are not around and against your rules, makes her unsuitable for staying in your house during the two-week rematch period. Continue to build your case.

Anna

You cannot ask au pair just to leave, but you can ask LCC to take her in.?We had a situation like that – the rematch was because we discovered a big lie and we decided we cannot trust the au pair in our house anymore. With the agreement of the LCC, we asked her to stay her 2 rematch wks with her boyfriend (otherwise LCC would take her in but she wasn’t very eager to live with LCC).?In a situation like yours, where if she remains in your home it is unsafe, the agency should arrange a place for her to stay – usually with LCC. But read your contract fine print.

PA Host mom of Two Au-pairs

When I started to have problems with one of the au-pairs, I interviewed an American girl to fill her shoes when we ask her to leave, this way we didnt have a lapse in childcare. I wouldn’t even want to keep her for a couple more weeks. There are many college girls that need the extra cash before heading back to school in the fall

.?I would consider removing her now and since the LCC is not being that much of a help, have her pick up your au-pair and let her be the LCC problem not yours.

Ps: I would disconnect the internet before you leave for work, that she fix the problem with being on the net while she should be working! I would FLIP that switch!!!

Jennifer (OP)

I did disconnect the internet one day last week. It was really funny, because they were all calling me trying to figure out what was wrong. I’ve left it connected because she keeps posting pictures and I’ve been printing them out to show her when we talk.

Image: in the out door from ?NTHROPOLOGY

I’ve got a problem regarding my au pair that might actually be my fault.

Our au pair is personally wonderful, lovely to have in the house, very helpful. She’s been with us 19 months. She is 23 and from Bosnia. She has a great relationship with my 6 yr old and 4 yr old. She loves them and is very concerned about them, my friends all tell me she is super attentive and playful with them (for example at the park or at the pool and I’m not with them). Outside of the problems below, the only other issue I have with her is that she refuses to discipline the girls, saying she “loves them too much.”

I have been getting frustrated with her because I feel that she still doesn’t really understand me sometimes when I give her directions, and she does not use common sense.

• Two months ago, she took my daughter to a class and dropped her off, not even noticing the class was halfway over and she was late, and she had the wrong time to pick-up my daughter – my daughter ended up sitting by herself for 30 minutes!

• Last month, I needed her to take my daughter to a piano lesson while I was in a business meeting and she told me beforehand that she knew where to take her, knew the location, but of course she didn’t and ended up driving in circles and missing the lesson. Why couldn’t she have mapquested it??? I gave her the address! (And, yes, she has her own computer!).

• Then, she was nice enough to do my laundry – I didn’t ask her to do it but saw her doing it. I asked her not to put anything of mine in the dryer. She says, “ok, ok” and then I woke up and not only were 3 bikinis, a juicy sweatsuit, and 2 dresses in the dryer, but she had washed them with a red beach towel!! I talked to her about it and she denied putting them in the dryer. My husband and I did not do it, and I promise you it wasn’t my 3 year old!

• We get back from vacation (she was in the house for the week and we let her have friends come and stay with her during that week), and the TV in the living room is turned on and the piano bench is all scratched up with strange scratches…. She has no explanation….

• Today, I need her to come home with the kids at a certain time, so I call and say, “Can you come home after 12:15?” She says, “yes, yes, I come right now.” I say, “No, listen, not now – at 12:!5.” she says, ‘Oh, oh, yes, ok.”

You’d think that working with these issues with our au pair would be the problem, but here’s the thing –

This is her 2nd year as an au pair. We promised her that at the end of this year we would get her an I-20 visa and sponsor her while she’s in school. She would continue to help take care of the kids while I sponsored her, which I understand is skirting the rules but which we have figured out how to do fairly.

But now, I’m having second thoughts. If it were simply an issue of extending, we might be choosing a different, new au pair.

However, even though her misunderstanding/lack of common sense issues are a problem, I know it would devastate her to have to go back to Bosnia.I ’m afraid of crushing her, sending her back to a country where her life will be terrible.   I also know she wouldn’t run off and get married (like my last au pair) to stay here because she is a really good girl…

So I’m looking for suggestions.

• How can I fix the relationship so it can continue?

• Do you think I’m being too nice and shouldn’t feel so responsible for her life?

• Should I go on to sponsor her?

