Truths & Lies

When a Host Parent Is Diagnosed With Asbergers, How Does This Reshape The Au Pair Relationship?

by cv harquail October 13, 2013

We’ve had some wonderfully honest, thoughtful and insightful conversations here on Au Pair Mom about how to manage relationship dynamics with Au Pairs who have emotional challenges or histories, and children who have cognitive or developmental ‘special needs’ — chronic cognitive or relational challenges that families need to support. But we haven’t even talked about […]

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My Au Pair Application Isn’t Completely True. What should I do?

by cv harquail October 8, 2013

We host parents absolutely depend on an au pair’s application to get an accurate and complete representation of that au pair’s background. Part of the reason why we use Au Pair Agencies rather than websites or Craig’s List is to have a professional (usually, a field person hired by an Agency) interview the au […]

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What do Host Parents think about Nanny Cams?: Au Pair Asks

by cv harquail May 8, 2013

It’s been a long time since we had our last conversation about Nanny Cams. We’ve had a couple of suggestions for a post about them, but I have always resisted. Only about 15% of host parent readers who took our poll back then reported that they even considered using a nanny cam. Personally, I […]

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Cut Your Losses: When your Au Pair starts lying before she even arrives

by cv harquail February 10, 2013

Our conversation about “when you discover that your au pair is lying” could go on forever, since there are so many different situations in which a lie can be a problem — or something to gloss over. We lie (parents and au pairs) to save face, to avoid consequences, and sometimes to deliberately deceive someone so that […]

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When You Suspect That Your Au Pair is Lying. A lot.

by cv harquail February 4, 2013

From Ananomousthistime Our current AP has been here since the summer. On one hand, she takes good care of the children, is responsible and follows our instructions. I used to think she was a GREAT AP. I should also mention that we place a very high value on honesty in our home. We respect the […]

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When an ‘Au Pair’ should really be a Nanny

by cv harquail January 19, 2012

Sometimes you just don’t want to read the subject lines of the emails that show up in our AuPairMom emailbox. The email posted below came with the subject line, “Am I being taken advantage of?”. But, by the time the au pair finished telling her story, it was clear it the subjuct should have been […]

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What can Host Parents Do about Deceptive Agency Practices?

by cv harquail April 14, 2011

Readers, I must admit that these stories of being screwed by both agency & au pair get me upset. Thank goodness these stories are more rare than the terrific au pair and the perfectly fine au pairs we have little reason to need advice about. We all know that most au pairs, and most agency […]

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Getting a Refund from an Unsupportive Agency

by cv harquail April 11, 2011

Readers, there is sadly more to the story of Deflated HostMom. She and her DH are having trouble getting the finances between the family and the au pair, and the family and the Agency, settiled to their saristaction. As Deflated HostMom describes: We have already paid our current au pair her full education allowance, and […]

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Au Pair “Shopped for a New Family” with Agency’s help — behind our backs

by cv harquail April 11, 2011

Our au pair came to us last Tuesday, out of the blue, to inform us she “wants to be by the beach” and wants to enter rematch. She has refused any attempt at mediation. We learned today that she had listed herself, over a month ago, on a third-party site for in-country au pairs and […]

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Candid, awkward issue: Choosing Au Pairs who are obese

by cv harquail January 26, 2011

AuPairMom is a place where we host parents (and au pairs) can talk about issues that only other host parents and au pairs can understand. Often, these issues are tough ones that touch upon cultural differences, style differences, political differences, and deep personal preferences. Every now and then, we get a topic that we want […]

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