There’s nothing like a visit from one former au pair to make you wonder about what’s happened to all the rest.

When our second au pair (from 10 years ago) came to visit us this summer, I expected to find her much the same as she was when she lived with us. I wasn’t disappointed; SD was as lovely, adventurous, and independent now as she was then.

It was so exciting and gratifying to hear — in more detail than holiday cards and facebook updates can offer — what has happened in her life. I could have predicted that she’d travel the world– she studied Japanese when she was with us and left our home for a scholarship in Tokyo.

Since then she’s been all over Europe, to Thailand, Nepal, Burma/Myanmar, Morocco, Dubai, and soon Indonesia. (I told you she was adventurous.) SD has financed her world travel by becoming an ‘air hostess’ for a European airline. (Strangely enough, two of our other au pairs also became air hostesses for a time.)

We also just heard from our 6th au pair, who I hadn’t heard from since she was on South Africa’s American idol.(!!)

LL had mentioned that her dream was to record an album of Christian praise music, and maybe join her uncle’s jazz band on a tour of hotels in SE Asia. Sounds a little “pie in the sky” for this gentle soul.

And where is this Au Pair right now?

Singing in a jazz band at a Hilton Hotel in Hong Kong.

All of these au pairs, as different as they are, have one thing in common:

They all had the courage to leave home and put themselves in a challenging situation in another country, and another family. They have all had a sense of adventure.

And so I wonder:

After their au pair years, where do all these young women and men go?

Where are they now?

Would you share some of your stories of au pairs who’ve gone on to interesting things?

Air Hotesses by LookAtLao on Flickr

Here’s a request for advice– and it is a long one… read through and offer your wisdom!

Hi All,  We are a first time host family of a lovely Au Pair from China. She has been here almost two weeks. She is neat, helpful, and eager; she is willing to learn how to work appliances, etc. HOWEVER…

We seem to be having a few problems; I wonder how common they are, and would appreciate any advice people might have regarding how to fix them:

Our Au Pair Has Poor English

This one I feel is largely my fault; when we interviewed her on Skype, it was easy to blame the conversation lags on the distance/ internet connection. However, it is now apparent that she often seems to understand statements or instructions, but in fact does not. I have tried the simple (but somewhat infantilizing) technique of asking her to repeat instructions back to me – she seems to find this a little rude, which I understand, but if I don’t do it, I have no idea if she understands me or not. She seems to want to appear to understand so much (saying “Yes, yes, OK” even before I’ve finished a question) that she does not ask for clarification.

Her limited English skills also have made it very hard to get to know her. When my husband or I try to have friendly conversations, she seems to get embarrassed or frustrated – when my husband asked what she likes to do on weekends, she told us that she would rather talk to us about it in a month, once her English is better! I feel bad for her, and I don’t know how to help….?

Our Au Pair Has Poor Driving Skills

Actually, poor is an understatement. We only looked at applications from people who stated they knew how to drive. We have had the AP drive with us twice since she arrived. The first time, with me, she was driving through stop signs, into intersections, weaving from lane to lane without signaling or looking (the whole “lane” concept seemed foreign to her), turning left into opposing traffic, etc. I told my husband (who I think didn’t really believe me) how bad it was. So he took her out. She drove right off the road! He also felt that they narrowly avoided two major accidents, one when she glided into an intersection without regard to the light, another when she failed to brake until the last possible minute. There is no way we would let her drive out kids!

The problem is, we picked her specifically because we needed someone to drive our kids to/from school in the morning and evening! That was made clear upfront, and now I feel a little duped… Furthermore, she seems to think that her driving is fine – as my husband said, when she drove off the road, she giggled. I’m sure it was a nervous thing, but I don’t know how to proceed. We signed her up for her driving test, but there is no way she will pass it. Do we pay for private driving lessons? Should the agency cover the cost? And what should we do if we still don’t feel comfortable with her driving even after lessons? Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if she were a novice, “rusty” or timid – it’s the fact that she does not seem to even know to be careful that has me spooked.

Our Au Pair is Struggling to Bond With The Kids

My daughter, who is 5, seems to really not like the AP. She was so excited about the au pair coming, and now says she wants her to leave! She was fine with the AP for the first day or so, but now seems to resent any instruction or even help from the AP.

I know my daughter is VERY strongminded, and is not easy to direct – she is hard even for my formidable mother-in-law to handle. But I cannot change her personality – she doesn’t often respond the first time when told it’s time to leave, put away toys, get your PJs on, etc. If our au pair tries to get her to do anything, my daughter says “No” or simply doesn’t pay attention.

With her limited English, the AP doesn’t seem to have the tools to overcome this problem. If I or my husband is around, we intervene (she knows better than to disobey us) – but we can’t always be around! I’ve explained to my daughter that she cannot be rude or disrespectful, even given her time outs for not listening to the AP, but it doesn’t seem to change things. Even my toddler (2 year old boy) seems to not like the AP – that might get better with time, although I think he picks up on what his big sister thinks, and it starting to behave in kind. I’m worried about the direction their relationship is going, but I feel powerless to redirect things. HELP!!!

What we’ve done so far

I’ve talked with the cluster rep, who seems to think this is all pretty typical, and will work itself out (except the driving, which will need attention). The problem is my husband goes back to full time in one month, and at that point, we NEED someone who can drive our kids to school / daycare. Hiring another person to do that is an option, or course, but that seems to defeat a main reason why we got an au pair.

Am I being unrealistic?

Is it too soon to expect things to be settling in?

Am I doing something wrong that is preventing things from working?

I feel really bad even writing this – I can tell the au pair is a good person, and it must be so difficult to be out of one’s country for the first time, in a foreign land with unfamiliar customs, barely understanding the language and expected to help with a stranger’s rowdy children – but I am starting to question whether it is fixable or not….    Overwhelmed First-Timers

Dear Overwhelmed First-Timers

I just read your email aloud to my DH (we’re in the car) and he had one word for you — rematch.

I agree.

Of course, I’ll put this up on AuPairMom on Monday and we can get everyone’s suggestions, BUT

Driving is key. You can teach someone how to operate a car but you can’t teach them to have a serious, safe, skillful appreciation of the responsibility for driving someone else’s child.

Bad driving is a deal breaker. You don’t have time to teach her to drive— it would take many hours and much money, with no guarantees that it would be fixed in time.

As for the other two issues:

The language/instruction issue most of us would recommend you to keep working on.

The challenges of bonding with your children and learning how to interact with them would also be something that most of us would suggest is ‘fixable’ and worth working on.

But all three of these issues? That’s just too much for one host family to handle.

Go back to your LCC and put pressure on her to start rematch. The agency might balk, recommend driving lessons , etc. Have the LCC drive in car w/ AP to show her how bad it is. Demand a competent safe driver.

That’s my .02. Will put this up and see what others say. But get ready to rematch.

Also remember that there are great candidates out there — and you can and will find one.There is a better candidate for you out there.

You need to have a stronger foundation at the start that what you have so far.

cv, aka AuPairMom

Readers? Do you agree? What other advice do you have?

Images: Chinese car w’ chinese gal from Faye Yu
Chinese Shopping Mall from Ivan Walsh

Our previous two posts,

Providing Your Au Pair With Safe, Affordable, Convenient Transportation , and
Don’t Abuse A Cluster Taxi

have been set-ups for this next question, from SanJoseMom.

SanJoseMom is a first-time host parent and trying to organize her expectations and establish a foundation for a successful au pair year.

Hi AuPairMom -

I live in CA, and We will be getting our new au pair in Mid September. She is from Scandinavia, and is 19 years old.

I live in a suburb, so there is public transportation but its not very good. Near our house there is only a bus line, and BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit which takes on to SF, is about a 20 minute drive from my house one way, there is a light rail near a mall which is about 10 minutes away by car.

I am wondering what do families do when they don’t let their au pair drive their cars.

Our 2 cars are brand new and very expensive cars, and not something that we would like an au pair to crash by accident, so we are hesitant to let her use either of our cars. Since its our first au pair, we don’t really want to invest the money buying a used car or to spend over $1000.00 per year to insure the au pair on the used car.

I am a stay at home mom, so we are only living on one income, so I don’t have a huge budget to cover a car expense for an au pair.

That said, how do other families handle when an au pair doesn’t have a car, if you don’t live near good public transportation?

Do you give the au pair a bike, and have they ride the bike to the nearest bus stop? Do I need to put my baby and my toddler in the car, and give her a ride to her class whenever she needs to go somewhere?

Please let me know if you guys have any ideas for me here? In a nutshell my questions, is how do you
1) keep an au pair who has a license and knows how to drive happy, without giving her a car,
2) how do you handle her getting to where she needs to go?
3) if there are very slow buses near our house and not much else, how does the au pair get to class?
4) meet up with her friends,
5) go to her au pair monthly meetings, etc.

Thanks in advance for any tips that you have. SanJoseMom

SanJoseMom,

I’m sure that there is lots of advice for you in the previous two posts. Readers will give you some specific suggestions, too, as they comment below.

And, there is one ‘big picture’ suggestion that I also want to offer you:

Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective au pair.

Imagine yourself being 19 years old, and on a year-long work/play adventure in California. What would you need to be happy? What presents an appropriate level of challenge and what might be too much for you to bear?

Your ability to put yourself in the shoes of your incoming au pair, and empathize with how the experience might feel for her, will be critical in determining how well your relationship will unfold.

Okay readers– Ready for your ideas!

Within an au pair cluster, there are always some host families with relaxed car guidelines and even some families that don’t care at all what gets done with their au pair’s car. And, there are always some au pairs with significant constraints– their driving is bad, their host parents have only one car — and these au pairs need help getting one place or another.

Unfortunately however, these situations combine to create what’s called the Cluster Taxi– the one au pair car that ends up doing all the mileage for a group of au pairs.

And, the Cluster Taxi ends up creating a Cluster Cabdriver– the au pair that ends up with the responsibility and also usually the costs of driving everyone else around.

Don’t allow your au pair car to become the Cluster Taxi.

Don’t allow your au pair to become the Cluster Cabdriver.

If you provide your au pair with a dedicated car (or the frequent use of a family car), help set some guidelines for when s/he can and can’t use that car for driving other au pairs around. Even though curfews, mileage limits and the like will put some constraints on car use, talk about the Cluster Taxi Problem directly. Help your au pair suggest to her or his friends that they all take turns driving and providing the car for their shared outings.

Don’t expect another au pair or another family to provide transportation for your au pair.

Au pairs can and should share rides, to make things efficient and fun. But no au pair or host family should provide transportation when you are unwilling to provide for your au pair yourself.

I admit that, as the host parent who provides her au pairs with a dedicated ‘au pair’ car, I’ve often resented being taken advantage of by host families (and au pairs) who did not and would not provide safe, reasonable and convenient  transportation themselves. I’m all for the idea of ride sharing, and car pooling, but I’ve resented it when it’s always been our car. I don’t want my generosity, or my au pair’s generosity, taken advantage of.

And, I’ve especially resented it when it’s become our au pair’s extra burden to pick up and drop off 3 or 4 other au pairs when they go out, adding extra work for her. At one point, one au pair “friend” asked my au pair to drive her and her boyfriend to the movies, and my au pair was so sweet and kindhearted she felt she couldn’t say no.  So I did– I told the au pair “friend” that our au pair would no longer provide her with rides.

Sometimes the host parents do have to intervene to help the au pairs save face.

As iMom writes:

I have also been frustrated by other host families not being considerate of the needs of their AP to get around, which ended up being inconsiderate to my AP and to me because my AP had to drive her around.

Case in point, one family would not set their AP up with direct deposit of her paychecks and yet did not provide transportation to the bank for her to deposit her checks!

I really don’t know what they could have expected except that someone else would have to drive her. MY AP usually ended up driving her to the bank every Friday. Perhaps I should have said something, but I never did. My AP didn’t mind much because they usually spent time together Friday evenings anyway, but it was still a hassle and very inconsiderate!

What have your experiences been with the Cluster Taxi?

Have you come up with any ways to avoid abuse, while creating a nice situation of ride sharing?

Image: Three Amigos from timsamoff

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

Hosting an au pair offers a chance like no other to learn about other cultures and build enduring intercultural relationships. However, is certainly isn’t always easy. In some ways it’s like a marriage – all parties have to be committed to success in order to make it work. Here are a few tips to help you solve some of the cultural mysteries, bridge the gaps, and most importantly, learn as much as possible.

1. Realize that cultural programming is unconscious.

Most of the time, you aren’t consciously aware of how culture influences the way you think, behave, and interpret the world. Just like a computer, you respond to things according to your cultural programming. The people who are most successful with other cultures work hard to bring their unconscious programming to the surface. They observe their own behavior and reflect on why they act or feel the way they do. Once you are more aware of your own programming, you can start to put yourself into the cultural shoes of others.

2. Be a cultural detective.

Observe the people you interact with who are from other cultures. Try to describe as objectively as possible what you see. Avoid descriptions that make a judgment about what you see. For example, instead of saying that the person you just met was disrespectful, you should simply observe that the person didn’t say thank you when you offered him something to eat. The first sentence assumes the correct way to show respect, while the second simply describes the behavior. Separating yourself from your cultural assumptions will free your mind to explore other cultural points of view.

3. Being culturally sensitive doesn’t mean you have to like everything.

When interacting with a new culture, you will find some things are very easy for you to adapt to, and others that you just can’t accept no matter how hard you try. Try to find a compromise with the things you can’t agree with so that you can still function in the society while not violating your own deeply held beliefs.

4. Remember that culture shock can be a good thing.

It’s not easy to feel confused and disoriented all the time. Recognize that this is normal process, and that it will eventually lead to better understanding of the new culture. Use your cultural detective skills to discover the logic behind the annoying, frustrating or confusing behavior of the people around you. Take time to retreat and recharge, but keep in mind that each encounter with the new culture is an opportunity to learn.

5. Keep your sense of humor.

They say that laughter is the best medicine, and the ability to laugh at yourself will help you keep things in perspective. Even the most experienced intercultural professional can tell stories of embarrassing mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and look for the humor in them.

Guest Blogger Shana Medah is the co-founder and Director of Training at Jamana Intercultural. She has over 20 years experience in crossing cultures, and has worked with people from over 50 different countries. Shana can be reached at smedah@jamanaintercultural.com

Dear AuPairMom,

We are going into rematch with an au pair who has been with us for four weeks. Our rematch is fairly amicable; it’s all due to her inexperience behind the wheel and us needing better driving skills.   We like this young woman and wish her all the best with finding a new family.

My questions for readers are about how to mark her departure:

• Do we need to throw a farewell party or dinner?
• Do we have cake bidding her the best of luck?
• Should we give her a parting gift?

And here’s the trickiest question:

• Do we give her back the things she gave to us when she first arrived?

I am confused and would love to know how other HF have handled these scenarios.

Thanks in advance for your ideas,

MinneMom

See Also:
Goodbye Gifts for Your Au Pair
Image: Departure delayed from larskflem on Flickr

The world of au pairing makes some pretty big promises.

Au Pairs are promised a year of hard work and adventure, the chance to live in the USofA, and the opportunity to learn first hand about American culture. Families are promised an energetic adventurous young adult who will partly assimilate into their families and partly celebrate their own unique cultures. It’s supposed to be a mash-up of people, caregiving, hosting, sharing, working, and learning.

Cultural Exchange in the Au Pair-Host Parent Relationship

But, when I think about the role of the cultural exchange in the au pair world, I wonder if we are doing enough to take advantage of our opportunities to become more culturally sensitive and more multicultural ourselves.

Host families usually know only what happens in their own families. Short of the annual host family gathering that some agencies’ reps hold for their clusters, we don’t see or talk much to other host families. So we don’t have many chances to share cultural challenges and cultural learnings.

When we do talk explicitly about what’s being exchanged that’s cultural, we tend to focus on holiday celebrations, regional foods, and — if we make an effort — some conversations about politics back home or child-rearing beliefs. And, we seem to agree that the cultural exchange element is a part of the au pair experience that is important to us, even when we can’t identify what specifically ‘cultural ‘ things we’re learning.

When is it “culture”?

When something comes up within the host family-au pair relationship, it’s often hard to know when there is a cultural issue at play and/ or when some cultural learning can take place. As I discussed in the post about sunbathing norms, and only partly in jest, it’s hard to know whether the ‘differences’ we experience are due to personality, age, our role in the family, or our culture of origin.

There is a lot of untapped opportunity for learning more about the content of our own culture(s) and our au pairs’ cultures — such as which values are most prominent, and which practices are culturally-defining.

And, there is a lot of untapped opportunity for learning about cross-cultural practice and process, including

• how to recognize the cultural element of an issue,

• how to talk across cultures, how to hold on to what you believe without suggesting that someone else’s beliefs are wrong (or weird) and

• how to become a person who is fluent in a world full of people from all sorts of value systems and cultures.

I have often wished that there were more chances for my family, my DH, my kids, and our au pairs to develop our cultural knowledge– both the content and the practices/processes of multiculturalism. At times I’ve fallen back on the frameworks, exercises, and recommendations from organizational diversity trainings (the kind that I ran, myself, as a diversity consultant so many years ago!). But, I’ve wished there were more that we could do that was au pair specific.

An Opportunity for Intercultural Learning

And, looks like my wish is coming true. There may soon be an opportunity for host families and au pairs to participate in dedicated, au-pair-world- specific intercultural learning.

A few weeks ago I connected with Shana Medah of Jamana Intercultural, a new company devoted to intercultural learning. Shana was a Peace Corps member and an au pair agency counselor a regional customer service manager for an au pair agency, and has spent many years working within other cultures and facilitating cross-cultural learning for others. Shana and her DH, Eric, are creating a business that offers cross-cultural training through webinars (and ultimately other formats), and their first set of learning programs will focus on issues important to host families and au pairs.

Shana’s company website, and their webinars, are still in the beta stage, and thus not quite ready to try. But, as soon as they get their website up, I’ll get a chance to take their introductory webinar– and give you my report on it. I am hoping to be able to recommend it to other host parents as a way to ramp up their cultural exchange experiences.

I can already tell you that I’m impressed by their company; I perceive that their company’s values and mission are quite in tune with the values that we share here in our AuPairMom conversations. From both their printed materials and their interaction with me online and over the phone, Shana and Eric feel like people I want to get to know, and people I want to learn from.

I’ve asked Shana if she would start contributing to our conversations here on AuPairMom– partly so that we can get to know her, but mostly (selfishly) so that we can ramp up the cultural element of our host family experience.

So, look forward to seeing Shana in the comments, and in a few guest  posts.

Please let me know via email if there are some particular cultural issues you’d like us to talk about here, and I’ll serve them up!

See Also:

Is it Cultural, Generational, or just Me?
What counts as “cultural exchange”?
A Different Perspective on Cultural Exchange
Cultural Exchange and Having an Au Pair
Images: Henna from dava marie, henna hand for amanda’s weddingfrom HennaLounge

When I notice au pairs doing things differently from the way(s) that I’d do them, it’s often unclear to me here the difference comes from. Where the difference comes from matters to me, because it guides the way that I respond to the difference.

If I think it’s a question of knowledge or experience, I’ll go ahead and explain my way of doing something and the reasons behind it.

If I think it’s a question of personality or generational differences, and the difference isn’t really important, I just let it slide.

But when the difference is cultural, I often struggle with how to respond. Is it a difference that influences my au pair’s comfort? Or my comfort? Is it a learning opportunity? Or should I just let it slide?

Let me give you an example.

Today is one of the most beautiful, sunny days of the summer. Au Pair CB decided to spend some off-duty time ‘catching some rays’ by sunbathing in our yard.

Our front yard.