• If I choose not to sponsor her, how do I go back now and tell her we don’t feel comfortable sponsoring her? That it will be VERY awkward around my house. Yet I can’t wait until the last minute to tell her – it would be terribly unfair.

I’d really like some help with this. I’m open to any and all suggestions.

DMBM

Image by JekInTheBox

How many of you host parents share the URL of this blog with your current au pairs?

Or send them copies of posts using ShareThis or email?

How many of you hope to the good lord that your au pair will *never* stumble across this conversation?

Inquiring minds want to know, so without further ado:

Another lovely photo from jek in the box

West Coast Mom suggests that we pool our collective wisdom to generate a packing list for our incoming au pairs.  This list would not include the basics (they’ll all think to pack underwear). Instead, this list would cover wht an au pair needs to bring to support her or his adventure.

What we pack reflects our expectations

What we pack for a trip reflects what we’re expecting will happen, what we’re expecting we’ll do, and what we’re expecting we’ll need– but it’s not just about the “things” we pack, it’s about the meaning of these “things”.

I suspect that if we were to randomly open the luggage of 5 incoming au pairs, we’d get a tour of many of their hopes and dreams for the year ahead.

Since we host parents have seen more than a few adventure years, and seen what kinds of things surprise au pairs, we might have ideas for “what to pack” that could help them out. So, off the top of my head, here are:

5 Things an Au Pair Should Bring

1. A modest bathing suit:  One that covers your whole behind, please. One that you can wear at the town pool.
   
2. Your favorite children’s book, in your own language, to share with your host kids
3. Medications like Birth Control Pills: Many medicines are more expensive here than they are in your home country. If you are on a prescription medication, and/or if you have favorite remedies for ailments common to you, bring them along.
4. Space in your luggage: You can buy a lot of things here (and you probably will).
5. A List of your Goals for the year: Thinking explicitly about what you want to get out of your year, and having this written down, is a way to remind you what it’s all about when you feel homesick, when you feel lost, and when you’re offered opportunities you might not have considered.

On the other hand,

It’s also important to think about what not to bring.

The stuff I have seen come out of au pair luggage has boggled my mind sometimes, when I think of how heavy it was and how much room it took up. You don’t need to bring your own Rollerblades here– we can find you a pair. Really.

5 Things an Au Pair Should Not Bring

1. Towels, sheets and pillows: We have these in the US! And, we have them here in our houses for you to use. Use the extra space in your luggage for something more fun.
2. Hot Wax Melter & Waxing Supplies: There are lots of options for depilatation that aren’t electric, that aren’t heavy and that are effective.
3. A musical instrument larger than a clarinet: It may not be in perfect condition, but we can find you a second hand guitar to use while you’re here. And, there are inexpensive accordions on eBay all the time.
4. More than 3 stuffed animals: Your Host Kids will be happy to share some of theirs with you, I promise.
5. Precious and rare Hello Kitty items: Sanrio has outlets here, and the Hello Kitty stuff you can buy here will be rare back home.
   

   

• Parents, what things would you recommend an au  pair bring, to support his or her adventure?

• What’s best left behind?

• And, (we all want to know) what crazy items have been brought to the States by your au pairs?

See Also:

The “Before You Leave Home” E-mail
Getting her stuff back home: Is there a cheap way to ship things?
Tip: Save those Ice Skates! (about providing seasonal & one-off items for your au pair)

A request for advice from “Everybody In The Pool” –

Dear Au Pair Mom readers,

An issue has arisen with our new au pair (arrived 2 weeks ago) – and it’s not one I anticipated. I’m hoping AuPairMom readers have some thoughts and insights…

It’s a cultural issue and also a personal issue. It is tricky because it influences whether this au pair can “do the job”. Perhaps this situation is one that other host families have encountered and about which they can share some wisdom.

Here is the situation:

Our AP won’t swim, wade or wear a swimsuit when she has her period. This is an issue for us. Swimming and being able to swim/rescue a child is a very important part of the job of caring for our children, and an important part of the job of being our au pair.

Our kids swim A LOT in the summer. The fact that she won’t/ doesn’t want to/ thinks she can’t/ swim with the kids for a week every month because she has her period and given that some of the kids are young enough/non-swimmers that for them to swim in a pool/lake/beach they need to have an adult actually go in the water with them, is going to be potentially a huge challenge.

I believe that the specific issue is not about going in the water, but about using (or not using) tampons. It appears that our au pair does not think that tampons are an appropriate option.

