I don't get au pairs... it seems crazy

[Anonymous]

APs are great for families with several kids where some of the kids are older. A nanny gets very expensive for multiple kids especially when the older kids really just need light supervision and a chauffeur. The other dynamic is dogs and pools. We could not find a nanny that could swim. We also had a hard time finding a nanny that was not afraid of dogs or disliked dogs. A few mentioned being terrified of cats -which we do not have but I found this odd too. Almost all the German au pairs has strong swimming credentials and most were excited about having a dog in the house, had their own dog at home. A nanny would have been a safety issue with the pool and we would have had to send the dog to doggie daycare.

The au pair's schedule worked great because we needed morning care and after noon care which shifted to full day car during breaks and school closures. During the school year she had plenty of time to take classes since most of the day was free and we were able to have two dates each week staying well under the weekly hour limits.

Nannies are often not flexible in their scheduling so the cost for shifting hours would have been way too high and we would have been paying for all her down time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The APs in my community are lovely women and I am a fan of the program for older children, but it blows my mind that people entrust their babies and toddlers with an AP. They don’t know anything and bring no external knowledge to the table. They don’t engage as well as any nanny or parent that I’ve seen, and they are FAR less concerned about general safety. It is seriously mind boggling.

I agree. The only times I've seen it really work for all parties is when it's older kids that don't really need that kind of hands-on care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the flexibility that makes it attractive. Most people I know don’t use the full 45 hours, but it’s great to have someone do an hour in the morning before school, then a couple of hours after school and some evening babysitting as needed.

This. Professional nannies want full time work and full time pay. Its v hard to find someone to do before and after school care or work on the weekends.

I was an au pair for a year. I had a horrible family at first who took advantage but then i requested a rematch and had a wonderful family in DC whom I loved. They were very good to me.
I am a parent now and teh au pair program is not cheap, its actually pretty expensive. Doesnt make sense for us as we only have one kid.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of people like the cultural aspect of it. As for the husband thing...if you can’t trust your husband not to cheat with the AU pair...you have so many other problems.

I personally know of too many cases where the wife thought she could trust her husband with au pair and was wrong. It’s a cliche, but it happens pretty frequently.

If it’s going to happen with The aupair it’s eventually going to happen without an aupair.

Ok but like why would you think the au pair would be interested??

DP. I don't think they are, but they are young and easily victimized.

Victimized implies DHs are sexual predators. If you married a sexual predator you got bigger issues than your childcare arrangements yo

I tried this once, she kept throwing herself at my husband....like any time they were alone she would come into his office half naked and make moves on him. He told me, he didn't cheat. I had a nice chat with her and she made it clear A LOT of them come over with this in mind. Needless to say, we no longer use au pairs, but I also know folks who have wonderful experiences. Just not for me...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the flexibility that makes it attractive. Most people I know don’t use the full 45 hours, but it’s great to have someone do an hour in the morning before school, then a couple of hours after school and some evening babysitting as needed.

This. Professional nannies want full time work and full time pay. Its v hard to find someone to do before and after school care or work on the weekends.

I was an au pair for a year. I had a horrible family at first who took advantage but then i requested a rematch and had a wonderful family in DC whom I loved. They were very good to me.
I am a parent now and teh au pair program is not cheap, its actually pretty expensive. Doesnt make sense for us as we only have one kid.

It's still cheap compared to center care for multiple kids in a big city, or a fulltime legally-hired nanny.

[Anonymous]

We had 2 au pairs when we lived in London. They were from Germany and France so not too far away from their own families. We got on really well with them, took them on family holidays etc. It's not really skilled childcare. It's like another pair of hands/big sister to the kids. The au pair would do school runs mostly, and supervised babysitting whilst I was in the house. Or she would take the older kids to the store down the road, that type of thing. We had a really positive experience both times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that different from hiring a college aged babysitter. We treat our au pairs well and they have a great year.

We didn't have a good experience with a nanny. Ours was always very unhapppy and trying to get away with doing as little as possible. I'm sure there are good nannies, but we didn't find one. Using a nanny is no more of a sure thing than an au pair, IMO.

You would pay a college kid $20/hr or more. That's the difference.

[Anonymous]

We've had au pairs for a few years now, after having had nannies for something like 8-9 years. We have four kids, ages 7, 9, 11 and 13. We're at the point in the year when we need to decide whether to host another au pair at the end of our current au pair's term, and I go back and forth on whether I want to do so. My thoughts on the au pair program:

- Once all of our kids were school aged, good nannies were hard to find for the hours we needed (before and after school care, driving to sports). Nannies weren't interested in split schedule work, and hiring two nannies was not appealing to us (very hard to find reliable morning care OR reliable afternoon care, and juggling both was no fun). Au pair program allows split schedule and it's generally well received by au pairs who want free time during the day versus being "tied down" to a full day of work.

- Our child care needs vary significantly from school year (part time) to summer (full time), so we'd be looking for new child care every fall/summer, or every fall/winter/summer if after school nanny's schedule changed (most were students). Au pair program is a year plus chance to extend if all goes well.

- Flexible scheduling of au pair program - varying schedule by week based on kids activities - is a huge plus for us. We make it known during matching that this is how we schedule (some nights off at 6, some nights off at 7:30, we provide schedule in advance so au pair can make plans). The au pair comes into it knowing this is the deal, so it's not a surprise but rather something they agree to by virtue of matching with our family. The flexibility is the #1 draw for us as it takes away SO much stress of having to figure out how we will cover complex after school schedules without having to negotiate on an event-by-event basis.

