Your au pair’s social life

When Your Au Pair’s Parents Come to Visit

by cv harquail January 23, 2014

Dear AuPair Mom– We have a lovely, responsible Au Pair whose parents miss her dearly. They have decided to visit twice (twice!) during the year and want to stay with us in order to maximize their time with their daughter. I’m apprehensive about the whole thing, because hosting parents is not the same as hosting […]

29 comments Read the full article →

When An Au Pair’s Thriftiness Shortchanges Her Adventure

by cv harquail April 4, 2013

Frugality is an admirable trait. It takes a lot of restraint and self discipline for an au pair to save money from her/his weekly stipend. Whether s/he’s saving for a vacation, a laptop computer, or to send money back home, au pairs who are carefully watching their expenses deserve our support. But when an au […]

114 comments Read the full article →

All Unhappy Au Pair Situations Are Unhappy in Complicated Ways

by cv harquail November 25, 2012

In the nearly 6 years we’ve been talking together on this blog, we’ve never once had a concern with an au pair that was simple. Never. Not once. The situation is never just “She won’t follow directions”, or “He can’t pass the state driver’s license test”. There’s always some complicated mix of themes, usually involving […]

140 comments Read the full article →

Our Au Pair is Headed for Heartbreak: Should we intervene?

by cv harquail April 4, 2012

Ah, young love. One joy of having an au pair in your home is that you get to relive (however vicariously) the drama, adventure and sometimes romance that your au pair entangles herself in. You hear about the handsome guy/beautiful girl your au pair met, you offer your opinion on what outfit to wear for […]

27 comments Read the full article →

Texting: Taming the Au Pair Distraction

by cv harquail February 10, 2012

Who’s got an au pair who texts a lot? Sometimes at inappropriate times, and often without any understanding of how this behavior distracts them? Raise your hands. Okay, you can all put down your hands. It annoys me hugely that people have bad manners when it comes to texting. In our family, we have rules […]

33 comments Read the full article →

Our Au Pair is Dating My Husband’s Close Friend. Now what?

by cv harquail February 4, 2012

And speaking of trying to maintain some privacy around ones adult social life, Here’s an email that has me completely stumped. How do they stay “host parents” to their au pair, and friends with their friend, and have any separate adult social life? We really need your ideas here, folks. Dear Au Pair Mom, I […]

25 comments Read the full article →

Don’t Let BedBugs Take a Bite out of Your Au Pair Relationship

by cv harquail January 13, 2012

As a host parent, you’ve worried about car accidents, flu shots and even head lice. But did you ever think you’d need to worry about bedbugs? HMJ didn’t think so. But now, bedbug-related fears — all very reasonable — are challenging her relationship to her terrific Au Pair. Dear AuPairMom – We are 18 months […]

19 comments Read the full article →

Establishing Expectations when an Au Pair Has Guests

by cv harquail November 30, 2011

There’s something about hosting a friend of relative of your au pair that can mess with the fine balance between “part of the family”& “childcare provider” and between “host mom” and “house elf/slave”. For lots of us, we forget to check our assumptions about how we should act towards other people’s guests, how much of […]

28 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 →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →