AuPairMom » Guidelines & rules

Is Your Host Family Handbook Too Long?

cv harquail — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:50:28 +0000

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: Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about … everything?

Over the years, each time some issue has come up, we’ve considered adding something about it to our Host Family Handbook. Some of these issues have generated rules (e.g., no using cell phone in car) while other times they’ve generated points of advice or information that have been part of the guidelines. (e.g., Please wear a modest bathing suit to the town pool.)

Once you start thinking about how your family functions, what your values are, what issues concern you with another adult in your house, what issues concern you with childcare, and what advice you have for you au pair to have a great year, you can really generate some pages. Lots of pages.

And, as you revise with each au pair and as your kids grow, the Handbook seems to grow too. Even if you take things out about preschool, you’re adding something about TaeKwonDo.

Comprehensiveness vs. Comprehension

A well-written and well read Family Handbook should avoid all the problems we’re ever anticipated, and prevent the ones that we failed to anticipate in previous years.

If an au pair were to read and comprehend all of the information in our Handbook, she would have a great sense of what we’re expecting, what she should avoid doing, and what she should focus on to have a terrific relationship with our girls and a comfortable experience in our family and our community.

Unfortunately, even with au pairs whose command of English is terrific, the chances that they comprehend the au pair handbook are probably lower that I’d hope. And that’s assuming that they’ve actually read it.

Yes, there are many techniques for getting your au pair to read and understand what’s in the Handbook, but perhaps the simplest technique of all is just to make the Rules and Guidelines succinct, with major points only.

[[ My DH says that our Guidelines sections are just too long. We should shorten them, delete the stuff that's less important and leave only the top 3 rules.

Oh yes?, I reply. And exactly which guidelines would you eliminate (man who wrote over half the revisions in the first place)?]]

That whole idea about being more succinct is a good one… but it seems to ignore our desire to be both comprehensive and explicitly. We want to be explicit because we know that the more clarity we offer, the better we can advise and guide our au pair. Also, the more clarity, the better we can check our own assumptions and sometimes (re)consider whether they are reasonable.

On the flip side, the shorter your Rules and Guidelines, the more likely it is that you au pair will (1) read them, (2) figure out how to understand them, and (3) remember them well enough to follow them.

So what do you do, go for comprehensiveness or brevity?

How long are your Rules and Guidelines?

Do they seem too long, too short, or just right?

If your Rules and Guidelines are too long, how would you go about making the whole set shorter?

I have a few ideas, but I’ll hold on to them until we hear the wisdom of the group….

Binder of DOOM! from hello lovely
Green binders from nick findley
stack of journals from paperbackwriter

Tip: Insist on the Second-To-Last bus

cv harquail — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:23:01 +0000

One of our guidelines is:

“Take the second to last bus or train home. Never count on being able to get the very last bus. Always make sure you have a backup.”

You might look at that and think we are controlling– but underneath that guideline (like so many others) is a real story of disappointment.

The story

About 4 months after my second daughter was born, my colleague and I won an incredibly prestigious research award, which was to be presented at a conference in Toronto. (We lived in Virginia at the time.) I hadn’t planned to attend the conference, since it would be such a production with an toddler and an infant, but my colleague insisted that I come. “You get something like this once in a lifetime,” she said. “And you simply can’t miss it.

My DH was also pretty excited to be invited to the schmancy reception, so we made plans to go as a family. And, we planned to take our au pair. I wanted to be able to enjoy myself at the reception, and not worry about wearing my babygirl and sneaking into a corner to nurse her to keep her contented. Our au pair could watch the girls during the reception, and my husband would come with me and take a few photos for my scrapbook. During the day, our au pair could explore Toronto.

The reception was at 6, and our au pair was due back at 5 so that I could shower and get all glamorous in the way that professors get glamorous (which takes a bit of time, as you might imagine). But at 5 o’clock, our au pair had not returned. At 5:30, she still wasn’t back. At 5:45 I’d started to feel sick, and then she called from the first pay phone she could figure out how to use. (This was before cell phones were common).

Our au pair was at Niagara Falls. She’d missed the bus that she needed to take to get back to Toronto by 5. The next bus would get her back by 7:30.

My DH changed out of his suit, and settled in to watch the girls. I went to the awards ceremony alone.

The moral of the story

After this experience, we came up with the guideline of “Second to last bus”. If the last bus you could take would leave at 3:30 to get you home by 5:00, you were to take the 2:30 bus to get back by 4:00. That way, if you missed the 2:30 bus (or if the bus itself was late), there would still be a good chance that you’d be back in time.

Are “crazy” Au Pair guidelines really all that crazy?

cv harquail — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:55:20 +0000

I laughed at the comment by Taking a Computer Lunch, on rules in her family handbook:

My least favorite rule that I had to add – don’t burn candles and leave your room. Duh!

As I look through our family handbook, there are some real doozies. My personal favorite is “In the evening, please do not play the stereo in your room at a volume over #12.”

[WTF, you say?]

Under that seemingly crazy guideline is some real experience– our au pair’s room is right above mine. Au Pairs stay up later than me, playing their radios.

After who-knows-how-many times asking if she could please turn it down, I experimented to figure out exactly how loud was loud enough to hear through the floor/ceiling. At #12, you hear the “puh puh puh puh puh puh puh puh” rhythm, but not all the actual words to Pokerface. I can deal with that.

I’m not crazy, I’m experienced. I have created a guideline to avoid future disappointments.

Rules have roots in Real Experience

Every “crazy” guideline has its roots in some real experience. You know that TaCl and I both have guidelines about candles because someone left a candle burning. So when you hear rules and guidelines like:

- “Never eat PB&J in the car.”

- “Car Mileage budget is 500 miles per week.”

- “Please do not move the bed in your room without checking with us first.”

- “Please wear a modest bathing suit to the town pool. Thong bikinis are not permitted there.”

Know that each of these rules came from some crazy situation, where an au pair did something that turned out to be a bad idea.

Review and Revise Your Handbook to Make Sure Your Rules Aren’t Too Crazy

Host parents should review and revise their handbooks with each new au pair… not only to update them for new schedules, new needs, and growing kids but also to remove guidelines that may now be out of date.

It’s especially important to remove guidelines that make you seem like “Evil Controlling Host Mom” to a new au pair, but are probably unique to the personality of a former au pair whose behavior you no longer have to worry about.

Remember that often the specific reminders that seemed necessary to keep one au pair safe and out of trouble might not be necessary for other au pairs. Each au pair will have his or her own unique challenges… and you can just make up new rules as you need them. < grin >

Your Host Parent Approach

We host parents also understand that we can’t legislate our way to a smooth, snag-free relationship with an au pair.

A rule-based, “here’s what you can’t do” approach is constraining. It may help to protect & prevent, but it also focuses us on the negative. Who wants to live in a world of “don’t do”s? A world of “no”? Not me, and not your au pair either.

Therefore, we need to identify, recognize and pay attention to the positive reasons behind any guideline and the overall principles underneath our rules. I’ll write a bit more about this in a future post.

in the meantime, I’d love to know:

What are some of the “crazy” guidelines in your Au Pair Handbook?

The Three Phone Calls I Want to Get From My Au Pair at 2 am

cv harquail — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:36:56 +0000

I’ve had too much to drink and I can’t drive home safely. Can you come and get me?

My friend has had too much to drink and she can’t drive us home safely. Can you come and get us?

I don’t feel safe and I don’t know how to get home. Can you come and get me?

I’m not a big fan of phone calls late at night.

Anytime the phone rings past 9:15 pm somebody’s breaking my mom’s rules about when it’s appropriate to use the telephone.

(Just FYI, that would be between 9am and 9pm, earlier if you are coordinating the carpool to a practice before school.)

You know that when the phone rings after 11 or so, it’s usually bad news.

That said, I have told my au pairs, as my mom once told me, that if they ever find themselves without a safe way to get home, they should call me. No matter what time it is. I will come and get them, no questions asked.

This is exactly what my mom told me she’d do for me. And not like I thought I’d ever need to make one of these phone calls, I twice had to take my mom up on the offer of that emergency pickup.

The first time, during high school, Lorilee and I got so drunk at a great party that we were unable to drive home from the town next door. We called my mom. She came and picked us up, drove us both home, and never yelled. Yes, I was grounded for two weeks or something, as if that did anything. (In my defense, the drinking age at the time was 18, so I was only one year too young.)

The second time I was old enough but not quite responsible enough. I got too drunk at an outdoor concert that lasted way into the next day, lost my car keys, and had to call my mom. I would have taken the bus or train home, but they stop running at about 2 am. Let me just say, the drive out of NYC at 4:30 in the morning, as the sun was coming up, was memorable for the silence as my mom tried to keep her promise of “no questions asked”.

Both of those situations taught me two things:

1. The 2 am phone calls must be encouraged.

2. A parent can keep her promises when you ask for help after doing something completely, totally irresponsible.

I have promised each of our au pairs that if they get in trouble and they need help, they should call me.

Even if it’s after midnight and before 7 am.

Only twice have we ever been called upon for emergency help– once when our first au pair hit a deer at 4 in the morning, and once when another au pair got too drunk at a frat party. It’s not like I was glad that the deer population of Albemarle County was down by one, or that the boys as Sigma Whatever eventually did run out of beer.

But, I was glad that my au pairs trusted me enough to reach out when they needed to.

And, I was glad that I trusted myself to be there when they needed me.

Images: Untitled from faeanna 20060516_017 from kungpaolam

Au Pair Guidelines: Does your car have a curfew? (Poll)

cv harquail — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:30:59 +0000

Our au pair car was a naughty, naughty car.

Its very first year as an au pair car, it often stayed out kind of late.

Once, it got left behind at a bar and didn’t make it back until Monday. Another time, it was hanging out 95 miles away from home, without permission, and tangled with a deer. At 4 am.

Naughty, naughty car.

After the encounter with the deer (though, surprisingly, not after staying over at the bar) I decided I needed to be more firm with our au pair car.

You now have a curfew, Miss Maxima. Weeknights, you must be in by midnight. Weekends, you must be in by 1 am.

I don’t care if “all the other au pair cars” get to stay out later. You’re my au pair care and you will follow my rules.

The end.

As our au pair car matured, and demonstrated more responsibility, I did allow it to stay out overnight IF parked at someone’s home by 1 pm, and if I knew in advance where the car would be. I expect (in fact, I’m sure) that this curfew was occasionally broken, but since I am usually asleep by midnight I rarely noticed.

How about the car that your Au Pair uses?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Image: New Car….. from scarynaughtyduck

In Loco Parentis? Your Parental Responsibilities when your AP’s behavior challenges your values

cv harquail — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:54:35 +0000

As Host Parents, we have an odd role in our Au Pair’s lives. We are responsible for keeping them safe, housed, fed, and supported in their work with our children. And we also often play a role that I call Pseudo In Loco Parentis.

Pseudo In Loco Parentis

Like the fancy Latin?

Years ago, women’s colleges were expected to take the role of “in loco parentis” — being the “local” parent of the student. This meant that the college was expected to protect the student’s health and safety, by forbidding men in the dorms, requiring curfews, limiting date nights, and even screening phone calls. Whatever it took to keep these young women and their reputations “safe” was sensible and expected.

The idea behind this was that the local “adults” would care for the student on behalf of that student’s parents, enacting the same rules and expectations that s/he’d experience at home under her or his own parent’s roof. This expectation — that at some times you’ll act like your au pair’s own parents — is also part of the role of Host Parent.

One easy way that this in loco parentis role plays out is in the promise that I make to my au pair’s parents about how I’ll treat them in an emergency — I will care for our au pair as though she were our own child, in a personal, natural or political disaster. If the nuclear reactor at Indian Point melts down, that au pair will be in the back seat with my kids and the dog as we speed west on Route 80.

Other situations are less clear. Some of our families’ values and moral codes are pretty common. We can feel comfortable expecting our au pairs to live up to certain expectations for honesty, reliability, self-control and cleanliness. S/he may or may not share our religion, or attend services, and we’re usually fine with this. But, when au pairs start to socialize (and by this I mean drinking, partying, staying out late, meeting people on-line, and doing all kinds of young adult social behaviors), they can often cross lines we didn’t even know we had.

From “anything goes” to “not under my roof!”

We’ve talked here on AuPairMom about our concerns regarding Au Pairs’ and their social lives.

Many of us simply do not care what our au pairs do socially, as long as they are safe and back to work rested and on-time. Others of us take more of an in loco parentis approach, and seek to guide our au pair’s behavior to stay within (or at least close to) our family’s moral values and moral code(s).

Every host parent-au pair partnership finds a different place on this spectrum, from “anything goes” to “not under my roof!”

Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, you need to know what your limits are and how you’ll handle it if and when your au pair steps out of your moral and ethical comfort zone.

An active reader emailed with a question about her au pair’s social life… and how she as host parent should respond:

We have a 20 year old au pair. She is terrific and we are extending with her and couldn’t be more happy in general. She is very responsible and puts me to shame sometimes !

My question is that I’ve just learned she’s now telling people she is in a relationship with a gentleman (mid 20’s) who previously was described as “only a friend.” I fully expect she’s going to ask us pretty shortly about things such as spending the night at his house and driving our car over to where he is and that area. That area is not close to mine and not in an area I am familiar with. It’s about 35 minutes away and you need to travel on some four lane highways to get there. My husband did allow her to drive there one time, but made clear it was only a special occasion.

On the one hand, she is mature and responsible, including in her driving (as far as I know, but we trust her). She deserves to be treated as an adult and make adult choices which I personally think she is fully capable of doing and with sense. I’ve met the boyfriend and he strikes me as also very mature and responsible (but who really ever knows?).

On the other hand, I would not let my own daughter stay the night at a boyfriend’s (patriarchal and naïve as that may be, but it’s the truth). I have no idea if her own parents feel like I do or not. I have met them, am very comfortable with them, and can get a hold of them to ask, but I’m really worried if I do that or require that our relationship will be worse off than if I had just said no, and let her suggest she connect us on this issue.

Also, I really don’t want our car that far from home. It has nothing to do with her or her freedom, but more do with our property and where we want it and what risks we are willing to take with it.

Both the overnight stays and the driving far distances are no’s in our handbook, but of course, that is written more for training a new au pair and for reminding an existing au pair of our house rules if need be. I’m leaning towards allowing the overnight stays on nights when she is not working the next morning, but not the car. He will have to pick her up. That’s the price of connecting with someone far away by choice.

What should I do? What have you done and did it work?

Dear Host Mom,

I really appreciate how carefully you’re thinking through this situation!

I think it’s the right thing to do to have limits on the car’s whereabouts… for the reasons you state. And I’d go with you on being okay with overnights if I knew not to expect her to come home and she wasn’t working the next day.

The hard part is separating those two things when you discuss this with your au pair, so that she doesn’t see the restrictions on the car as a backhanded effort to control her social life. While in truth the expectation that her boyfriend must pick her up and drop her off may cut down on the number of nights she gets to stay over at his house, that’s not the point behind the restriction. You’ll need to find a caring way to make this distinction– maybe even by acknowledging how the car restriction might feel.

I’d anticipate that she might want to stay over on some work nights, and may eventually ask for that. And, since she’s already ‘proven’ she can drive their safely, she may also ask you to loosen this restriction too.

You should think in advance about whether you’re ever going to be willing to loosen up, and what you might do if she broke one or both expectations either behind your back or ‘by accident’. Even the most responsible au pairs can get their heads turned around by romantic dynamics. You don’t have to expect that she’d cross your line, but it’s happened before with even great au pairs.

With regard to talking with her parents… I don’t think I’d do this. My sense is that, once an au pair is in the program, she is an adult who makes her own decisions. I’d only call parents in the case of a health or safety emergency.

Other parents and au pairs, what do you think about this host mom’s plan? Anything else she should consider before talking with her au pair?

Have you found yourself in other kinds of situations where you questioned the “parent” part of your host parent role?

Images: a few red chairs late at night from shioshvili Late at night on the bus from wonderferret

What can an Au Pair expect from a Host Family?

cv harquail — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:46:01 +0000

In the mirror post to this one, we’re generating a list of ways that families interpret and execute the rules, but with the effect of having the au pair feel mistreated.

Here on this page is our chance to list what an au pair can expect from a family when both the family and the au pair are fulfilling the basic program requirements.

Let’s assume that host families are already doing the basics, like giving the au pair her or his day & a half off each week. Let’s take the next step, and consider how families can do this in a way that helps the au pair feel as though he or she is being treated appropriately or well.

In terms of how the family interprets and executes the program requirements:

What can an au pair expect from a host family?

Image: Victorian maid in Miss Havershams…from Gauis Caecilius

Locking the Refrigerator, and other ways to mistreat an Au Pair

cv harquail — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:42:33 +0000

Riffing on the post Do Au Pairs need a bill of rights? about Au Pairs and a domestic workers bill of rights, Dawn mentioned that

A clear listing as to what kind of treatment is reasonable to expect would be very helpful in such circumstances.

As one example, in a program where the AP expects to be “part of the family,” is it okay for the family to literally LOCK their “family” refrigerator, and have their AP eat completely different food than the rest of the family eats — food of a lesser quality than the family purchases for themselves? I don’t think so, but my AP’s friend who is in this situation is afraid to rock the boat by talking to her LCC about it.

Expectations & interpretations

The program requirements do set out a framework of expectations, but unfortunately ‘bad’ host families interpret both the rules and the principles behind those rules in ways that serve themselves rather than serving their au pair and / or the whole family-au pair system.

There are many, many (too many) ways that unscrupulous host families can interpret the program requirements in ways that end up feeling like ‘mistreatment’ to au pairs. These ‘bendings of the rules’ or distortion of the intent behind the rules, are different from actually breaking the rules. When a family (or au pair) breaks the rules, the violation is clear: s/he either did or didn’t get two weeks of paid vacation. When program guidelines are enacted in a way that distorts them, whether or not it’s “mistreatment” is up for grabs… and generates ongoing conflict and distress.

Can we establish a list of appropriate expectations for how regulations should be enacted? If we could, then host families and au pairs would have a better sense of what good treatment is, and isn’t

I like Dawn’s idea of a list of positive expectations… but it’s a hard one to execute. Still, let’s try it.

Positive examples

There are two ways to go about this. One way is to start to generate a list of how au pairs can and should expect the guidelines to be interpreted. We have already discussed what behaviors ’show’ that an au pair is being treated as part of the family, and it never hurts to revisit this topic. It’s just too important.

I’ve set up a second post where people can generate more ideas about “What an Au Pair can expect from a Host Family”.

Negative examples

A second way to get a sense of what au pairs should be able to expect is to list examples of ‘bad treatment’. This would not be examples of where host families broke the results themselves, but rather ways in which the host family “interpreted” program requirements in ways that end up feeling like mistreatment.

Dawn’s example of the locked refrigerator suggests that this host family was willing to provide ‘board’ for their au pair, but just not at the same level as the rest of the family. They are perhaps fulfilling the letter of the regulation, but not the spirit. And, separating out the ‘family food’ from the ‘au pair food’ so that the au pair gets lesser quality meals is a true violation of the spirit of the term ‘au pair’– and au pair is supposed to be treated ‘at parity’ or at a status equal to a family member.

Personally as the blog moderator, i get a little anxious when I set up a post where we list things that people (host families, agencies, LCCs, au pairs) do wrong. I don’t like gripe fests, and neither do most of you readers. That said, we can handle this one well if:

1. We note not only the ‘mistreatment’ but the reason why it felt like/ looked like ‘mistreatment’.

2. We respect the viewpoint of the person suggesting the ‘mistreatment’. The goal here is to understand what’s behind both the behavior and the bad feeling, so we need to listen first before we move to offer a correction, or a suggested action step.

Ready to try it?

Do Au Pairs need a ‘bill of rights’?

cv harquail — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:43:21 +0000

A reader sent me a link to an article in Slate, about a proposed ‘Bill of Rights” for domestic workers in New York State. (You can read the article in detail, here.)

The proposed legislation would guarantee New York’s 200,000 domestic workers sick days, overtime, a day of rest, protection under discrimination laws, and notice before termination.

I think that a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is a great idea. There are too many stories of caregivers (mostly women) being taken advantage of. When we think about the power differential between employing families and caregivers themselves, you can appreciate how hard it might be for an individual caregiver to assert her or his rights without a framework that legitimates these rights and also provides for punishment when employers violate these rights.

And, I’m glad that au pairs don’t need a bill of rights. Their rights are already protected (in as much as laws or codes can prevent behavior) by the program regulations.

All of us host parents have heard stories of au pairs who’ve been taken advantage of, and nannies and other caregivers who have been taken advantage of, by selfish or otherwise abusive host parents & employers. Although we hear these stories, we know that abuses are limited becuase au pairs are regulated by the State Department and supervised by au pair agencies. Thus, au pairs theoretically have the sick leave, sick pay, and termination notice that a bill of rights would otherwise guarantee them.

Notably, au pairs do not have mandated overtime pay, because overtime is against the regulations.

These protections for au pairs themselves are a big reason why I appreciate the Au Pair Program. I also appreciate my local counsel’s diligence in contacting me and my au pairs regularly, and especially for meeting with me and our incoming au pair to go over the rules and the contract. I also appreciate the agency managing immigration, insurance, travel, training, and socialization.

This is not to say that local counselors are always diligent in making sure that rules are followed, or that agencies always earn their fees by executing their part of the program well. But, in general, these protections make me feel more comfortable about having au pair caregivers.

Laws and program regulations give us a helpful structure by distinguishing between what’s wrong and what’s expected, and by giving everyone the same understanding of basic expectations.

There is a lot of variation within these regulations, though, and that’s one of the reasons our conversations here are so important. Yes, sometimes we talk about breaking the rules, but always with the intent of guiding other host partners to do this in a just way, with explicit agreement and sensitivity to downsides.

And more often, we talk about how to do the au pair relationship thing well, so that it works for all parties. Somehow, the regulatory framework takes care of the basics, so that we are free to talk with more energy not about being legal, but about being fair, and not about what rules should be, but about what principles should guide us.

When someone else takes care of base pay, insurance, and visas, we are free to take care of cultural exchanging, welcoming someone into our families, and supporting them during this part of their life adventure.

(I guess you might call this my AuPairAgency Appreciation post. )

Thanks for the tip, A. P.!

Image: Acme theatrical agency from Dystopos

Au Pair Advice: New App to Manage Texting While Driving

cv harquail — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:19:48 +0000

Local mom and blogger Kristen Kemp wrote a post so important that I’m borrowing heavily from it to share with you all. It’s all about:

Parental Control Feature to Stop Texting While Driving

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that most host parents are preeetttyyy concerned about safe driving. Talking on a cellphone behind the wheel – or even worse – trying to text and drive at the same, equals a recipe for disaster.

Lots of au pair’s “get it”. They are willing to let the call role to voicemail and leave the phone in their knapsack while they ferry our beloveds to Little Gym. But a text message? All to have to do it read it is take your eyes off the road for 30 seconds. Which is enough time for something awful to occur.

But consider this:

In 2007, AAA and Seventeen Magazine conducted a survey which revealed that nearly 50 percent of teen drivers admitted to texting while driving.

That would be one half. Now, these are American teens; our au pairs are likely more mature.

Kristen goes on to explain:

OTTER (One Touch Text Response) … is a smartphone app that has a GPS system. While a car is in motion, it fields all incoming texts you receive while driving and will automatically reply: “The OTTER user is currently driving”. Once you are ready to reply (it will deactivate approximately six minutes after your car stops moving), all texts that came in will be marked as new and you can safely reply.

You can enable it to remove the distraction for you and you can use the Parental Control Feature to stop your teen from texting while driving. Activated by a password only you know, your teen will not hear texts coming in and cannot text while his car is in motion.

OTTER is currently available for Google’s Android platform (version 1.6 or higher). OTTER for Blackberry and Windows 7 are on the way. Additionally, If you have an iPhone, OTTER plans to be available shortly. The full version (with the Parental Control Feature/GPS) is currently available for a one-time download fee of $3.99, and no recurring charges.

If you supply your au pair with a cell phone, you might consider offering her or him the phone with this app already loaded and activated.

Sure, it means that while s/he is the driver or a passenger in a moving car , your au pair can’t text… but s/he’ll live.

That’s the point.