Sometimes no matter how many different sources we check, we don’t get enough information to make international travel with our au pairs go without a hitch.

JamaicaMom sent this story, and wonders if there was some stone she left unturned, some box she failed to check, some egg that failed to hatch, some colloqualisim that translated imperfectly, that held the whole family in Jamaica until their au pair could clear Customs and come home together.

We recently returned from a trip to the Caribbean and were traveling with our au pair, who is from eastern Europe. We did everything our agency told us to do, and followed all the advice I read on this blog about traveling with an au pair:

1. She had a current passport that was not expiring anytime soon
2. We got her a visa for the country we were visiting
3. We contacted the airline and told them we were traveling with our au pair and asked if there was any special documentation she needed to travel with in order to re-enter the U.S.

Our trip was to the Bahamas, which is one of about five countries in the world where you go through U.S. immigration/customs at their airport when you are returning home. Typically, you go through customs when you arrive on U.S. soil.

When it was our turn to be interviewed by the U.S. customs officer he asked us to produce her ORIGINAL “certificate of eligibility for exchange visitor (J-1) status”. This is a white piece of paper that this issued by the U.S. department of state. We DID NOT have the original, or even a copy.

While we were allowed to pass through customs and return home our au pair was detained. We decided to stay with her and work to resolve the issue so she could return to the U.S. This was very scary for us and for our au pair.

I just wanted to inform everyone traveling with their au pairs out of the country that in order to gain entry back into the U.S. you must travel with this paper and it must be the original. Just in case – like us – you didn’t know that.

Cheers, JamaicaMom

See also: Tip: Insist on the Second-To-Last bus
How risky is it to travel when her J-1 Visa is soon to expire?
It’s YOUR vacation, not hers. Okay?

lovely baby photo by mamaloco on Flickr

Smart Risks vs. Risky Risks

Everything is risky, including traveling with your au pair outside of the US while she is on a J-1 visa. We know from previous conversations that even though a visa may still be valid, a customs person could deny your au pair re-entry into the USA.

But how real is this risk? Host Mom Eden would love to know if anyone has experience with this issue.

Also, though, there is a subtext here– that since the host family knew before matching that they’d be traveling to Canada during the au pair’s year, and since the host family made this clear to the agency, the agency should have counseled the host family in advance to time their au pair year so that she’d be well within her visa dates when they travelled. Sadly, I think that we’ve all learned over the years that few agencies really pay attention to this kind of host family detail. They pay attention to all the basic requirements, but as for the rest we’re on our own.

Not only is the family left to figure this out themselves, but the agency has basically washed their hands of responsibility — and made unhelpful recommendations to.

However, maybe those of you with more experience might be able to help Eden gauge her risks more precisely– and consider options.

(Note, extending their au pair for another 6 months or more won’t help this situation, since the extension from the agency does not get her additional, formal time on her J-1 visa.)

We live in San Francisco & have a trip planned for mid-late Aug to Vancouver Canada. We had been clear w/ our au pair agency (Cultural Care Au Pair) that we travel to Canada every summer time & that travel was a top priority for our au pair.

We checked & made sure our au pair’s J-1 visa didn’t expire before the travel dates since I understand their visa’s do not always map to the 12-month program dates. In our case her J-1 visas expires a few days after our return date from Vancouver, so its close but a valid visa for a few dates post re-entry date. Her J-1 visa has an “M” on it indicating unlimited multiple entries.

We also checked government websites to see if there was some reason that the last month of a J-1 visa was not really valid but basically it’s pretty clear that the visa is valid so long as it’s not expired. There is always risk w/ traveling, even on a new visa, but there didn’t appear to be any information that au pair’s are declined re-entry to the US if their visa is valid but only a week or a month from expiry.

Now our local coordinator is saying that Cultural Care Au Pair’s policy is to discourage any travel outside the US during the au pair’s last 2 months. Our coordinator told our au pair this & also told me that we should not count on our au pair going. I asked if this was a policy or a suggestion & she refused to answer stating ”all I can say is that we do not recommend it & we have told your au pair that there is risk.” The damage may already be done as the LCC has convinced our au pair that any travel in the last 1-2 months of her visa could (w/ high probability) result in our au pair being declined re-entry into the US.

Our agency’s suggestion is we simply let our au pair go 30-days early & get a new au pair a few weeks before we travel. Clearly not a solution.

We are trying to gather any information on other people’s experiences.

·     Is there any reason to believe that re-entry is often denied if a J-1 visa is only 1-2 months or 1-2 weeks from expiry?
·         Or is the risk the same – that at any given time a customs person can choose to deny re-entry even w/ a valid J-1 visa & passport?
·         Are the risks lower in that we are just travelling to Canada for 10 days & our au pair comes from Sweden?
·         Is the au pair agency just being super risk-adverse?

Thank you for any & all help!

Be sure to read: Au Pair Extensions: How do they work if her visa isn’t extended?

Image: Vancouver skyline by mag3737

A regular reader sent me a long email about traveling with her Au Pair over the Christmas holiday. This reader is one of those very experienced, very thoughtful host moms who takes pains to see all sides of a situation, before doing her very best to be clear, constructive, and kind when she interacts with her au pairs (and for that matter, when she shares her advice in comments).

As with many (most?) real life situations, there are layers and layers of dynamics. Underneath all of the specifics of the situation lies this problem: her au pair does not seem to understand that the plans that she makes need to incorporate the plans of her host family.

This story is a good example of how, as we start to talk with each other about the ‘presenting problem’, we can begin to see what’s going on at a deeper level. You might recognize yourself (I certainly do) as this mom explains, interprets, understands, and tries to stay fair in a situation that’s becoming a drag on her own generosity.

The whole email, and full situation, is below. As you read through, think about how the general, fundamental issue might be addressed as well as how the particulars of this unique situation might be addressed. Here’s the situation:

Dear Au Pair Mom –

This year, we have an issue that has never presented itself in the 11 years that we have been host parents.

We will be traveling at Christmas to my parents’ home. My parents live in an interesting place that many au pairs want to visit. My parents are very generous people, and have always been willing to include our AP as well as one of their friends in our plans. It all seems to come down to a problem of communication.

Our AP, whose English is reasonably good, appears endlessly surprised at the various differences in culture between her European country and the U.S. even after 5 months in the U.S. My AP does what is asked of her and is generally a good AP, but she isn’t used to communicating and seems embarrassed about letting us know what her plans are. We are probably a little more intrusive than her own parents, but we aren’t especially nosey – we just want to know if she’s in the house or not when she’s off duty.

I told her that we would be traveling to this desirable location for Christmas and offered, if she were willing to share a double bed with a friend, that she could invite one to celebrate with us. I made sure our AP had all of our flight information. Her friend wanted to celebrate Christmas Day with her HF first, and then to travel to the desirable location.The bottom line has always been that the friend has to pay her own way and that we would not book the flight.

Last night our Au Pair told me, “X will be arriving at 5:30 on December 25.” My reaction was to raise my eyebrows in a way that probably made it clear I was displeased. My AP celebrates Christmas on December 24 in her country, and although she was aware that December 25 was the holiday here, I don’t think she had given it a thought until exactly that moment. My parents don’t live close to the airport — it’s a 45-minute drive from their house to the airport. Add in time for parking and the walk through the airport to the baggage carousel, a 5:30 arrival on Christmas Day completely interrupts dinner plans — either we eat early and have a light supper after X arrives, or we hold back on the main dinner until X arrives, by which time my kids will be exhausted.

My father will trust either DH or me with his car, but if only one of us were to drive to and from the airport, that still means the other is in charge of feeding the little ones, helping my parents prepare the dinner, and lay the table. Not to mention, celebrate being together.

I told my AP to see if X could adjust her plans and arrive on the 26th. It turns out that X’s HF selected the time of her flight because it suited their plans best (they don’t know us from Adam, so it would never have occurred to them to ask X if the timing worked for us).

What is done now is done. Our AP is now perfectly aware that we are jumping through hoops to adjust to her guest’s schedule.

And it gets more annoying: Although she never asked about what we might do as a family to see the sights in my parents’ area, suddenly she is interested.

My question is twofold, and it’s hard to believe that I’m asking it when I’m living with AP #9 (in 11 years).

1.  How far does one need to go in conveying how Americans (or at least my family) celebrates a particular holiday in order to clue APs in toward marking their plans?

It never occurred to my AP, or X that we didn’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve until I made a face last night (and then my AP had an “Aha!” moment, and said, “Oh, right, you celebrate Christmas on the 25th. Everything is different here.”) It was amazing to me, but she also didn’t seem to know that the desirable location was in another time zone (despite being a 5-hour flight).

