While we’re on the topic of insurance, MinneMom emiled with a question I’d never considered –

Do you have a separate Workers’ Comp Insurance policy for your au pair?

In the deep dark recesses of my failing memory, I think I discussed insurance with my DH when we were early into the au pair world. We weren’t thinking about insurance for our au pair, but we did have a part time housekeeper (15-20 hrs a week) and two long flights of steep stairs from the sidewalk to our front door that seemed like a hazard at the time. We inquired about insurance, and it turned out that the combo of the housekeeper’s part-time-ness and our over-priced premium homeowner’s policy had her covered.

Now though, I wonder if we weren’t flirting with disaster!

MinneMom offers some important details about requirements, below. And, she tells us that no one she knows has actually purchased workers comp insurance for their au pairs.

Surely, somewhere in this community we have a host parent or two with some expert knowledge of the insurance requirements and options?

At the very least, let’s share our experiences and see the range of strategies.

Hi CV!

It has been a while since I have wrote to you and am hoping you and/or some of the AuPair Mom readers can shed some light on whether or not they are carrying a separate policy on their au pairs for workers comp.

It has been brought to my attention recently that host families in certain states (Minnesota and New York being two of them) are required to carry Worker’s Compensation Insurance as per state and federal law. This enforcement is applicable to any au pair who earns at minimum $1,000.00 per quarter.

Here are two sites that provide specific information with regards to Worker’s Compensation Insurance:

http://www.dli.mn.gov/WC/
AboutCov.asp

http://www.wcb.ny.gov/

I have contacted our insurance agency to see if our homeowners’ policy and/or personal liability umbrella insurance would cover workers’ comp and they are redirecting me to an independent insurance agency that can write a workers comp policy. From the sounds of it, this policy will be around $1,100 per year.

How are we defining when an au pair is workers comp eligible?

The au pair lives in their workplace. If they fall down the stairs in my house, slip on a toy, hurt themselves lifting my child … is this considered a workplace accident? If they slip on ice outside, they are now entitled to paid time off, physical therapy, etc.? And all the while, I am paying for alternate means of child care. Hmmm….

Our area director and other host moms in my cluster have told me that they do not carry such a policy even though it is recommended. I understand some agencies impose fines on host families who cannot provide proof of insurance.

• I do not have such insurance; should I?
• Are there any items I need to address and/or know when this policy is written?

I have to imagine readers either have this insurance and see it as an item that goes along with hosting an au pair OR they are in the dark about this too.

Educate this mom! I would love to hear input!   MinneMom

See also:

Your Au Pair Counselor As A Local Expert and Resource

Image: Fort Greene Stairs Some rights reserved by Atomische • Tom Giebel

Dear AuPairMom Readers-

I never thought that I’d be writing a post asking you all to take political action, but there’s an issue that hits the Au Pairing Community right at the heart.

Congress is deciding this week whether to impose a 7.65% FICA tax on au pairs.

Yes, that’s right. Congress wants to tax Au Pairs (and by extension, us host parents) to pay for Social Security/Medicare, even though these au pairs will never in their lifetimes receive any of the Federal benefits of these programs.

“Au pairs and other J-1 visa holders have always been exempt from FICA taxes because they return home after their programs and will never benefit from the Social Security or Medicare that these taxes fund. Thus, to impose these additional taxes on au pairs and American working families seems both inappropriate and unfair.”

While I understand that the Government needs to raise revenues to sustain a safety net for the old, the infirm, and the unlucky, I’d rather they did it by addressing tax inequalities among high earners (e.g., taxes on carried interest of investment bankers) and by closing tax loopholes exploited by corporations. Au Pairs and exchange students are a pretty defenseless lot. But I digress…

It’s Easy for Host Parents to Protest This Tax Proposal

Thank goodness for the internet, and for the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange (an association of many U.S. exchange organizations). Together, they are making it easy for any host parent to send a pre-written letter to our own representatives. Also, they have detailed information about their opposition to this tax, so you can learn more about it.

All you have to do is go to this page on the Alliance site, read the letter they suggest (make any modifications you want) and then send a letter directly to your Congress persons.

I used this very webpage to send a letter to my two senators and my Congressperson earlier this morning. It took me a total of 3.5 minutes– and I hadn’t even had my coffee.

