House & home

When Your Au Pair Won’t Do More Than Mind Your Child: Child Care Chores

by cv harquail January 12, 2013

How do you teach an au pair that ‘childcare’ includes more than just caring directly for your child/ren, in real time? We all know that childcare means not only one-to-one interacting with the child and the child’s needs, but also doing child-related work ‘offline’. But many au pairs (especially new ones) struggle with this, because […]

22 comments Read the full article →

What To Do About Au Pair Bath Towels: Folks want to know (Poll)

by cv harquail September 28, 2012

Dear Au Pair Mom- What do you think about towels. Should I get my au pair her own personal set of towels? I expect to provide towels for our APs, but so far both of our au pairs have gone out and bought their own. I’d told both au pairs not to bring towels from […]

31 comments Read the full article →

Which bedroom to choose for your Au Pair?

by cv harquail September 26, 2012

Lucky you- you’re not only getting an au pair, but also you have a choice of rooms for his or her bedroom! But which bedroom should you choose– the one near the baby? The big one where s/he’d share the kids’ bathroom or the smaller one where she’d have her own bathroom? Or the […]

36 comments Read the full article →

Your Au Pair’s Bedroom– Minumum Standards

by cv harquail September 22, 2012

An au pair doesn’t need her own separate apartment, an entire wing to herself, or even a bathroom en suite. But there are some minimum standards, and the email (far below) from an au pair suggests that not everyone is paring attention. At minimum, your au pair’s bedroom needs: A bed, lamp, place to store […]

45 comments Read the full article →

Sustaining Your Au Pair’s Privacy When You Enter Her Room Without Notice

by cv harquail July 15, 2012

Au Pairs (and Host Parents) need their privacy — that’s why there are rules about the au pair’s room having an actual door (not a curtain or a screen). Pretty much the only time it’s okay to go into an au pair’s room without permission is when there is an “emergency”. Emergencies include: A/C left […]

77 comments Read the full article →

Please Turn Down the TV — Reasonable or Rude?

by cv harquail December 6, 2011

We host parents often find ourselves wishing that our au pairs could just *tell us* when something is bothering them. We can only address things we know about– and if something is wrong and you keep quiet about it, the problem keeps simmering. This is true with bigger issues (too much texting) and smallish issues […]

36 comments Read the full article →

Damage to the Au Pair Room: Should we have a security deposit?

by cv harquail November 2, 2011

We’ve had some funny and not so funny stories about damage to our homes by au pairs who were clueless (at best), careless (most often) and intentionally destructive (nightmare). Everything from soaked ceilings under the au pair bathroom, to hair dye on the bathroom walls, to nail polish on the fancy sheets. We have a decent handle on what to expect […]

16 comments Read the full article →

Invasion of Privacy: Time for rematch?

by cv harquail October 19, 2011

Here at AuPairMom we get some very interesting emails from host parents and au pairs facing challenges in their relationships. Sometimes these questions are easy to answer, other times the whole group of us has to band together to come up with useful advice. Sometimes these emails make me sad — so much struggle, such […]

68 comments Read the full article →

Helping our au pairs in the grey space between what we say we’ll do and what we get done

by cv harquail June 23, 2011

It will come as no surprise to most au pairs that most of us host parents have high expectations for ourselves that we often can’t meet. We want to be good drivers, calm parents, regular exercisers, and people who pick up after ourselves. And we are– just not all the time (not most of us, […]

59 comments Read the full article →

Is it demeaning to ask your au pair to iron kids’ clothes?

by cv harquail August 8, 2010

When my girls were littler, they had lots of adorable cotton dresses. All of these dresses were wash’n wear, which meant that they were okay to wear if clean but wrinkly. To look fabulous, these dresses didn’t need lots of ironing– just 2 minutes with an iron on the collars, hems, and sashes turned them […]

39 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →