(First published on 9.11.09.  Republished with original comments.)

Thinking about ‘lessons’ from 9-11 can often be heartbreaking, especially in my community where so many of us lost family, friends and co-workers in the WTC attacks. It’s almost disrespectful to bring up the idea of a “9-11″ plan, but maybe thinking ahead about how we might respond to a similar event is useful and consoling.

Here’s my story about 9-11 plans …

For the first time ever one of my friends was willing to leave her kids with me for an entire day so that she could go into NYC for a ‘Girls Day Out”. That morning, she came over not only with the kids but also with a manila file folder. In the manila file folder was her 9-11 plan.

Her 9-11 plan included emergency phone numbers for her and her partner, their parents, siblings, and close friends’ phone numbers and addresses, the location of the ‘stash of cash’ and emergency supplies in their house, and the address of an extended family member’s home in rural Pennsylvania. This was their emergency ‘meet up’ place where, if separated during a terrorist attack, they would regather after fleeing the NYC area.

My friend’s partner worked in downtown NYC, was there on 9-11, and was unable to reach her by phone or email that day. My friend waited 8 hours to find out that her partner was safe. She knows she was lucky. We know moms who were not as lucky. She didn’t and doesn’t ever want to experience that again, and we pray she never will.

Just in case there is ever a national disaster or tragedy on a serious scale, when she or her partner are away from their kids and unable to protect them, she has their plan all spelled out on two sheets of paper she can give to whoever is in charge while she’s gone.

Until my friend shared her 9-11 plan with me, I thought I was the only mom who had one of these, written down for our au pair, just in case. In an odd way I appreciated discovering that someone else was similarly concerned, and that she had a plan in advance. Just in case.

In the days right after 9-11, I had several phone conversations with the frightened mom of our then-Au Pair, reassuring her that we would take care of her daughter in the event of another attack. Our 9-11 plan includes plans for caring for our au pair. Before we matched with our next au pair, we talked with her about our 9-11 plan, so that she could reassure her parents.

As the years have passed, we have talked about this less, but we still have a plan.

Do you?

Photo by Andy Ciordia on Flickr

We’re 1 month into our first au pair and not sure if it’s going to be ok or not. Just to clarify we’re based outside the US so our au pair has not come to us through an agency, in fact she is American.

We have 3 kids, all under 6 and there is no language barrier as we didn’t want to have to worry about that. I’m a SAHM who needs help because one of our children has special needs and takes a lot of attention. We interviewed via email and skype prior to employing her and thought we were getting a reasonably bubbly, cheerful, outgoing au pair. We didn’t.

Our issues are:

1. Our au pair is not very enthusiastic with the children. She came with great references but I have already had to talk to her about how to engage the children and be more enthusiastic. I set up activities but because she approaches them with such a lack of enthusiasm they never last long. This is especially true with the younger two children who are not bonding well with her.

2. She never talks to us (HF) unless spoken to first, never initiates conversation and we get only limited responses when we try to open up a conversation. As a result talking can be quite painful. She very obviously wants to spend her time off away from the family which is something we can live with but the lack of communication when she is working does as it affects the atmosphere in the house. It’s even basic stuff like she will not communicate to us whether or not she is in or out for dinner unless we ask. I spoke to her about this and she told me she tends to take a backseat in a new situation and just observe until she feels comfortable, trouble is it’s been a month and it’s making us uncomfortable now.

I have spoken to her about both these issues and seen a little improvement with the children, but no improvement on the adult communication issue.   I’m not sure whether to keep ploughing on or whether to cut our losses now. Trouble is, because there is no agency back up, if it doesn’t work out with us she has to go home, though this is a risk she knew she was taking before she joined us.

She is only due to be with us for 5 months but it’s feeling like it could be a long time. Any thoughts on how to improve the situation?

thanks — KP in the UK

Molly: A Dog With A Lot On Her Mind from miscpix

I got an email from “Undercover Host Mom” — she is struggling with this dilemma:

Although we have a strict and absolute non-smoking policy, and discussed this before we matched with our au pair, I have come to wonder whether she is smoking in our car and maybe even in the house. (It’s hard to tell whether the smell is from her clothes or in the room itself.) Before I bring this up with our au pair, I am tempted to snoop around in the AP’s room to check for cigarettes.

But my question isn’t about the smoking part. It is about the snooping part.

This is actually one of those ‘tough topics’, when it is hard for us to talk candidly for fear of getting others upset.  Here’s what I’d like to know:

• Do host moms (or dads) snoop around the AP’s room, ever?

• Just to see what’s there, anything contraband or inappropriate?

• Or do they do snoop only if they have suspicions about something bad?

Or do other host parents simply never, ever, ‘look ‘?

Let’s also take a snapshot, with this poll:
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Parents, you are welcome to respond anonymously to this post. However, please choose a fake name that indicates whether you are a mom or dad (or au pair).

[Au pairs, please do not 'flame' parents who want to discuss this issue candidly.]

Also, let me provide a formal definition of “snooping”:

Snooping is walking in, looking around, and leaving.  Opening drawers, opening closets, opening suitcases, and opening journals is not “snooping”. I’m not sure what to call that, but that’s worse than snooping. Let’s just deal with plain vanilla snooping here…

Peek-A-Boo from Lucy James Photography

When do you start paying your Au Pair? Do you consider her training days to be ‘work’ for you, or do you wait until the Thursday night she arrives in your home before the clock starts?

For our first au pair or two, we just paid them starting when they arrived, because it didn’t occur to me to do anything else. (We did send each of them $40 to orientation so she’d have some souvenir money for the NYC trip and for snacks on the train ride to Virginia.)

Then, I had the idea to pay our next au pair starting with the Monday of orientation– my thought was “hey, she’s working to get trained, so I should pay for that.”

I thought we were being pretty generous since other families didn’t do this, and I thought that this would be appreciated by our new au pair(s). And it was appreciated– until it wasn’t, buy the first au pair arrived with “I’m entitled” stamped on her forehead.

Still, I think that the preferable thing to do is to start her first work week & pay with the Monday of orientation— and feel comfortable having your new au pair be on duty the first Friday and Saturday she is with you. (Remember, most host parents & au pairs agree that the sooner your au pair is on duty with something important to learn and do, the less likely she is to have time to feel super-homesick.)

Assuming that no agency requires you include your au pair’s orientation as time she should get pocket money for, what does your family do?

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

Au Pair Advice: Send a welcome package to your Au Pair’s orientation

Advice: Resist the Amenities Arms Race!

Owl Watch from Hoots4u on Etsy!

No one is more surprised than me to see how much we’ve covered here on AuPairMom!

I can’t believe the number of topics, posts, comments, concerns and wisdom that have appeared here so far– and we’re still going strong!

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what we’ve discussed, so here’s a new feature: This Time Last Year.

At the start of every month, I’ll post a list of the topics we covered only 12 months ago. The comments will stay open, so you can treat these posts as if they were new. Plus, we can keep track of what’s re-igniting conversation by looking at the list of recent comments in the sidebar…. I’ve expanded this to included the maximum number of recent comments (15), which should prevent us from missing anything great that you add!

January 2009

How to improve your Au Pair relationship in just one minute

Advice Wanted: Untruthful and ungrateful — what to do?

Tip: Save those Ice Skates!A Death in Her Family: How can you help?

Help: My Au Pair is Blogging about My Family!

Advice Wanted: Untruthful and ungrateful — what to do?

Tip: Save those Ice Skates!

A Death in Her Family: How can you help?

Help: My Au Pair is Blogging about My Family!

There comes a time in your relationship with your au pair where your ability to influence her behavior vanishes- just vanishes. This usually happens as she is getting ready to leave, either to go back home or to go on to an extension with another family. [When this happens during rematch, it's an entirely different situation-- for another post.]

You lose your influence because you lose a certain power known to economists as “the shadow of the future”. The shadow of the future is the idea that, if you and your partner want to keep your relationship going in the future, you have to behave in an ethical manner in the present. When your au pair relationship is coming to a close, it’s all of a sudden high noon. No more shadow.

For some au pairs, this will never be an issue. Many au pairs cherish their relationship with your family, they have high personal standards and they want to be remembered as terrific, responsible women who will be sorely missed. In the best relationships, your au pair goes out with a bang feeling proud of what she’s accomplished. And, you stand on the front porch with your kids, sobbing and wondering how you’ll get along without her.

But for other au pairs, their incentive to maintain a good relationship with you evaporates. They don’t care so much any more, because they’ve gotten from you what they can, and they are biding their time until they depart.

Now, the problem of lame duck-ness exists for both host parent and au pair… she is also likely to lose her influence on you as you contemplate no longer having to keep her happy, etc. with one huge exception– she retains leverage over you as long as you need her to care for your kid(s).

Some families try to gain a little bit of leverage by beginning to scale back on privileges– reduced use of the car, for example. But you don’t want to get into a battle of withdrawing one privilege only to have her reduce her effort, leading you both racing to the bottom of a tit-for-tat withdrawal strategy. That’s a sure way to end on a sad and sour note. But what else can you do?

1. Talk about the end before you get there. Discuss with your au pair the spirit with which you two should bring “this phase of your relationship” to a close. Be candid about the worst case scenario, and be clear and enthusiastic communicating the best case scenario.

2. Appeal to your au pair’s best nature. Talk about how you want to remember her, how much you enjoy her, how much the kids will miss her. Mention that you love the care she puts into their laundry, and that you wonder whether your next au pair will do the same. If you keep talking about her at her best, this will make it less likely that she’ll feel comfortable scrimping on the effort.

3. Refocus your priorities. Consider that she may begin to ‘work to rule’ and do only what’s required. As long as she cares for the children kindly and continues to follow safety guidelines, consider rolling with that.

4. Consider an end-of-year bonus or event that she can work towards. If you could figure out how to do it in a light-handed way, you might offer your au pair an extra 2 days off (or similar) if she keeps up the good work and gets all of her closing out tasks done.

5. Be the big person. Don’t get cheap on her, don’t get too mean, don’t give up.

[An aside: Several of our au pairs have received end-of-year bonuses from my DH and me. We have given them $200 or $300 extra, on top of their pocket money and after they have settled up their phone bills, as an extra thank you. Each time, this extra gift has been appreciated, and each time we've given it, it's been with no strings attached. But, I've wondered whether I could have used the bonus better- maybe as a 'completion payment' for a last month well done - if we'd had an au pair whose effort really diminished in those last weeks... ]

Recognizing that, as the end is near, you become a lame duck… what other ideas do you have for staying happy?

Happy Duck by law_kevin on Flickr

See Also:

• 3 Reasons Having an Au Pair Has Been Great for My Family
• Settling accounts — *before* she departs
• “Almost-done” Au Pair refuses to work weekends!

On New Year’s Eve, we can expect that our off-duty au pairs may want to be out all night celebrating. And for one night a year (especially, when everyone else seems go be out celebrating) you might not have a problem with your au pair being gone overnight, even if she has to be on-duty the following morning.

But, what about the other 364 nights of the year?

A host mom writes:

I am eager to hear how other host families handle an au pair who stays out overnight. My husband and I have opposing views on the subject.

Host Mom thinks: Out all night is okay

I think that my au pair is an adult ( sometimes ) and can make her own decisions about staying out overnight but needs to be at work the next morning.

I just ask that she send me a text message and let me know where she is and that she will not be home.

Host Dad thinks: Maybe not a good idea

My husband thinks that she is living in our house and not on her own and expects that she sleep here and is not thrilled that she is staying at her boyfriend’s house. He thinks that if she is working the next morning she needs to sleep here.

What are your thoughts?

Let’s assume that you, the host parent, know where your au pair will be and have a way to get ahold of her, in case of some kind of emergency. And, let’s also assume that your au pair is scheduled to be on duty first thing in the morning so that you can work. With those two conditions, let’s take a poll:

We’ve had very sensible au pairs and have never had the situation where a sleepover left us without childcare, but: I think that if I knew who my au pair was probably with (either girl friend or boy friend), and I knew that she was with someone sensible, I’d be okay with it, under one condition– and that would be if she were back at our house an hour before it was time to go on duty. I’d need her to plan to be at our house an hour early so that I would not have to freak out about whether she’d be there in time for us to leave for work. She could use that time for breakfast, changing her clothes, whatever, but I’d need that cushion.

What about you?

Here’s a Thanksgiving activity that you can involve your au pair in, that can keep her engaged, keep family members engaged, and create something special for all of you.

Have your au pair lead the family in the Story Corps’ National Day of Listening. The actual National Day of Listening is the day after Thanksgiving (November 27th), but you might as well do this when everyone is together at Thanksgiving!

Use the guidelines that Story Corps provides, and mix it up to fit you families’ circumstances. They make it so, so, easy, with a Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide and even an instructional video!

The Goal:

• Create mini-videos of family members telling family stories
• Create some gifts for your children, your au pair and your family

You will need:

• A video camera,
  A Mac or PC with an internal camera,
  A digital camera, or
  A digital voice recorder

• A list of questions
• Some willing interviewees
• Some willing Interviewers

Then, take the list of questions, turn on the camera, and start talking with each other.

You can use the list of questions suggested in the Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide, and you can make a list of questions just for your au pair and kids. The Story Corps website actually has a Question List Generator that makes it really easy and comes up with things you might not have th9oguht of. I’ve listed some questions below.

Don’t let the technology get in the way– use what you’ve got, maybe play a little bit, or ask your 11 year old to figure out how to use iLife or iMovie to edit later, but just turn the thing on and go.

This activity will not only create memories for everyone to keep (imagine putting dvds with the stories in people’s stockings, or giving them as New Year’s gifts!), but also you’ll keep a lot of people gainfully employed happily occupied during what can be a boring, tense, or aimless afternoon if you are not the one watching football or the thermometer on the turkey.

For Grandparents, you can ask:

• Where did you grow up?
• What was your childhood like?
• Who were your favorite relatives?
• Do you remember any of the stories they used to tell you?
• How did you and grandma/grandpa meet?
• What was my mom/dad like growing up?
• Do you remember any songs that you used to sing to her/him? Can you sing them now?
• What were your parents like?
• What were your grandparents like?

For Au Pairs you can ask:

• What made you want to be an au pair?
• What was it like when you started interviewing with families?
• What struck you about our family that made you interested?
• How is our family like/not like what you expected?
• What are the craziest things you have learned about Americans?
• How does our family remind you of your family at home?
• What have you learned about yourself so far this year?

With kids you can ask:

• What a re the craziest things you have done with our au pair?
• What are the favorite English words she says in her (x) accent?
• What characteristics of our au pair would you like to have when you grow up?

For extra fun,

Interview your pets. (The kids can make up the answers and pretend to be the dog or cat!) Or,
Interview an inanimate object in your home! (Here we are with Refrigerator. Refrigerator, what crazy things do you know about our family that no on else knows?)

 Keep in mind:

Listening is an act of Love.

Happy memories are gifts we can give each other.

Families all have interesting stories.

Don’t let the schlep factor get in your way… it really isn’t hard, having some tech challenges to surmount can actually bring people together!

Whose story would you like to capture? Whose life would you like to celebrate?

Photo credits:
I love my Flip by Old Shoe Woman on Flickr
Learning how to video by Envision Good
Flip’s first Outingfrom The Advocacy Project

If Skype didn’t exist, if email hadn’t been invented, and if we could only communicate with potential au pairs using short, really expensive long distance phone calls (anyone remember those days?), we wouldn’t have the luxury of long conversations to help us assess a good match. And since we do have that luxury– and so do potential au pairs– we may not focus on the most important questions.

Here’s a question for you:

If a potential au pair wanted to learn more about your family in order to assess YOU for a match, what three questions should she ask?

See if you can hone in on the few things that might distinguish you from other families….

Questions Cost Nothing, but mistakes? … by Simon Lieschke on Flickr

• Male Au Pairs: When would you hire one? (Poll)
• Can this relationship be saved? “Uncomfortable” or something else?

I always wonder about “the rest of the story” when I get a notice that someone has unsubscribed from the email newsletter .. for the reason that “the content is no longer valid”. I usually take that to mean “we don’t have an au pair anymore”. Over the weekend we got this letter from a host mom who has actively contributed to our conversations and shared her wisdom… and now she’s sharing her goodbye. There are a lot of “take-aways” in her letter, which we can discuss in the comments and also in future posts… but rather than me highlighting, summarizing or editing, I turn the floor over to Ex-Au Pair Mom in California

Dear Au Pair Moms (& Dads),

I wanted to write, first as an opportunity to process my own feelings and thoughts, and second to share my experiences as an Au Pair Host Mom. I have to admit that my experience was mixed, but overall a disappointment. And, I’m now “done” being an Au Pair Host Mom.

When we signed up for the program, we were sure that with our interest in cultural exchange and foreign language, warm-heartedness, and need for childcare of our then 18-month and 3.5 year old, we would be ideal candidates for enjoying an au pair situation.

And, in retrospect, I think we are! But the variability of au pairs, three in total we had over the past year-and-a-half, was staggering in all areas.