So, AuPairMom community, if you oppose this tax on Au Pairs, I ask you to do three things:

1. Go to the Alliance page and send letters to your 3 representatives

2. Email or phone one other Host Parent, and ask them to do the same.

3. Tweet this post, or share it on Facebook, to publicize the issue to your hoat parents friends and interested others.

[Also, while you're at it, you could ask your host parent friends to come visit AuPairMom too. On snowy Saturday mornings it can get a bit lonely here. ]

Thanks.

cvh

A special shout out to readers KM, Heather and Carrie for their emails about this issue!

Why is it so expensive to extend an Au Pair for an additional year?

A reader emailed to raise the concern that it costs almost as much the second year as the first, because there are fewer special discounts. (For one agency, that’s about $5,600). Not only that, but the au pair herself or himself has to pay an extension processing fee (almost $300).

All of the costs of getting an au pair into the selection process (e.g., recruiting, interviewing), the au pair’s training & orientation, and the au pair’s flights to and from the USA, are connected to that au pair’s first year. The only incremental costs that the Agency has to bear are the costs of medical insurance for the au pair, and the support of the Agency staff and LCC.

So, why are these incremental costs nearly $6,000?

Do the agencies want us to extend with our initial au pairs, or choose to match with an extending au pair, so that they can generate higher revenues off of extension au pair placements.

It doesn’t seem to make sense that the au pair and the host family should pay so much, when the Agencies’ incremental expenses for that au pair are so dramatically reduced.

The high fees for an extension year lead host families to feel like they’re being treated as ‘deep pockets’ and not as families who want affordable childcare and a cultural experience.

But wait, there’s more.

Some agencies “suggest” that the host family pay the nearly $300 processing fee “on your au pair’s behalf”.

And to top it off, some au pairs are told (or hear, or expect) that for their second year most host families will increase the au pair’s stipend.

If the agencies want to charge so much for the second year, writes this reader, why don’t they offer something additional to the host families or the au pair (like extra training, or a larger completion bonus back to the au pair)?

I wonder if the logic isn’t a bit more abstruse –

Maybe the “benefit” to the host family is the “savings” of stress, time, and work that accrue when we don’t have to look through applications again, interview over skype again, agonize over whether we’ve made the right choice again, or teach some one how to drive and use the TV remote again. More or less the same dollar payout, but an energy ‘savings’.

This is the same kind of logic that twists me up when I find myself buying a second pair of tween jeans at Delia’s because I can get “two for the (un-discounted) price of one”, when all I really want is 20% off the one pair.

Are this reader and I on a rant, or does the relatively high Agency fee for an au pair extension annoy other host families too?

If host families could change the au pair ‘system’, there are many things we would improve.

Chief among these would be how au pairing is advertised, how au pairs are recruited and interviewed, how au pairs fulfill education requirements, and most of all, how au pair rematches are handled.

Rematch and transition processes are the opposite of transparency. The process is shrouded in secrecy, filled with half-truths, and designed so that nothing gets ‘fixed’ . Instead, problems are just moved around, in the hopes that somehow (sheer luck?) au pairs and host families will end up with a better match. Speaking as both a host mom and a business school professor, this a truly bad business strategy

Instead of being so opaque, rematch and transition processes should be made more transparent.

“Transparency” is one of the biggest trends in customer relationship management (e.g., sales and customer service). When a process is transparent, people can see exactly how the process works, they know what criteria are being used to make decisions, and they know what they can expect. Transparency in a business process offers us the ability to know what we’re getting and to make good choices. And, transparency lets us build trust, because we can see whether (or not) an organization’s process is working fairly.

When you think about what we know about the rematch process from each other’s comments, we can see many problems that could be resolved (to some degree) by more transparency..

Here’s what I know, from reading your comments:

• Host parents and au pairs rarely tell the truth, much less the whole truth, about why the rematch is being initiated.

• Au Pairs (and host families) strategically present themselves as rematch candidates as though they were not responsible for the failure of the initial relationship.
  

• Prospective host parents have little to no accurate information about the rematch candidates in the system.

• Former host families offer generic, bland information about the au pair who is leaving them.

• Agencies (when they know the truth) keep information to themselves, often seeming more interested in placing an inappropriate candidate somewhere – anywhere- rather than sending her or him home.

• Agencies make it virtually impossible for prospective host parents to check the recent references of the rematch candidate.

• Au pairs are under tremendous pressure to find and accept a new posting, while families have to house au pairs who have rejected or severely disappointed them.

• Au pairs rarely learn to change or improve their behavior.

• Host families rarely learn to change or improve their behavior.

• Families don’t feel confident that the agencies are working in their best interest.

• Au pairs don’t feel confident that agencies are working in their best interests.

• Rematch is emotionally and financially costly to everyone.

And the list goes on.

Except for the information that passes informally among LCCs and online networks of au pairs, no one really knows the truth. Thus, no one can really make a good decision. So we’re afraid to ask for a rematch when we really should end a relationship, we keep on in bad relationships, and no one is happy.

Infrequently, but often enough that we hold out hope, someone we know gets a rematch au pair who is fabulous. And, occasionally, a family who deserves a great au pair gets an au pair who deserves a great family.

Agencies should manage the rematch/transition process differently, and better.

They should hold au pairs and host families accountable for their behavior, they should require more accurate and verified information about the rematch reasons, and they should share this information with prospective families and au pairs.

Yes, there will be confidentiality issues to be concerned about. And, yes, there will always be an element of ‘They said, s/he said’ and difficulty about discovering the ‘whole’ and objective truth. But I suspect that families, au pairs and LCCs would rather deal with these issues than with the opacity, distrust, and riskiness that are literally built in to the current system.

But that’s just my opinion.

Here’s the email that prompted my rant:

Dear Au Pair Mom –

I am in the middle of rematching and having a hard time getting cooperation from my agency. Apparently, the previous HF of both of the only two available in-country AP’s have been “very difficult families” (in the words of the agency rep) and have “refused” to serve as references.

I’m also concerned that, of the 3 families that my current (rematching) AP has spoken to, none have requested a reference from us. This seems like too much of a coincidence and more like the agency doesn’t want the HF’s to talk to each other.

The reason my AP gave for a rematch was that she “didn’t have access to a car”. But this is such a partial truth it’s almost a lie. The real reason she didn’t have access to our car was that she failed her driver’s test and was denied a US driver’s license. Now she tells me she is rematching with an all school-age family and her primary job will be to drive the children to after-school activities. A dream for her–most likely a nightmare for the new HF.

I’m seeing the potential disaster in her new HF’s rematch and how they don’t know what they are getting in to. It’s making me very nervous about my new rematch. I feel like I’m going in to a rematch with blinders on and no other choice. Do I have any recourse here?  

No Faith in the System

Comments are open.

Image: Matches from Arria Belli, on Flickr

Readers, there is sadly more to the story of Deflated HostMom. She and her DH are having trouble getting the finances between the family and the au pair, and the family and the Agency, settiled to their saristaction.

As Deflated HostMom describes:

We have already paid our current au pair her full education allowance, and she announced she wants to leave two days after she took her second week of vacation (for which we gave her extra time).

• What are the different agency policies regarding what the au pair should owe us based on the education and vacation credits already given?
• Has anyone successfully fought an agency over these things? Is it possible we could get the money from the agency instead of the au pair?

Our agency seems to know that they cannot give us a replacement au pair since their pool is so weak, and expects us to leave the program. As a result, they have little incentive to help us.

What can we reasonably expect to get back, and from whom?

Whenever an au pair goes into rematch, you need to look closely at the fine print of your agency contract. The details differ with each agency, but in general you should expect to get back a pro-rated refund of some sort from the agency to cover fees you may have paid in advance for months you won’t have an au pair. And, you can either recover or pay a prorated amount for un-earned or un-used vacation days, and for education credits completed or not completed, from the au pair him or herself.

Settling accounts with your AP

Some agencies (such as AuPairInAmerica) have a worksheet that host families and au pairs can use to work out who owes what.

Regarding vacation days, one owes the au pair $ for vacation days she earned but did not take. Your agency contract will spell out how days are earned.

Regarding education payment, if she chooses not to complete her education credits during her time with you, you are only required to pay for [$500 divided by 12 times the number of months she's been with your family].

If the host family has initiated rematch, or if the rematch is a ‘no-fault’ situation, then the host family usually pays IF the class is not completed. Obviously, the host family pays if the au pair completed her course during her time with the family. I am not sure how it works if she ‘s taken all her credits by having compacted them into her partial time with the (first) Host Family.

The tough part, though, is getting money back from the agency.  They may tell you that part of your fee is unrecoverable (i.e., already spent on one-time costs like orientation, plane trips, etc.) I’m sure readers will share some tips below.

But you know what I’d really like back from the Agency? Two things:

• An apology for aiding and abetting the au pair who has shopped for a new family with their help, and

• A promise that they will reassess their priorities and place families’ needs ‘on par’ with those of the au pair.

Maybe you’ll be able to get an apology.

“Doing something” and “not doing something” do not always have opposite effects.

When something that is supposed to be done is done correctly and in a timely way, no one even notices. When the very same thing isn’t done, or is done incorrectly, it shakes the very foundations of a relationship.

Case in point: paying your au pair.

Every host family must pay their au pair the full amount of his or her stipend, each week, regularly and without fail.

When it comes to paying your au pair, here is what you must do.

• Set a payday — the same day each week — and pay you au pair on that day.

• Pay your au pair the full amount of her or his contractually established pocket money (in the USA, that would be $195.75).

• Create a written record of that payment. (Consider a note on the calendar, a receipt, a check stub, or even an email that says “we paid you today”.)

• If your au pair owes you money for some expenses, have her or him hand you back that money, once you have handed her or him the full stipend. Then, give them a receipt. Do not  ‘dock’ their money or subtracting it from their cash payment before handing them the case. (Why do this? Because the very act of paying you (back) for an expense reinforces for you and the au pair your au pair’s responsibility for the cost and your au pair’s taking charge of his/her responsibility by paying you back.)

• Never, ever, ever put your au pair in the situation where she or he has to ask you for the pocket money you own them, because you have missed the agreed-upon pay day.

Other Tips for Paying Your Au Pair

• Make it easier to remember to pay your au pair, with an email reminder, or even an automatic deposit into his or her checking account on the established day.

• Consider having a week’s pocket money tucked away in your T-shirt drawer, so that if you forget to get the cash from the back, or don’t have enough in your checking account, you have that hidden, backup amount to use.

• Consider planning to pay your au pair a day or two before payday– say, on Thurs rather than Friday. That way, of you forget, you still have a day to get organized before you are late in paying her/him.

• If you have two host parents or two households (e.g., divorced parents sharing an au pair) choose one parent who is responsible for getting the payment to the au pair. Do not miss a payment to your au pair because you and your partner can’t coordinate.

• Write a little thank you note on a post-it, and attach it to your au pair’s cash payment, or write a little “thank you!” on the memo line of the check you write.

Never put your au pair in a situation where s/he has to ask you for the pocket money you owe her. To do that is irresponsible on your part, and unkind to your au pair.

Consider this situation, from Amy:

I am an au pair who has recently moved to my host parents home. I have a great family and the children have taken to me quite easily. It seems like I could be happy here.

However, I do have an issue that I would like to get your advice on. My first two pay checks came on time but when my third did not arrive, I thought to give it a few days before I said something. After two days I mentioned to my host mom that I did not receive my pay check at the end of the week and she was apologetic saying I should not have to find myself asking for it, so I expected that she would write it out. But it is now the end of the second week and I still have not received last week’s pay check or this week’s for that matter.

I find this to be inconsiderate and a disregard of our agreement. It also makes me quite uncomfortable to have to raise this issue again, as I believe it should not be an issue at all.

How do I raise this issue with my host parents without causing tension? And how do I make sure that does not become a trend in our relationship?

I anticipate your feedback. Thank you.

How might an au pair address this situation if her Host Parent hasn’t paid her?

Our rocking, sane and helpful conversation about all things related to food at home has emboldened me (and maybe you) to tackle a specific food situation– eating out at restaurants.

I’m thinking about the evenings when no one has the energy to cook and you’re tired of pizza, or when you’re dining ‘on the road’ or on vacation, or when Grandma wants to treat on a weeknight.

(I am not talking about taking your au pair our to dinner as a special treat or celebration for the au pair.)

Meals out at restaurants can be awkward situations for Au Pairs if they don’t know what the cost and volume conventions are in your family.

They may be very conscious, or blithely unaware, but either way, you need to set the stage so that your au pair knows what to do.  Even when an au pair can translate and recognize items on the menu, it can be easy for him or her to trip over an unspoken expectation about what your family usually orders, and what your family usually spends, in a restaurant.

Does your family always order a side salad, no matter how much it costs, to make sure everyone gets a vegetable? Do you share a Bloomin’ Onion family style or each get your own appetizer? Or, do you skip desserts almost always to save money and calories?

For Host Families, the restaurant situation can be sensitive, once again because it’s easy to see (and be surprised by) how much having an additional adult (your au pair) can add to your out-of-pocket costs. (I’m still getting adjusted to my 12 year old shifting off of the kids’ menu. Buying chicken in non-nugget form is a good bit more expensive, I’m discovering.)

You can also find yourself resenting the au pair who orders a first course, a second course, a dessert, and a fancy mixed drink, while you’re having the Caesar salad without chicken. Without fries. Without dessert.

There is one really significant rule for host parents when it comes to taking au pairs to a restaurant:

Only take an au pair to a restaurant where you can afford to buy him or her a full-sized entree and a non-alcoholic beverage.

If you can’t afford to have your au pair choose the second most expensive item on the menu, think again about the restaurant you’re going to. It’s probably better to economize with a less fancy atmosphere but more flexibility on what can be ordered (e.g., maybe a Red Robin instead of an Outback Steak House).

Other recommendations:

• Tell your au pair what you expect to order yourselves.

She will probably use that as a guideline for ordering her own meal.

“I’ll probably get the roasted veggie panini ($8.99) with a side of haricot vert ($3.99) and DH will probably order the chicken-fried steak ($17.99) because he works out 6 days a week and can actually metabolize that.”

This gives your au pair a hint– target cost of each adult’s meal will be between $13 and $18. The $29 New York Strip is probably out of bounds, but restricting his or her order to the chicken satay appetizer ($4.99) is probably unnecessary.

• Tell your au pair directly what he might want to order, in terms of courses and extras.

He’ll take the lead if you all order appetizers, but might not know if you plan to skip straight to entrees.

“We’ll get a Bloomin’ Onion to share, but since that only really serves two, why don’t you pick out an appetizer that looks good to you?” or “If five of us share a Bloomin’ Onion, we all get a taste and still have room for those ribs. Mmm.”

• Before you actually go out to a restaurant, tell your au pair what to expect.

You want to make sure that he or she doesn’t hold back and order too little, or choose something s/he really won’t like, all to save a few bucks when that is not necessary.

We explicitly state in our family handbook that we will never take our au pair to a restaurant that we can’t afford, unless we are in some weird travel situation where we apply the F.H.B. dictum to keep the cost reasonable.

Talk about restaurants and expectations before you actually go out for a meal, so it doesn’t look like you were attacked by the stingies when your au pair orders the lobster tail and you recoil in horror.

• Be ready to hold back yourself, if necessary, to make constraints seem somewhat fair.

We sometimes have problems with wine when we dine out. DH loves a nice Cabernet, and would prefer a $35 bottle of wine to a $20 bottle if he could get away with it. But if he’s unwilling to share it freely with our au pair (if she is not driving, is old enough to drink, and likes wine), then he has to order something less expensive. It just seems too mean for him to drink a fine vintage if she’s only allowed to have a glass of ‘house wine’, the kind from the cardboard box that they pour behind the bar.

Remember that eating out — regardless of where– can still feel like a special treat for the whole family.

Other restaurant tips and stories? Please share!

See also:

Why is managing food for an Au Pair so hard?
Food and your Au Pair: A smorgasbord of advice

Dear AuPairMoms:

I’m a first-time host-parent to a lovely 21 year old first-time Au Pair from Scandinavia (through Cultural Care), as well as a first-time mom of 19 month old twins, and I really enjoy this site.

I’m hoping your readers might have some sage advice for me. I’m starting to obsess over this issue, which is ridiculous because the last thing I have time to do it obsess about anything. But when it comes to my Au Pair, who is a bit on the lackadaisical side of life, in addition to being pretty naïve, I often feel like nothing will get done unless I dive in and take over.

So here’s the current problem: We just moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to a remote alpine resort town 3.5 hours away. When we visited the area for an extended vacation we were glad to see a small college in town, half a mile from our home, and we presumed (I know, never make any presumptions) if we moved here, that we’d simply enroll our au pair in an inexpensive Community Education class at this college. We noted that this college is chock-full of Scandinavians, making my Au Pair feel like she has died and gone to heaven.

When we decided we wanted to move here by mid-September, and contacted the college for enrollment information, we were told that all of the classes were full, cost a minimum of $600 per credit, and that they don’t even have a Community Education program! The college suggested classes that Au Pair could take in the Spring semester at their sister-school, but that school is a 45 minute drive each way, and our Au Pair doesn’t know how to drive (public transportation here exists, but that route between our home and the sister-school would take 2 hours each way).

We asked the only other Au Pair in town what she does, and she drives an hour each way 3 times per week to the closest small-city University. I also asked the area’s LCC, who told me along the lines of, “That school in your town is a pain in the neck to get into. The next closest place is over an hour drive in each direction, so if your Au Pair doesn’t drive, that’s a big problem. Maybe the Area Coordinator has a suggestion.”

I might also add that me driving Au Pair to school an hour each way, staying for her class and driving her home is not going to work because my husband is away 3 nights a week, and her classes would take place during her time off, while my babies are sleeping, so please, let’s not go there.

I spoke with our former Area Coordinator at Cultural Care, who isn’t very familiar with my new home town, but did tell me that there simply aren’t enough Au Pairs here to make it worthwhile to them to make a concession, and advised me that Au Pair could take a weekend class at one of two East Coast locations: Silver Bay YMCA 80 miles north of Albany, or CW Post, which isn’t too far out on Long Island.

Bingo!, I thought, until I looked up the course schedule, and then airline schedules. Now, because we feel somewhat guilty about the timing of our move, which was a very self-indulgent move on our part that will allow my husband and I to remain at home with our children full-time (he working from home, me a SAHM), and we really weren’t putting much thought on how it might effect Au Pair, we feel like we should pay for the weekend course and her transportation to/from.

However, after some research, I found that either option will cost us nearly $1,200. Both options are going to require our Au Pair to take a red-eye from our nearest airport plus two more hops just to get there, then manage ground transportation on her own in a strange location (for CW Post, it’s the LIRR and then a shuttle; and in the SB case, if she’s lucky, we might be able to time her flight to catch the private shuttles that have been arranged by the teachers), and upon her return, she will get stuck at a West Coast airport overnight (either LAX, San Diego, Phoenix, or Salt Lake) before flying the remainder of the trip the following morning. As an alternative, we could put her up at a hotel near the school; either way, it means we now have to add the cost of a hotel room, ground transportation and food to the aforementioned fees, not to mention the fact that we won’t have an Au Pair from Wednesday night to Tuesday morning. I haven’t even told my Au Pair all this yet, because I know it will cause her a lot of apprehension and nervousness.

The Cultural Care representative told me that they don’t have weekend courses available on the West Coast, just these two locations in the Northeast. I haven’t been able to determine if these weekend courses that she suggested are specifically run by Cultural Care and, therefore, only available for their Au Pairs that they bring in to the US. I found a weekend Au Pair course at UCLA, which would be wayyyy easier for us to manage, but it alludes that these courses are only for Au Pairs from a different agency.

Would some of your readers experienced in this issue be able to let me know if these weekend courses are “Agency Specific”, and if they are, if they have had experience enrolling their Au Pairs into weekend classes that might not be through their agency?

Our Au Pair needs to fulfill her remaining 3 credit requirement by February 3rd, and due to pre-paid travel plans, that leaves us with one weekend in early December at CW Post as our only option right now. I guess another option would be to let Au Pair lose her deposit (not sure what it is in her country, but maybe we pay her back for it?), but then she can’t extend with another family or re-apply as an Au Pair for two years, and she has already indicated that she’d like to stay (with us, at least).

What do I do? Are there any options I’ve overlooked?

TahoeTwinsMom

Hi TahoeTwinsMom -

Wow. I am really impressed by your efforts to track down all the possible options for your au pair’s education requirement. Many host moms would not have gone to such lengths on the au pair’s behalf, especially if she shows little interest in it herself. I understand that part of your reason for taking on this responsibility is that you feel responsible– your move put your au pair in a tough situation, requirement-wise. But still, many would have given up! good for you.