Our application made clear the need for a swimmer and that the AP would need to swim with the kids as one of the duties. During matching, this au pair confirmed that she was a swimmer.

Granted, during our phone interviews I didn’t ask the exact questions “do you use tampons”, nor did I ask “will you swim while you have your period”. To have done that seems a bit beyond the pale. But I did ask about her swimming experience and willingness to swim with the kids. I explained that we swim a lot and she would be required to swim *with* the children, not just sit on the side and supervise them. My handbook (shared in advance, and gone over by the two of us, page by page in the past week) makes explicit the same – it says if child X is in the water, you must be in with him also.

In my view, having your period is not a “health related” reason that should reasonably excuse an AP from a normal duty.

I don’t really feel that my children should forgo swimming ¼ of the summer simply because the AP can’t figure out a way to swim while she has her period.

Furthermore, it isn’t merely a summer issue, as our au pairs take our children, especially our toddler, swimming (and go in the water with her – actually required by the indoor town pool where they go) every week all year – not just during the summer.

Today, when our au pair said she wouldn’t swim, we were on our way to a nearby beach where the plan was that she would be alone with the kids for part of the time. I was surprised that she said “I will not go swimming”, and after we painstakingly managed to communicate about what the issue actually was (made difficult by her rudimentary English and the nature of the topic), I said but you have to be ready to go in the water with the kids. She replied that she was, but she was wearing sneakers, corduroy pants, several layers and a sweater. (She is used to a hotter climate, so our pleasant, breezy 80 degree day was apparently cold for her, hence the attire – the rest of us were in shorts and t-shirts all day, swimsuits at the beach.) I said that wouldn’t work – one can’t swim in those type of clothes even in an emergency. She insisted, but so did I. I told her she needed, at a minimum, to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt, in lieu of a swimsuit, and be prepared to go in and actually swim to save a drowning child.

This is my baseline for safety, but it isn’t my desired paradigm for being at the water with the kids…

So here’s my question for AuPairMom contributors –

• What can a HF insist on? Can a HF you “make” an AP swim with your kids?
• Is having your period a “health related” reason that should reasonably excuse an AP from a normal duty?
• Are there other options we haven’t thought about to solve the ‘won’t swim during her period’ issue?
• And, really, could anyone actually go into rematch over this and bear the discussions and explanations re the reasons for the rematch?!

(By way of background, while it is early days, she is otherwise seeming like a potentially decent au pair and is willing to undertake other duties – but it is too early to say with confidence “she’s great in all other respects” – the jury is still out on that point (and fairly so, since she’s only been here 2 weeks)).

We are flummoxed by this situation. Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this, or should we consider rematch?

“Everybody In The Pool”

Rather than wait until I find a polling tool that can divide as well as count, let’s use our everyday match skills to get a sense of the percentage of rematches AMONG AuPairMom readers.

[Remember, this is a poll of the special group of host parents that reads AuPairMom. Our results will not be the same as the results in the general population of host families, b/c we are not average host families <  wink  > ]

In the meantime I’ll look for a better tool.

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Please tell us how many matches your family has had (where the au pair actually ended up coming to the US). Then, tell us how many rematches you’ve had.

Both of these replies are absolute numbers… then we use our math skills to calculate a running percentage… (by adding up all the matches, and the rematches, and dividing the one into the other).

[Interim Results:

July 2,with 33 responses, 19% .  Yikes!
July 5, with 65 responses, 39%  208 matches, 83 rematches.

Remember, it's a *rough & dirty* estimate]

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 her host kids (all very bright tweens) have a hard time connecting with her.

After 4 months of hoping things will get better, going over the handbook, writing reminders, having meetings and following up, it is Just. Not. Working.

They could go into rematch. But, you can never be certain that your new au pair will be overall better than the one who’s leaving. And, is this one really so bad that we can’t take another 7 months?

The truth is: Rematch takes a lot out of a host family and out of an au pair. Once it is initiated, it can’t be undone. Host parents usually need to feel completely confident that rematch is the right think to do before they are willing to initiate it.

Initiating a rematch is not something that any host parent takes lightly.

We have talked a *lot* on this blog about rematches… when to do them, how to do them, why to do them.  Reading over in my mind all of your comments about rematch, I notice two basic trends:

1. Host parents are reluctant to rematch.
2. Host parents who do rematch invariably say “We should have rematched sooner.”