The front yard that everyone sees as they walk to the park down the street. The front yard that Doug the mailman has to cross from our front porch to our neighbors. The front yard — you know, the part right in front of our house.

And did I mention that Au Pair CB is model-gorgeous, and wearing a two piece bathing suit?

Why did her sunbathing location surprise me? Is it a cultural, generational or personal difference in sunbathing norms?

Had it been me in my twenties, I’d be sunbathing in the side yard or on the back patio, shielded by our big hemlock hedge from passersby. (Me in my forties? I’m not much of a sunbather.) Had it been me being American? Again, I’d be in the backyard, maybe with music coming out the kitchen window.

But I’d never just toss my beach towel on the grass in front of the house.

I can’t quite pinpoint where the difference comes from:

Scandinavia vs. US? 20s vs. 40s?  Athlete vs. soccer mom?

Who knows?

Here’s a request for advice from Sophia, a soon-to-be-au pair:

Hi everyone!!

I’ve been writing and reading this blog for a while, and I’m more than happy to say that I have finally taken the step and I’m formally applying with AuPairCare.

I’m now filling my application, and I’ve found trouble with some point, the thing is I’m actually studying psychologies at a distance university, and I plan to continue my studies while I’m Au Pairing in the U.S, my university has an office in NYC, I don’t have to attend classes, just go there two weeks a year to take my exams, I know it wont interfere with my job, because I’m now working and taking different courses while studying on the week ends, and nor my job nor my grades are affected.

The two problems I see with this are:

1. Will HF find a problem with me being a formal student? I know the amount of time I need to dedicate to my degree, and I know for sure it won’t make a difference, but, how do I make this clear?

2. It is easier for me to live in NYC or close to it, because I have to take my exams at their office there, I don’t want to sound like a princess or a spoiled girl that wants to live in NYC because it is a big, famous city, it is just where my college is, how do I bring this up without sounding like I’m making up an excuse?

I’m really looking foward to being an Au Pair at the States, but my degree is also important to me, I wouldn’t like to take a sabatic year, and as I’ve said I’m 100% positive it won’t be a distraction.

I want to be honest, so this is something I want to appear on my application, I don’t feel like bringing it up on a former interview is appropriate, I want families to know I’m clear about it.

What is your advice about this problem? I’m confident enough to know I’d be a wonderful Au Pair (I’ve already been one in UK, and have worked with kids in the U.S.A before, I’ve just arrived from a YMCA Camp in Pennsylvania).

Thank You very much. Sofia, Spain

Hi Sophia-

It’s funny that you should bring this up, because we just had a visit from our AP#2, SD, who was enrolled in two courses in her French university while she was an au pair with us. One of my fondest memories of her time with us was me always having to tell her to move her Economics books off the dining room table herself, because they were too heavy for me to lift!

SD took both Economics and Japanese, for two semesters, and then traveled to NYC to sit for her exams. Although she didn’t tell us during the matching process that she was taking classes, it didn’t bother me. Initially, I really misunderstood how serious her courses were … I thought at first she was doing them for fun and not for credit. But SD studied regularly every day… sometimes when the baby was sleeping, and usually for 1-2 hours each day when she was off-duty. Because SD was so dedicated, and so organized, we never ever experienced a conflict.

One thing I would suggest is that you take less than a full load of classes (SD’s two courses per semester were a half-time load). I honestly don’t think that anyone can work 45 hours a week and take a full schedule of classes and still sleep enough– much less enjoy her au pair year.

Host families will be concerned whether your expectations of yourself are realistic– so think of ways you can demonstrate that you are competent as a student (e.g., mention your grades, talk about your study skills). Host families will also be concerned about what comes first – your au pair year or your studies.

Just like if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend back home, another job/school commitment can cut into your dedication to do a good job as an au pair. Again, you can talk about how you’d put the kids first, and how you’d prevent your schoolwork from interfering with your au pairing… (for example, if you have good study skills you won’t be up all night finishing an assignment and getting too tired to au pair well the next day.)

Those are my thoughts– parents and au pairs, what do you advise?

Image: Day 33- I need to study! from rachel_titiriga on Flickr