From what I see, you have two additional options to consider.

One option is to ask your au pair how much she really cares about extending or reapplying, and if she doesn’t care you can just ‘make her whole’ by covering the expense she’d incur by not filling this requirement.

Th e other option is to consider an online class. Doesn’t somewhere like Phoenix University or DeVry have economical online classes that she might take? Even though your au pair would not get out of the house and meet interesting people taking an online class, she might be able to fit it into her schedule easily.

I’d love to hear whether anyone has tried this strategy. And, I can’t wait to see what kinds of options other readers recommend…. Folks?

See also:

Can an Au Pair Manage Distance-Education and Au Pairing? If yes, then how?

Images:
Karyn Gartel Online Class from marthaleverDistance Education from The Degree Experts

We all have a sense of what kinds of issues regularly present host parents & au pairs with relationships challenges — food, cars, late nights being chief among these. I’m becoming aware of a new category of challenges, centering on ‘Who pays for a mistake?’

We’ve had mistakes related to car damage, lost cell phones, hair-dye stained walls, and more… and here comes a mistake related to apparently illegal downloading.

Behind each of these ‘mistake’ challenges is the question of “Who was at fault?”:

• Should the host parents have warned the au pair? Should they have had something in their handbook?
• Could an agency have screened or trained for this issue to prevent it from happening?
• Should the au pair have inquired before s/he did something? Or, been quicker to make changes?
• Or, all of the above?

Here’s the specific situation:

I am an au pair from Düsseldorf, Germany. I live in my guest-family since December 2009 and on 29 October I go back home to Russia.

One story has happened to me recently and I don’t know with who can I consult. I have/had internet in my guest-family. I have downloaded movies there. I had no idea that in Germany it is forbidden to download movies and my guest-family did not warn me. Then we received a warning from Lawyer Office where stands that my guest-parents should pay for it.

My guest-parents have consulted with their lawyer and they have decided that they do not pay me money for September and last month October. Furthermore, they do not tell me what’s going on with this case.

I would like to ask You, what can I do? Do I have any rights? Can the guest-family exact such a fine from me? Could you please advise me something, because I do not know how should I behave.
Of course, if I knew that in Germany downloading is forbidden, I would have never done it.

I had a similar situation with our very first au pair, who racked up almost $900 in phone charges to a Psychic hotline. Yes, almost $900. To a Physic Hotline.

In one of my best shows of indignation and consumer advocacy, i wrote several scathing letters to the phone company and hotline company, explaining that she was under 18 (not true technically, but true socially), that she did not understand English, and thus that she couldn’t have entered into a valid contract with them. I also harangued them with complaints about their pricing structure: $1 for the first mine, $10 for every subsequent minute, and a policy of scheduling the next call at the end of the current one. it was a system designed for exploitation, that worked until I threatened them. We ended up paying nothing beyond the first $1.

in this Au Pair in Germany’s situation, at the very least her host parents need to discuss with her how to pay for the fines. They shouldn’t just take it out of her already earned salary– that’s punishment. Also, it might really put the au pair in a bad situation if she was expecting to have that money and needed it to return home.

Rather, they should arrange a payback schedule where some portion comes out of each weeks pay, that they au pair can plan for and agrees to. This would serve as compensation, not punishment, for the mistake.

Unfortunately, they are all running out of time– and I bet the Host Parents are thinking that they don’t want to be left holding the bill.

What do you all think this au pair can / should do?

See Also:

Settling Accounts — *Before* she departs
First Day, First Problem, First Opportunity: The $48 phone call
When fault is contested, who pays for damage to the car?
Who pays for what?

Images: karate kid | TK watching movie on…from GoodNCrazy
Untitled from Ken Wingerden

Here on AuPairMom we get a lot of questions about driving skills, driving privileges and managing cars. Behind all of these questions, like “who should pay for gas?” or “Avoiding a sense of entitlement” or “keeping track of car use“,  is one simple principle–

Host parents must provide our au pairs with affordable, safe, and convenient transportation options.

Why you must provide some kind of safe, affordable transportation

Au pairs need to have convenient transportation for a simple reason: they have lives to live outside our homes and outside their on-duty hours. Classes and cluster meetings are but a small part of where your au pair needs to be able to go. S/he needs to be able to meet friends, explore your area, go shopping, find entertainment (e.g., movies, museums), exercise, and relax.

