You Know You’re A Great Au Pair Host Mom When…?

by cv harquail May 6, 2014
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Celebrating (Au Pair Host) Mother’s Day Do you ever have one of those moments when you say to yourself,                       “Gosh darn it, sometimes I *am* a great host mom!”? Go ahead, admit it. Or better yet, tell us about it, by filling in the rest […]

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The Fainting Au Pair: Should we rematch?

by cv harquail May 5, 2014
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Reliable, predictable, kind, and safe — that’s what we need childcare to be. So what happens when we have an au pair who we like, who’s doing a great job, and then all of a sudden turns out to have a condition that is unpredictable, that makes her unreliable, and that makes you worry that […]

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Open Thread: Rooting for Rosie

by cv harquail May 3, 2014
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Today’s open thread celebrate’s New Jersey’s Rosie Napravnik, who’s riding Vicar’s In Trouble in today’s Kentucky Derby. The Derby, and Rosie’s chance to make history, may or may not be on your radar screen for the weekend.  But in our house,  the run up to our annual Derby Party, plus the last week of classes, […]

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Choosing An Au Pair: Reading between the lines of an email reply

by cv harquail April 28, 2014
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People tease me about the number of emoticons, doge gifs, and exclamation points I use in my email, but I refuse to give up on anything that might help me convey the feelings behind my words — and to avoid being misinterpreted. It’s happened to all of us, when we’ve rushed to reply, or we […]

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Open Thread: April 26

by cv harquail April 25, 2014
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 Welcome to our weekend open thread! Be kind, and be patient with moderating this weekend– we are on a min-vacation in Quebec and the wifi at our auberge is simply awful. Awful as in “like 1997”– when wi~fi hardly existed. Use this open thread to bring up any topic that’s been on your mind. This […]

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Themes, Perspectives, and Cultural Stereotypes, Ideas from TexasHM

by cv harquail April 25, 2014
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Just days before a demonstration of how stereotypes about certain nationalities can feel unkind and unhelpful, frequent contributor TexasHM sent me this guest blog post. Perfect timing! We’re always working to generalize wisdom from our individual experiences, so stereotypes and national personalities are a common topic of conversation among folks in the AuPair community. TexasHM […]

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Don’t try to make your “two toddlers, small house, no au pair car” life “attractive”

by cv harquail April 22, 2014
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“There’s a lid for every pot.” This wisdom was offered by HRHM four years ago, and it’s stuck with me. I love it because it’s just so TRUE when it comes to au pairs and host families. No matter how weird unique your family is or how weird distinctive an au pair candidate is, if […]

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Open Thread: April 19

by cv harquail April 19, 2014
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 Welcome to our Weekend Open Thread!   Open threads are for comments on any subject at all, including past posts, things we haven’t posted on, what you’ve been thinking or doing, etc. You can even let me know if there’s a topic you think I should queue up for the coming week. Have you responded […]

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Explaining To Family and Friends Why You’re Getting An Au Pair

by cv harquail April 18, 2014
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Can you remember back to the first time you ever heard about the Au Pair program? I can’t remember how I first heard about it (and I think I assumed I knew what an au pair was). But I *do* remember trying to explain the whole concept to my dad. And then to my coworkers, […]

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When Your Au Pair Works a Second Job, As an ‘Escort’

by cv harquail April 16, 2014
poppins1 by keikolynnsogreat on Flickr

There are some ‘random, crazy and true’ au pair stories that seem like urban myths … … The Fox in the Henhouse, the au pair who disappears two days after she arrives, and of course, the au pair who gets a second paid gig in the ‘tourism industry’. When I first heard stories about au […]

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