Our first, a young lady from Panama, had very little formal childcare experience other than taking care of family children, was shy and reserved, but very sweet, motivated, and took an interest in us and the children. She remained shy and reserved in our presence, but we knew from pictures and other sources, that she was quite animated with our children and truly developed a bond with them. We would then spend time discussing them, strategies for improving their behavior, etc. Her reserve didn’t always allow her to communicate as directly as she might have, so there were times when she was moody and even tearful, but I always noticed and explored this with her and we would have helpful talks that always resolved the issue and improved things in general.

After a year, even thought we felt close to her and pleased with her overall, we were both ready to part. She was eager to return home to her family and we were interested in choosing a “different” kind of au pair, someone more sophisticated, knowledgeable about child development, whose language skills were more advanced, and someone who might be less reserved with us.

Enter a Swedish au pair who was very likely on the opposite side of the spectrum. An active “jock”, she had worked part-time in a nursery school, had fabulous language skills, and seemed to have values, about which she was not shy to express, in line with ours. She was so much more outgoing with the children, able and willing to interact with them in our presence, with very strong motivation to work with us to improve certain behaviors, even to the point of keeping a journal about areas on which to work and various approaches. She spent an hour or so many nights “hanging out” with us and we truly developed a relationship with her that was enjoyable and comfortable.

After two months, however, she told me that she “just couldn’t see” herself in our family for a full year. She couldn’t exactly say why, she really valued her relationship with us and had gotten into a routine with the children. She stated something about being accustomed to a bigger room and house, more privacy, and perhaps wanting to be able to be to care for older children with whom she could be more athletic. We were surprised and quite upset, but tried to make the best of it. And, within a week, we had both rematched.

We welcomed a more mature Brazilian au pair into our home who had been placed with a family with an infant when it was clear to the mother that she really had no experience caring for a baby. She was sweet and warm and seemed a perfect balance between our prior au pairs. However, she was unable to prepare food other than in a microwave or toaster oven. Truly, I showed her how to make scrambled eggs on the stovetop at least six times. I started to wonder if she indeed had some sort of learning issue. While her expressive language was quite good, she couldn’t understand even the most basic communications from us and so we relied mostly on written communication. And, there was a quality that we couldn’t explain, but which was noticeable immediately – she seemed to just “miss” things – didn’t notice them, see them, hear them, and therefore was not as responsive to our children as we would have hoped.

Not to mention that she could not understand them. Neither did her language skills improve over the next three months. She spent the majority of her time with a fellow Brazilian speaking Portuguese. And, she didn’t take initiative to do things like prepare for her driver’s license exam or enroll in English language classes prior to the start of our local college courses. She ate all of her meals in her room and never once came to “chat” with us. I sought her out frequently to talk about issues related to the children, and she always greeted me with a big, lovely smile, but she never invited me in her room and these conversations were usually held standing up. Over the four months of her stay with us, we never formed a relationship with her, which was odd to us, as we had intended to make attempts to do so. My husband losing his job three weeks ago forced the issue of our withdrawal from the program, but I have to admit that we were relieved to have an excuse!

Overall, I am left feeling that the programs do not do an adequate job of screening for candidates and allow the candidates to misrepresent their experience and skill level. We lost several thousand of dollars, as our particular au pair company required an up-front deposit of over $7,000. We’ll get a token refund, and will come out even without paying a stipend in about four months. But, in general I feel that the companies do not consider the families’ needs and issues as much as they do the au pair candidates’ needs and issues. And, I feel that au pairs come to the US for so many reasons – they know what to tell you, but really they come for their own reasons and not necessarily to bond with our children or develop their child development skills or experience a relationship with a host family or even improve their language skills.

At one point, I was left thinking – how can this be a good idea, to bring a teenager who doesn’t speak your language to your country to care for your children, drive them around with very limited driving skills akin to the kind needed in this country, feed them without having any knowledge of the kinds of foods they eat or like, and hope that you are all compatible, but it’s hard to judge having never met them before making this very important choice!!

For now, my husband will be home with our boys and I am grateful for this for now. Hopefully, he will return to work shortly and we will be hiring someone we can actually meet prior to inviting them to care for our children and someone with references in this country that we can actually contact successfully.

I truly hope that other people have a better experience with au pair programs than we did. But, I felt compelled to discuss my own experience and as I had used this blog site often over the past year-and-a-half, thought I might share my thoughts here. Thanks for all your help, wisdom, and advice over the past year-and-a-half.

Ex-Au Pair Mom in California

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