2. How does one clue an AP in to paying attention to family details when making personal plans?

You want a lift to the airport? Don’t book a flight that conflicts with the when the kids need to get on the schoolbus in the morning unless you want to pay for your own shuttle! You want us to pick you up at the airport? Then don’t book your flight to arrive a dinnertime! You want to do something on your own with your friend? Do the research to figure out if it is possible! It all comes down to one issue for me – ask questions! Be curious

Is it necessary to lay how one celebrates holidays on the line months before they occur? We haven’t even gotten through Thanksgiving or Chanukah yet…

(AuPairMom sent a follow-up email for more details…)

DH agrees with you AuPairMom. We’ve asked the Au Pair friend make her own way to my parents’ house because she’s coming on Xmas Day.

When our AP said something about visiting a particular sight, I told her “You are welcome to join us in any family activities, here are some things we always do when we visit. DH and I are not renting a car and you will not be permitted to drive while you are. Here is the bus schedule.” I also gave her the option of using some vacation days while we were there, because I know her friend will be using vacation days.

Yes, I agree with you AuPairMom, the trip is about spending time with my parents, and we should make sure that the family has the vacation we need to have. But, I also feel like this is an important time for our AP, showing our AP how we celebrate the holidays, while listening to her explain the differences (my mother is super curious and will be grilling our AP), but also about showing her a very different part of our country.

But these are the issues we continue to struggle with:

1. Explaining the differences enough to the AP so that they understand how their plans have an impact on the family and
   
2. Having their expectations for their own activities be sensitive to the actual holiday celebrations, so they are thoughtful about all of the activities they book when they want transportation assistance.

Looking forward to thoughts from the community. …. HolidayHostMom

See also:

Here’s a tough situation that could use your advice! This host parent is facing what feels like a win/lose situation in a conflict between what the family wants and what the au pair wants.

Check out the details, weigh in at the poll, and then offer some advice!

Dear AuPairMom Readers– I was so glad to find this blog and LOVE the info and advice it provides to host families. I know the topic of vacations has been discussed in the past, I have a more particular have a situation that I would love to get input on, specifically related to whether we can/should ‘require’ our AP to come on vacation with us:

We are planning to take a week long vacation for a family wedding on the east coast in a few months. Our entire family lives there, so we generally travel there once a year.

We have taken our APs in the past and it has worked out really well all around. We have a two and six year old, so the benefit of an extra adult on the long plane ride is super helpful and having a sitter for a few nights and for family events is great.

We also make sure our AP has a reasonable amount of free time to explore the area, visit NYC, etc. We stay with our in-laws, but she has her own room and we do our best to help make her comfortable and assist her with sightseeing plans.

Here’s our current issue:

My brother’s wedding is the EXACT SAME NIGHT as our au pair’s 21st birthday.

Our Au Pair has politely told me that she would greatly prefer to spend her 21st celebrating with her friends in Vegas (which she has already visited twice).

She has been with us for six months and is wonderful with the children, although we’ve had some issues with being part of the family, car usage — just overall personal maturity stuff.

I certainly don’t want to ‘force’ her to go and worry whether she’s miserable during her trip with us. But, at the same time it would be very helpful for us to have her there.

Also, I feel frustrated that she is being shortsighted by not seeing this as a great opportunity for her to experience other parts of the country that otherwise might be too expensive for her to travel to on her own.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Just a quick poll for your immediate reaction (you can choose more than one answer):

READERS:  (Sunday am) The Original Poster (OP), Melissa, has offered some additional information about the situation to address some of the assumptions and questions raised in the (already) 50+ comments. I’m putting this info right here in the original post, so that you don’t have to scan the whole comment thread to consider her information before sharing your advice. Also, the bolding and underlining are from me, to help you find the various elements. Here it is:

I’m the OP and thought it might be helpful to provide some additional details to our situation. First, thanks so much to everyone who took the time to respond – I really appreciate your input and suggestions and have some really good points to consider!

Regarding whether we ‘need’ our AP on the trip – this has been a tough one for me to determine because the only time I feel like I absolutely ‘need’ my AP is when I am working and I need someone to watch my kids in my absence. So, based on that, no, I don’t absolutely NEED her to be there. However, I work PT from home, so in addition to needing her while I’m working (which is about 25 hrs/week), a signficant part of our family’s purpose for having an AP is to be there during other times (help with homework while I’m making dinner, stay with my napping 2 yr old while I’m out with my other daughter, travel with us, etc), which we make very clear during the application process. We don’t have any family around, so this is a HUGE help for us and the reason that we choose an AP, and that ‘helping’ piece is a significant part of her job for us.

Finding another babysitter is an idea we have considered, and may wind up doing. However, our entire family will be at the wedding, so we would have to find someone other than a relative or family friend. Our 75 yr old parents would have no idea who to recommend for a local babysitter, so we would probably have to resort to care.com or something similar, which I’m not real thrilled with doing. Instead I would probably just bring the kids to the wedding and have my husband run around after them most of the evening (I’m in the wedding party) and leave early, if we need to.

I should have been more clear in my OP, that if we did bring our AP with us, it would be a working week for her and definitely not have her use any of her vacation time. And we’d make sure she has ample time to sightsee and relax (and give her some extra spending cash or pay for her sightseeing, which we’ve done in past trips with prior APs).

I do realize the importance of her 21st birthday, and was considering some of the things that others suggested, such as contributing toward a ticket for bringing a friend (a friend who will be on school break during that time, not an AP so no need to use up vacation time), or possibly even paying for her stay in Vegas the following weekend. And I don’t have any opinion about where she wants to go for her birthday (I personally love Las Vegas and see the appeal for her).

However, we have been very generous with her (in my opinion) – we provide her with her own car, cell phone and laptop, and we’ve tried to be pretty accommodating to her social schedule (she is our first AP who is quite a ‘partyier’ and that’s been an adjustment for us) by giving her off on New Years Eve, letting a friend from home stay with us for two weeks, giving her off most weekend nights, posting her schedule well in advance, etc. She is very nice and polite around us and never really complains or sulks or displays any immature emotional behavior.

The issues that we’ve encounted so far have all been regarding her free time. She is gone virtually all the time, which limits her ability to be part of our family (she’s probably had dinner with us less than 15 times over 6 months) and she has ‘pushed the limit’ with a lot of things, like always asking for exceptions to our worknight curfew, having male friends over later than we said she could, constantly keeping the car out overnight, etc. So we’ve had to have some talks about those things and set some additional rules. If we did require her to go on the trip with us, I don’t think she would be sulky or difficult, but b/c her social life and partying is so important to her, I know that while she wouldn’t be miserable, she probably wouldn’t be thrilled to be there.
Anyway, sorry for the looong post! Hope that additional information gives a bit more insight into my question. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!!!

Wedding – Flower Girl from bitchplz on Flickr

See also:

It’s YOUR vacation, not hers. Okay?
Scheduling your Au Pair to be on duty when you are at home…

Sometimes the concept of treating an au pair like a ‘member of the family’ doesn’t give you enough guidance. This seems especially true when it comes to figuring out ‘who pays for what, when’. We got a request (using the Skribit feature) for a post that would heolp to establish some guidelines for this.

I’ve started a list here of things that need to be paid for, with an initial try at who pays for what. The principle here is that the host family pays for what would be offered to other members of the family (esp. to a teenager/young adult), but your au pair pays for things that only she enjoys or where she exercises lots of personal discretion.

Let’s figure out what other general categories and specific situations need to be added to the list:

Food
Host parents pay for

• Regular, healthy food for 3 meals a day, 7 days a week
  This means buying enough of the family’s regular food to feed her as well, imagining that she’d eat as large a portion as the hungriest host parent.
• A few grocery items just for her:
  Cookies, herb tea, some ground beef if you are vegetarians, some tofu if she is. (Obviously, this is assuming that you have no political or religious issues with having meat in your vegetarian/vegan home).
• Non-kosher items for her, if your family is kosher and if the au pair is willing to store, cook, and eat the non-Kosher food in a way that does not mess with your religious traditions
• Up to $25/week of stuff  ‘for her’ (see note at end)
• Groceries for her to prepare for herself when you are away for the weekend and she is home alone.
  (This is part of the 3 meals/7 days concept).
• The same food you get yourself when your are out and she is with you, on duty
• Dinners out with host family when on duty
  Expect her to follow your lead with entrees. Take her only to places where you can afford to have her choose anything from the menu, unless it’s an odd situation (in that case, explain in the car before you get there). Offer her a rule of thumb– buy either an appetizer or dessert, not the most expensive item nor the least expensive item. The rough part here is if the parents want to splurge on a nice wine or an expensive entree, but they do not want to pay for the same for the au pair. This happens (!), and to me it seems to be reasonable if you want to get a $60 bottle of wine that you’d prefer not to share; just be clear if you want to splurge yourself but ask others to choose regular items.
• Coffee and snack when out with the kids or with you at Starbucks, Target, etc.
• Any beer or wine at family events or while watching football.
• Popcorn when she takes the kids to the movies.
• Takeout/pizza that is ordered for family meals, whether she is on or off duty (but only at the same cost level as the family)

Au Pair pays for

• Fancy cocktails (if she is over 21) when you are out to dinner
• Coffee & snacks or meals out when she is off duty and with her friends
• Freaky diet drinks
• Food used to prepare meals for her friends and guests when she is at your house
• Alcoholic beverage consumed at your house when she has guests (if permitted)
• Food items above and beyond the basic groceries and $25 budget
• Food when she is on vacation, whether at your house alone or on her travels. (If she is having a ‘staycation’, you might just include her in the grocery shopping)
• Takeout/pizza items above and beyond what is planned for “family” meals

Health & Beauty Aids
Host family pays for (really, gives Au Pair access to) Band Aids, the occasional ibuprofen, tissues, bar soap, hand soap, hairdryer. Also, toilet paper, tissues, paper towels and cleaning supplies if she cleans her own room or bathroom.

Au Pair pays for all of her shampoos, cosmetics, sanitary supplies, prescriptions, cold medications, hair color, toothpaste, bath gel, curling irons, haircuts.

Activities
Host Family pays for

• Tickets and fees related to activities when the au pair is on duty
• Tickets to family outings when the Au Pair is off-duty but explicitly invited (e.g., to the movies with the kids)

Au Pair pays for

• Tickets to outings when the Au Pair is off-duty and the host parents are happy to take her with them but would prefer not to pay (e.g., A family Broadway show with Grandma). Hey, we can afford to take Grandma for her birthday… but we can’t afford to pay for the au pair. Such is life.

Medical & Dental Care

• Au pair pays for this personal care

Gas and Tolls
Au Pair pays when using car for personal travel.

Host family pays when car is used for family business.

Car Washing: Figure this out in advance, e.g., Au Pair if she is the only user of the car, Host family if you both use car.

Tele/Communications
Host family pays for
All the basics that the family enjoys:

• Telephone basic service (local calls)
• HBO/Cable TV, internet access
• Computer printing of basic stuff (e.g., directions to train station)

Optional: Cell phone basic local (if host family wants to provide this)

Au Pair pays for
Personal items and premium services:

• All long distance phone calls, texting,
• Movies On Demand, video rentals for herself, Library fines for her own books
• Premium online/ internet services (e.g., photo storage, manipulation, printing)
• Fancy computer printing (e.g., photos, large color items, party invitations)

Travel
Host family pays for

• Au Pair’s tickets to travel with the family, on duty, regular class (even if the parents take upgrades. But don’t leave her with the kids in economy class unless she is being paid to be on duty)
• When Au Pair is traveling from ‘home base’ to vacation spot so that she can be on duty at your vacation spot (e.g., you buy her a bus ticket from your house in NY City to your house in the Hamptons, regular class, so that she can be on duty in the Hamptons)
• Hotel accommodations in a room other than the parents’ room, while traveling with the family on duty or off duty.
  (IMHO, it is fine to ask the au pair to share a room with the kids, as long as you make sure she has some privacy during her off duty time, when she is changing/showering, and when she wants to watch TV after kids go to bed)

Au Pair pays for

• Tickets to and from the family’s vacation spot if she is unwilling/prefers not to travel with the family in their car, or in the travel mode they prefer
• Tickets to and from the family’s vacation spot if she prefers to use a more expensive form of transportation (e.g., she wants to take the water taxi or luxury jitney, but you have given her a train ticket)
• Tickets to and from a vacation spot if she is joining the family on vacation but not going to be on duty, unless the family can afford to treat her

Household damage

Host family pays for

• Basic wear and tear: when things break and go wrong through regular use
• Basic household accidents (e.g., tea kettle catches fire, toilet overflows b/c you did not explain plumbing)

Au Pair pays for

• Dumb accidents that could have been avoided if she followed the directions that you have already gone over with her (e.g., sets off burglar alarm and can’t turn it off b/c she can’t remember where the code is and then you get whacked with the $50 ‘false alarm’ fee; water damage to the first floor powder room b/c she is unwilling to use the shower curtain correctly in the third floor bathroom; replacing the window fan after her balloon ribbons get strangled around it and burn out the motor; restoring all the software on your computer after she downloads something without permission and it has a virus your updated protection software didn’t catch)

What else should we add? And, what principle(s) do you use when you’re trying to figure out ‘who pays for what’?

(note: Regarding the $25 extra grocery ‘allowance’– this happens to be the maximum amount that most host parents thought was reasonable (in a previous discussion) for budgeting for the au pair’s “extras”. You are not expected to offer this “allowance” explicitly, or to offer it in addition to buying a proportionally larger amount of groceries overall. It’s just a guideline that you can use to figure out when you’ve gone too far.)