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Foundations & Basics

Do you celebrate your Au Pair on Mother’s Day? (poll)

by cv harquail May 11, 2012

Searching through the racks of Mother’s Day cards looking for something just right for my step-mom and mother-in-law, I noticed just how many Mother’s Day cards there are these days for people who aren’t mothers: “You’re like a Mother to Me” “To a special person on Mother’s Day” “Celebrating you for all you do” It [...]

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Vacationing at DisneyWorld with your Au Pair in Tow: What’s worked for you?

by cv harquail March 5, 2012

I have a confession to make. My kids are 11 and 13, and I have never taken them to DisneyWhere. I probably never will. I know, it doesn’t count that I *have* taken them to see WIcked on Broadway– I’m still a bad mom. Worse, I don’t know much about the excitements and demands of [...]

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Who Pays For the Au Pair’s Car Insurance?

by cv harquail February 24, 2012

You do. Car insurance is one of the many ‘other’ costs that host parents incur when they have an au pair. Host parents who need the au pair to drive a car as part of his or her work duties obviously pay for the car insurance, just as they pay for the gas and for [...]

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Do Host Parents need to buy Workers Compensation Insurance?

by cv harquail February 22, 2012

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. [...]

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Should You Wake Your Au Pair When You Leave For Work REALLY Early?

by cv harquail February 19, 2012

Hi AuPairMom, We are welcoming our first au pair in about 3 weeks, and we are very excited. Your blog really helped us decide that this was the right type of child care for our family. We need someone with scheduling flexibility, because we have an always-changing, somewhat odd work week. I have to leave [...]

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Texting: Taming the Au Pair Distraction

by cv harquail February 10, 2012

Who’s got an au pair who texts a lot?  Sometimes at inappropriate times, and often without any understanding of how this behavior distracts them? Raise your hands. Okay, you can all put down your hands. It annoys me hugely that people have bad manners when it comes to texting. In our family, we have rules [...]

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Can Au Pairs shorten their Extension, once begun?

by cv harquail February 5, 2012

Do you know the official answer to this au pair’s query? And, if you were her LCC, what would you advise? Dear Au Pair Mom, I’m an extension Au Pair, living here in the USA since January of 2011 (13 months now). I wanted to know if there is a possibility to change the length [...]

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Should au pair rules be changed, to allow for “extra vacation without pay”?

by cv harquail January 25, 2012

Within the legal boundaries of the au pair program, both host parents and au pairs like to have a bit of personal discretion. We want to be able to satisfy family demands and any sensible au pair dreams. We want to be flexible when issues come up, and we want to be accommodating and reasonably [...]

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Do you let your Au Pair drive in the snow?

by cv harquail January 23, 2012

Snowstorms in weird places (like Oregon) and snowstorms in predictable places (like Chicago) have raised the question for many aupair host parents – Do you allow your au pair to drive in the snow? Of course, there are a million variables that affect this decision. Here are the ones I came up with off the [...]

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Would you ask your Au Pair to help out at someone else’s party?

by cv harquail January 22, 2012

Do you think it’s appropriate to ask an au pair to got to your kids’ school and help out at a birthday event there, for someone else’s kids? Here’s the email that prompts the question: Dear AuPairMom – I am mostly satisfied with the family I am working for. We’ve had a few problems but [...]

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