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Does Your Extension Au Pair Deserve a Raise?

by cv harquail January 24, 2013
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The experience of a happy au pair year is its own reward. And extending this positive experience is a great way to turn this reward into a bonus. When an au pair and a host family extend their contract with each other for an additional 6, 9, or 12 months, everybody gets a bonus. The […]

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When Au Pairs Overlap, who gets the room? (Poll)

by cv harquail May 11, 2011
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Sometimes, the right thing to do as your family transitions from one au pair to another is to have your au pairs overlap in your home. As we know, overlapping au pairs can create some emotional difficulty for the incoming au pair, the outgoing au pair, your kids and you. And, it can also create […]

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Do you send a gift basket to your new Au Pair at Orientation? (Poll)

by cv harquail February 22, 2011

Here’s a poll to follow up on my vdiatribe…..

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A Different Perspective on Cultural Exchange

by cv harquail August 4, 2010
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For each of us the ‘cultural exchange’ part of the au pair program has a different meaning and importance. Are there many cases where the cultural exchange part feels irrelevant? Or, to put it bluntly, If the same sort of service existed to match American au pairs with other American families for the same overall […]

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Use Everyday Math Skills to calulate our rematch percentage

by cv harquail July 1, 2010

Rather than wait until I find a polling tool that can divide as well as count, let’s use our everyday match skills to get a sense of the percentage of rematches AMONG AuPairMom readers. [Remember, this is a poll of the special group of host parents that reads AuPairMom. Our results will not be the […]

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Au Pair Guidelines: Does your car have a curfew? (Poll)

by cv harquail June 2, 2010
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Our au pair car was a naughty, naughty car. Its very first year as an au pair car, it often stayed out kind of late. Once, it got left behind at a bar and didn’t make it back until Monday. Another time, it was hanging out 95 miles away from home, without permission, and tangled […]

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Posting Frequency: How often would like like a new post? (Poll)

by cv harquail May 7, 2010
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Hi Readers, In anticipation of this blog’s second birthday (I know, they grow up So Fast!), I’m starting a little bit of spring blog-keeping… just general blog admin, much of it behind the scenes. I want to update the blog in ways that matter to you, so there are a few elements of blog-keeping where […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Language as a Selection Criterion (Poll)

by cv harquail November 2, 2009
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What do you think of the idea of choosing an au pair based on her native language? Note: Choosing on language is not the same as choosing an au pair based on culture. Just think of the range of cultures where French is spoken!  Cameroon, Haiti, Montreal and Tuscany are  very different  cultures. Is there […]

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Extending– without the Agency. Yes or no?

by cv harquail June 17, 2009
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We are in month 8 with our first au pair (she’s frmo Thailand), who has been great. We would like to extend, and she would like to stay for at least six months more, but she would like to do so outside of the agency. Apparently a friend of hers, at the end of her […]

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Poll: Does your Au Pair join you for dinner?.

by cv harquail April 8, 2009
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Our family tradition Sitting down together at the table for supper is one of my favorite moments of the day. During the week, when it’s just us girls, we all hold hands and sing grace before we eat. In that brief moment, everything is peaceful and undeniably happy. Then we let of each other’s hands, […]

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