An au pair without convenient transportation will be a prisoner in your home. S/he will likely feel trapped, bored and/or lonely, and s/he will likely rematch.

The transportation options you provide need to be reasonably convenient.

Your au pair needs to be able to access and use the transportation easily. A five minute walk to a bus stop is okay, a twenty-five minute walk is not okay. Bicycling through a town for a 15 minute ride is okay, bicycling over long distances, at night, in bad weather, and in dangerous traffic conditions is not okay. Using your family car in the evenings before midnight, two or three times a week is okay, being forbidden to use any car at any time when you don’t live in a city with a bus system and subway– that’s not okay.

Also, convenient transportation means that it is relatively direct. you can’t expect an au pair to take a 45 minute bus ride with two transfers to get to a class in your own town, when to drive there might take only 15 minutes. (Of course, if s/he is going from your town to the city on a commuter train to take a special class, that’s a different situation).

Transportation has to be safe.

If you wouldn’t walk home from the bus stop after dark because you are concerned for your safety, you shouldn’t expect your au pair to do it either.

Transportation should be affordable.

You need to pay for some of this transportation. Host parents need to provide transportation (car plus gas, bus fare, taxi fare) for your au pair’s required events, such as meeting and classes. And, I’d add that you should provide her or him with transportation to and from your house on his or her day off — like, from your house to the mall or movie theater (not from your house to NYC).

That said, you should not be expected to pay $25 for a taxi to the Starbucks ‘downtown’ when a bus ride of similar length costs $2.50.

So, what should host parents do to provide safe, affordable and convenient transportation?

Here are three things to start with:

1. Use different transportation options depending on the kind of trip.

This is kindof a ‘duh’, except to remind you that a personal car is not the *only* option, and that you can offer to drive your au pair somewhere rather than expect him to walk or ride a bike if it’s stormy outside.

Modes of transportation

There are many ways your au pair can get safely, conveniently and affordably from one place to another on his or her off-duty time. These include and are not limited to:

• Bicycle
• Vespa
• “Station Car” (the $900, 15-yr old beater)
• Family car when parents aren’t using it
• Dedicated Au Pair car
• Bus, subway
• Carpool with other au pairs (contributing for gas, and with their host family’s permission)
• Host Parent chauffeur
• Taxi
• Rental car or ZipCar
• Transportation allowance ($)
• Have your au pair go along with you when you go some where (e.g., to the mall)

You can provide your au pair with some assortment of these options, based on what is available in your neighborhood or town, what you can afford financially, and what kind of time you have to help out with driving.

2. Set yourself a budget– including both time and money

It’s important to set some limits on what you’ll pay for and what you’ll do yourself for getting your au pair somewhere… and it’s also important to help

Maybe you can offer to drive your au pair somewhere once a week, for example to the movies in town (but not the one 20 minutes away). Consider letting your au pair have a car on her day off, but perhaps not during the week if you need the flexibility, or let him have the car for personal use X number of evenings a week. .

Obviously, I’m not suggesting that host parents pay for every kind of travel an au pair wants to make, or to pay for him or her to travel somewhere significant (e.g., outside a 5 mile radius of your town) every single day. Some amount of personal transportation should be the responsibility of the au pair. BUT — you must provide something.

3. Set travel expectations

• Talk with your au pair about the kinds of trips and the number of trips anywhere that you think a host family should subsidize.
• Consider the systems you might need for reserving a car, asking in advance for a ride, taking a turn carpooling with other au pairs.

What else do you think host parents can and should do to provide safe, affordable and convenient transportation?

What limits would you set? What has worked for you and your au pairs?

Do tell… since we have a specific request for transportation advice coming up in the next post…

See also:

The 3rd Car: Avoiding a sense of entitlement
Using Your Car is a Privilege, not an Entitlement: Best practices
Host Family Advice: Resist the Amenities Arms Race
Can an Au Pair be happy without driving privileges?
Advice wanted: How to Keep Track of Au Pair’s personal car use?

Images: Courtney and her Mission bicycle Zach Klein
orange VESPA from * miQ
OC Night Bus from Geoff LMV