One thing I don’t think we’ve ever seen on this blog is a comment from a host parent who said “I regret that we initiated a rematch.”

So, among AuPairMom readers, is there anyone out there who has regretted initiating a rematch?

Share more about your experiences of rematch regret or lack thereof in the comments….

See also:
3 Questions to Ask Yourself as Rematch Approaches
How do we know when it’s time to give up?

Images: regret. nothing. from Ed Yourdon
Regrets, I Have a Few from incurable_hippie

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 children need from an au pair. — We have to find an au pair that can swim if we have a pool for our kids, or one who likes dogs if we have dogs. If we don’t have a pool, or a dog, we don’t look for a swimmer or a dog-lover.

Sometimes, especially when we are new to au pairs, the scope of our criteria is too narrow. You au pair arrives, and something you thought s/he didn’t need to have/be, s/he actually does need to have/be.

We need to consider criteria not only from our own perspective, but also from the perspective of our potential au pairs.

Nowhere is this more true than with our criteria around driving.

Usually, we consider whether or not our kids need to be driven places, and if the answer is “yes” we look for a candidate with great driving skills. But a candidate also needs to be able to drive if you live in an area where there is nothing within walking distance and/or no easy public transportation.

If your family doesn’t live in a city or a well-developed town, your au pair needs to be able to drive well enough to use a car for his or her own purposes.

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Dear Au Pair Mom,

We just welcomed our first Au Pair this Friday, and I am starting to regret the whole thing.

I am a stay at home mom with 10 month old twins and 6 months pregnant with the 3rd (due in October). I am in desperate need of help, not only as my pregnancy moves forward but also after the arrival of the baby, when we’ll have three children under 14 months old. I was sick after the birth of the twins so I need to be able to take things more easily with this pregnancy and beyond.

When the twins first arrived, I had a full time nanny that lived with us Mon-Friday for the 1st 3 months the babies were born. For the last 4 months I’ve had a mother’s helper in the mornings. Once I found out I was pregnant again I knew I’d need full time help again.I really needed full-time help and this seemed like the most economical way compared to what people charge in our area. Some people where we live pay up to 3000 a month for full-time help which we cannot afford. So the au pair idea seemed like a good one.

Our Au Pair selection criteria didn’t include “good driving”.

When we were looking at candidates, we did not require good driving skills since my husband and I are the only ones we trust to drive our daughters anywhere. And, neither of our other caregivers ever had to drive the twins anywhere, so we did not make driving skill a priority.

Our AP is 25 and from Latin America. In terms of her personality, we like this young woman. She seems like a nice person and she seems fine with the babies (very loving, etc.)

Our Au Pair told us she could drive, but she can’t.

When we interviewed her, she said she could drive. I told her via skype conversations and e-mail several times that we would give her driving privileges if she could drive well. The first day here she said she never drove an automatic car. Then she told us she actually doesn’t drive very well, either.

Once she arrived here, it became clear that she didn’t understand that we live very far from the train and there is really no bus system in our area.

Now I am feeling guilty as she will be stuck in our house 24-7. That is, unless she learns to drive better or I drive her around.

I can’t be my Au Pair’s chauffeur.

We want her to get out and have a life, but she seems very afraid to mention to us that she needs a ride. We had said we could drive her where she needs to go within reason. The 2nd day here she wanted to go to the church. It is 30 minutes away so I stupidly said yes, brought her there, had to find a place to kill time and do some shopping and pick her up 2 hours later. This one experience made me realize that, even if I “want” to drive her when she needs it, I really can’t do that. I can’t spend 2-3 hours each weekend driving her to church.

If she could drive competently she would be able to used the car herself.

Am I being selfish? I didn’t get an AP so I can chauffeur her around.

Options

We are toying with the idea of getting her driving instructions but who is to say she’ll be able to drive well enough or even pass the test.

I wonder if we should cut our losses ASAP and request someone that can get themselves around better or should we hold out. I hate to put more money out for the lessons and then still ask for another AP.

What should we do? The first three days with her have been exhausting our whole schedule is off. Plus, this issue is causing me more stress, when what I really need is an Au Pair who can reduce my stress.

I have no idea what to do. — Driven Close to the Edge

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Dear Driven,

Actually, Driven, you’re a bit further than you think.  You’ve identified your two viable options. Short of getting your au pair a nice bike, you can either
1) Try to get her driving skills up to par, or
(2) Go go into rematch.

