Foundations & Basics

3 Easy Ways to Help Your Au Pair Use Your Home Appliances Correctly

by cv harquail October 10, 2014

American appliances have too many options. Having endless options is great for getting just the right setting for a specific task, but it becomes quite a problem when you’re forever trying to remember which combinations of buttons and levers to press. Between our vacuum cleaner (5 attachments, 3 wands and 5 buttons), our washer (23 […]

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How to Get Your Au Pair Ready To Cook

by cv harquail September 12, 2014

Once your host kids get past the ‘oatmeal and smashed peas’ phase, it’s time for an Au Pair to do some real cooking. Even au pairs who’ve cooked in their home countries find cooking in America to be a bit challenging. Au Pairs need to figure out: How our appliances work What each of the foods […]

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Should She Ask Her Host Mom To Read AuPairMom?

by cv harquail September 8, 2014

Dear AuPairMom – I have been reading AuPairMom while I was deciding to become an au pair and I was expecting that what you have on this blog explains what an au pair should expect. My host mom seems to be having some struggles with having an au pair. I’m my family’s first au pair. My family is […]

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Improve Your AuPair’s Driving With an Online Driving Class

by cv harquail September 5, 2014

An online driving course is an easy, inexpensive way to get both you and your AuPair feeling confident about her/his driving– before your au pair even arrives in the USA! Here’s a tip from TexasHostMom— Our first AP was 26 when she arrived and had been driving for some time, so I never thought we’d have […]

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Creepy, Crawly, Contagious Things- What if your Au Pair catches them too?

by cv harquail July 27, 2014

(Reposted from our archives, since an Au Pair Asked…) When I became a mom I knew that that I would need to become accustomed to dealing with things that, pre-motherhood, had completely grossed me out. I’m talking about poopy diapers, vomit, bloody noses, fart jokes, and public belching. These were things that I would have […]

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Open Thread: July 12

by cv harquail July 11, 2014

We’re baaaaack! I know that you’ve missed the Open Thread — I can tell from all the re-directions in the comments on the posts! Use this open thread to toss out any question or concern you have — except for one: If you are an au pair outside the USA whose host parents are somehow […]

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Scheduling Your Au Pair: The Minimum Length of a Work Shift

by cv harquail July 11, 2014

The US State Department sets firm, legal parameters for scheduling an Au Pair. But the US State Department rules, and the contractual stipulations of each Au Pair Agency, form only the required, minimum guidelines for scheduling an Au Pair. Within this rough outline, host parents and au pairs need to negotiate what is sensible, fair, effective […]

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Fun for the 4th: Bake a Flag Cake

by cv harquail July 1, 2014

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Does your Au Pair like to bake? Do your kids? If you’ve ever made a checkerboard cake, a heart-shaped cake, or a cake-like thing that looked vaguely like Thomas The Tank Engine, you have all the skills and equipment you need to make this very American beauty. The flag-making process and recipe come from the […]

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Extreme Scheduling: Is it fair to an Au Pair?

by cv harquail June 27, 2014

Extreme Scheduling: When you use all your 45 ‘on duty’ hours in one fell swoop People actually do this. I’ve heard from au pairs who are scheduled for three days in a row when no parents are otherwise present, even at ‘off duty’ times (such as when a mom is a pilot and works in 3 […]

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The Au Pair Scheduling Constraint That Might Surprise You

by cv harquail June 26, 2014

I’ve been surprised by some of the fine details in the rules and the principles that guide how we should schedule an au pair’s ‘on duty‘ hours. For example, I was surprised to learn that some Au Pair Agencies require that an au pair’s day off and half-day off are contiguous (making it 36 […]

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