From the category archives:

Guidelines & rules

Help Your Au Pair Evaluate Potential Playdates

by cv harquail April 8, 2010

I firmly believe that working on your au pair relationship makes you a better parent, directly and indirectly. Any time you have to stop and reflect on your parenting principles and your priorities for your kid(s), you have the opportunity to become more mindful about what you’re up to with your family.
Here’s one of those [...]

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Au Pair Management Tip: Schedule Transition Time

by cv harquail March 29, 2010

Here is a tip for both host parent and au pairs alike:
Schedule transition time, with explicit overlap between when the au pair and the parent (or other caregiver) switch who’s ‘on duty’.
Back when I worked as a manufacturing manager I always had to be there for “shift overlap”, when the outgoing shift would brief the [...]

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Au Pair Advice: Getting enough sleep & being noisy late at night

by cv harquail March 14, 2010

If there is anything about having an au pair — or anyone, really — in the bedroom on the third floor that bothers my DH, it’s noise after 10:30 pm. He is a fussy sleeper, and it drives him nuts to be able to hear a tv, or a phone conversation, while he’s trying to [...]

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Awkward: It’s not a walk of shame if we know you are safe

by cv harquail March 8, 2010

So let’s jump on in to another awkward topic — If your au pair is having fun, safe overnights, and she just wants to make sure you’re not worried, how should she tell you? Should she even tell you?

I don’t actually want to know if my au pair is having fun. I do want to [...]

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6 Reasons why your Au Pair should NOT work a second job

by cv harquail March 6, 2010

We’ve talked recently about the issues related to having an au pair work extra hours for the host family, and we’ve also talked about whether you should let your au pair babysit for your friends. But we haven”t talked about whether you should permit your au pair to work at another job.
“Why haven’t we talked [...]

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Do Au Pairs have to pay income tax?

by cv harquail February 22, 2010

I have absolutely no idea whether Au Pairs have to pay US income taxes. I always thought that one of the benefits of using an Au Pair Agency was that the agency somehow dealt with that? Or maybe they don’t make enough money really to have anything to pay? I honestly don’t know.
But someone [...]

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Tim Gunn’s advice on breaking the rules

by cv harquail February 21, 2010

If you ask Tim Gunn for advice about breaking the rules, he’ll tell you two things:

1. Make it work, and
2. Use the Bluefly accessories wall thoughtfully.
Both pieces of Tim Gunn’s advice to fashionistas apply to au pairs & host families.
In general, I am black handbag = black shoes kind of person. But there are times [...]

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Best Practices for asking your Au Pair to work Overtime

by cv harquail February 19, 2010

Based on the overwhelming response to the post from NJ Dad wanting to know more about common practices when folks ask their au pairs to work overtime, I thought it would be a good idea to summarize the key findings.
Just to be clear– nobody is recommending that you expect your AP to work over 45 [...]

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Extra Hours: What’s fair pay when you break this taboo?

by cv harquail February 13, 2010

Many parents find that 45 hours a week is not enough childcare.
Either you have an emergency late night at work, a kid home sick, a snow day, or a bookclub meeting. Some parents have work + commute combos that mean they’re away from home 10 hours a day, m-f, even if they stagger their departures [...]

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Moms & Au Pairs: Can I hold us to different tv rules?

by cv harquail February 4, 2010

I’m a believer that different members of a family have different privileges and responsibilities, depending on their roles and their ages. Parents have more privileges than do children, and employers have more privileges than do employees. The rules that we follow can be different, as long as they are fair.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, uses [...]

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