Here’ what I’d recommend:

1. Let your community counselor know that the driving thing is a problem.

2. Assess whether your au pair has the will, the interest, the determination, to learn to drive. THis is actually more important than whether she has the ability to learn to drive in the US.

3. If she has the will, go on to step 4. If she doesn’t have the will, go directly to rematch.

4. If you think she’s determined to learn to drive, assess her current level of skill. Have Host Dad take her out for two or three sessions in a parking lot. If it looks hopeless, go directly to rematch.

5. If it looks like she just needs to get comfy with an automatic, etc. arrange for driving lessons. *Ask your Counselor if the Agency will pay for them. Be especially firm with your counselor in asking for reimbursement if you feel your au pair misrepresented her driving skill.

6. After the first professional lesson (of 1.5 or 2 hours) ask the instructor for her/his evaluation. If the professional instructor thinks your au pair is hopeless as a driver, go to rematch. if not, keep on with the lessons.

7. Consider spending up to $300 on lessons, but no more.
(Wonder ow I came up with this number? In my town, $300 would be about 4.5 to 5 hours of lessons. And, that’s about what it would cost to get a babysitter to help you for 20 hours during the week you’d go into rematch… so it’s commensurate with the rematch cost you hope to avoid.)

8. Give your au pair an ultimatum: either she learns to drive “well enough” or you must rematch. Then, watch your au pair rise to the challenge, study online videos and practice up and down your street, and voila!

If you go directly to rematch:

10. Take some of the blame. Even though she misrepresented her skills, she did this thinking that driving ability really wasn’t important.

11. Continue to be kind and helpful during rematch. Be sure to write a short letter to the Counselor and to potential rematch families clarifying that driving is the issue, and mentioning anything positive you can about the candidate. Give her a copy of this letter so she knows that you’re supporting her in finding a better placement.

12. Scour the advice on this blog for finding a rematch candidate. (Just type the word “rematch” into the search box, and there’s a wealth of wisdom and ‘how to’s”.)  There may well be a candidate out there who has realized she likes babies better than tweens…. and who doesn’t want to chauffeur kids but can drive herself to the mall. There are great candidates out there.

13. Move quickly. It may take more than two weeks to find someone… the sooner you start, the better.

14. Consider your criteria… Is there anything else you’ve realized that you need, or don’t need, in an au pair? Adjust now.

15. Remember that this can be a learning experience. Use it to practice being direct, kind and unafraid in your approach to resolving issues with a caregiver.

16. Finally, don’t feel guilty or selfish. You simply can’t be 6+ months pregnant and a chauffeur. It just can’t be done.

[[ Note: I am assuming that you live too far away for her to bike to places she wants to go. ]]

Did I miss anything? What else should Driven try?

See Also:
How to Assess an Au Pair Candidate’s Driving Experience
The Best $98 You Can Spend on Your New Au Pair
f the Au Pair Agency failed in their “due diligence”, what can Host Parent do?

Images:
Make call, drive thru from _cheryl
Drive Pink! from Farruska
Driving to my confessor from M needs a doctor

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 having something to say and getting a chance to write it down and post it. (Story ofr my life, professionally and blogalisciously.)

Lucky for us, though, some of these Host Moms wrote about their their experience in the Who’s Hoo conversation. So, I’ve stolen these comments (rearranged them a bit) and put them here to start a post on “Doubling Up”.

The idea of having two au pairs at a time just overwhelms me. I’ve struggled to welcome, organize, support, and provide for one… but to do that for two? When we’ve needed extra on-duty hours for a span of time (long trip, heavy workload) I’ve always hired a back up sitter or leaned on another parent for help. But the idea of having all the help you need, all the time? Hmmm….

Each of these host moms has said that having two au pairs does not usually get them 2x the amount of help– significant energy gets lost or used up in the coordination and just in the general “whose job is it?” dynamic.

PA Mom of Two Au Pairs

Howdy friends… wondering why we have two au-pairs?

HD and I have been together for 10 years, upon us meeting we both had two children from a previous relationship. For many years we were able to caring for the 4 children together, since hosting our first au-pair 3 years ago (Thai) we have since had two more children. So yes, we have the Brady Bunch family … 16, 15, 13, 12, 3 and 16 months…(6 kids + 4 adults = 10 in our family).

And boy are they all in different directions. …

In regards to scheduling the APs we do alternate the weekly schedule. HD starts at 6:00 am and I don’t start work until 9:00am . So the 45 hours a week do not cover our childcare that is needed. With all 6 going in different directions, we need the help from 6:00 am til 7:00 pm regardless if we stop working at 5 or 7 pm.

I recently hired a part time American girl to help assist on Saturdays for 5 hours and if HD and I elect to travel she would be able to spend the night with the children. We found that even if you want to plan a weekend get-a-way you need back up help. I once did what others have done ask the AP’s to help (with extra pay) out for the weekend with my sister helping for a full day and by the time we came back from the short trip they were both complaining how tired they were.

In regards to my recent experience hosting two girls from the same country, it has been awful.

I never look to see if they are from the same country, I generally based my decision on the AP’s profile likes/dislikes. My AP #1 arrived in Jan and AP #2 arrived late in March. Both German, both very young and both immature. They don’t seem to have understood that they were here to work. Instead they seem to have acted more like guests.

AP #2 seemed to have no energy at all, she even took naps at 2pm in the afternoon. She never went out to meet other au-pairs and in fact sat in her room after work. ( She had full use of a car ).

AP#1 has always seemed needy. After a short trip in Feb, AP #1 was upset with us when we returned home. I asked “What’s going on?” and she said “When you Skyped your 3 year old

I was so tired from the trip out that I didn’t think to ask about her.  I was thinking about my 3 years old and my 1 year old at the time. I apologized to her and said I was sorry.

For two weeks we were given an attitude. Wee went into mediation, and then moved forward with her planning to stay. She even planned her week vacation.

We did try to praise her efforts and what was going well but twice we spoke to her about concerns. She seemed to try to hold it over our head that she would leave .. and that did it for me. Not long after, we went into a rematch.

You know how the saying goes….Monkey see, monkey do.

AP #2 left as well. As I mentioned, she didn’t do much work at all. Without the help of AP #1 she was feeling like she couldn’t do this job herself, according to the exit interview. But even with the two of them, they never seemed to get all their tasks done. They were supposed to care directly for the two small children.  We never asked the AP’s to clean, do laundry or make meals for the older ones, just supervise and ask them to remind them of their tasks. But it was never done. Caring for two children is not too much work for one au pair, much less two.

So as I sit here we are in 2 rematches.. Our Area Director said that she was confident that AP #1 made AP #2 decide to leave as well. Every time the AD tried to talk AP #2, she was crying about AP #1 leaving.  (The girls were from two different agencies).

So hosting two AP does have it disadvantages, when even together they can’t seem to get the work done. And, they do have the time to talk with each other and influence each other… positively or negatively.

I never had two au-pairs that didn’t get along.

Things are changing… we welcome are male Ap in July… and expect to get a second, female AP.. any thoughts?

From DarthaStewart, in reply:

That is the kind of situation I had when I had two au-pairs for a while. I swear… I didn’t get 2X the coverage/help. More like 1.2X.. They even would say how well they got along, yet they’d eat two different lunches during the day. OMG. And, honestly with 4 kids, and activities in 4 different directions some days, we could use the help, but nope.

A snippet from Deb Schwartz:

I have hosted 16 au pairs (does that make me the “grandma”?) and without sounding too schmaltzy, I really do believe that our lives would not have been the same without the influence of these wonderful girls (….still working on my husband on getting a male au pair….). I promise I will write a guest post on how we got to 16 au pairs, but suffice it to say that we overshot the mark on kid #2 and got #2,#3 and #4 all at once (yup, I had a litter) – so with four babes under the age of 2, we hired two au pairs at the same time until they all went to school.

We’ve hosted two au pairs at the same time for years……I’m going to write a guest blog about this (I swear!), but I think the most important thing is that they be similar culturally so that they at least have something in common and get along.

I know some host parents like them to speak two different languages so that they don’t get so chummy – but I think that’s sad – why wouldn’t you want them to be friends? It helps with homesickness, and give a general positive vibe to the house if they all get along. I also usually get one first – and involve them in picking #2.

Good luck! Keep us posted on how it all goes.

Parents and Au Pairs, what other things would you just love to know about Doubling Up?

Photos:

Altri esercizi di Gatto… from One From RM
Pay attention to ME from darrendavid