- Cultural exchange is actually a meaningful component of the program, IF you have an au pair willing to take time to share their own culture/traditions/language. We've had mixed success with this; our first (French) au pair was actually the best about sharing culture, whereas our German au pair acted as if Germany didn't exist.

- Cost wise, the au pair program isn't as inexpensive as people might think, and it can be a huge pain to host someone in your home. Agency fees a $7000-$8000, plus flight fees, plus auto insurance (and for our au pair, dedicated vehicle she drives daily during free time), cell phone plus plan, everything that goes into room & board (food, sheets, towels, room fixtures, miscellaneous items that all add up), everything that goes with "member of the family" (restaurant meals, activity fees/tickets to various events, travel expenses, etc.). It can feel like a non-stop drip, drip, drip of cash that goes well beyond the stipend.

- Speaking of the stipend, this is truly $200/week of spending money. Au pairs have no fixed expenses like rent, car payment, groceries, insurance, phone. That's all on the host family. One of our au pairs was a saver and banked her stipends for a year, with minimal spending along the way. Another clearly took $200 on Friday and returned Sunday with shopping bags from the mall. Our 19yr old German au pair bought herself the new iPhone X when it came out as her personal, non-work phone.

I'm honestly worn out on sharing a house with an extra person (mostly circumstances, we're in the middle of painful renovation work) but we will probably re-up with the au pair agency for another year, and another two years after that. Once we have a teen driver I think we'll give up on the program, but until then, the flexibility is such a huge plus that I can't let it go!

For what it's worth, our first au pair is 100% like a close family member now and will be forever. Our current one, maybe like a cousin we enjoy. There can be some great relationships formed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to work as a nanny and was acquainted with many au pairs. The reality for the young women I knew was that they were far from home with only other au pairs for support. There was lots of weekend partying, but many of them were taken advantage of by their host families. Long hours outside of what is agreed upon was a regular thing. Dads being inappropriate and Moms being cruel and jealous was also par for the course. It's exploitation simple and plain. Because these young women really wanted to be here, they put up with a bunch of cr@p.

+1

THIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APs are great for families with several kids where some of the kids are older. A nanny gets very expensive for multiple kids especially when the older kids really just need light supervision and a chauffeur. The other dynamic is dogs and pools. We could not find a nanny that could swim. We also had a hard time finding a nanny that was not afraid of dogs or disliked dogs. A few mentioned being terrified of cats -which we do not have but I found this odd too. Almost all the German au pairs has strong swimming credentials and most were excited about having a dog in the house, had their own dog at home. A nanny would have been a safety issue with the pool and we would have had to send the dog to doggie daycare.

The au pair's schedule worked great because we needed morning care and after noon care which shifted to full day car during breaks and school closures. During the school year she had plenty of time to take classes since most of the day was free and we were able to have two dates each week staying well under the weekly hour limits.

Nannies are often not flexible in their scheduling so the cost for shifting hours would have been way too high and we would have been paying for all her down time.

Au pairs make far less money than nannies. Nannies start at $15./hour and good ones work for prominent families for twice or more that.

Au Pair = cheap labor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APs are great for families with several kids where some of the kids are older. A nanny gets very expensive for multiple kids especially when the older kids really just need light supervision and a chauffeur. The other dynamic is dogs and pools. We could not find a nanny that could swim. We also had a hard time finding a nanny that was not afraid of dogs or disliked dogs. A few mentioned being terrified of cats -which we do not have but I found this odd too. Almost all the German au pairs has strong swimming credentials and most were excited about having a dog in the house, had their own dog at home. A nanny would have been a safety issue with the pool and we would have had to send the dog to doggie daycare.

The au pair's schedule worked great because we needed morning care and after noon care which shifted to full day car during breaks and school closures. During the school year she had plenty of time to take classes since most of the day was free and we were able to have two dates each week staying well under the weekly hour limits.

Nannies are often not flexible in their scheduling so the cost for shifting hours would have been way too high and we would have been paying for all her down time.

Au pairs make far less money than nannies. Nannies start at $15./hour and good ones work for prominent families for twice or more that.

Au Pair = cheap labor.

I dont have an au pair but do you know how much the cost is over the course of a year? It is not cheap childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's really not that different from hiring a college aged babysitter. We treat our au pairs well and they have a great year.

We didn't have a good experience with a nanny. Ours was always very unhapppy and trying to get away with doing as little as possible. I'm sure there are good nannies, but we didn't find one. Using a nanny is no more of a sure thing than an au pair, IMO.

You would pay a college kid $20/hr or more. That's the difference.

And the college kid would not be living in your home. They would come over, watch the kids for the agreed upon time, and then leave. You would not be responsible for providing the college kid with a phone. You would not be responsible to treat the college kid like a family member and include them in holidays and every family meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of people like the cultural aspect of it. As for the husband thing...if you can’t trust your husband not to cheat with the AU pair...you have so many other problems.

I personally know of too many cases where the wife thought she could trust her husband with au pair and was wrong. It’s a cliche, but it happens pretty frequently.

If it’s going to happen with The aupair it’s eventually going to happen without an aupair.

Ok but like why would you think the au pair would be interested??

DP. I don't think they are, but they are young and easily victimized.

Victimized implies DHs are sexual predators. If you married a sexual predator you got bigger issues than your childcare arrangements yo

I tried this once, she kept throwing herself at my husband....like any time they were alone she would come into his office half naked and make moves on him. He told me, he didn't cheat. I had a nice chat with her and she made it clear A LOT of them come over with this in mind. Needless to say, we no longer use au pairs, but I also know folks who have wonderful experiences. Just not for me...

What country? Sorry but I find this way hard to believe. What possible incentive is there to hooking up with the host Dad and risk getting booted and sent home? Now picking up dudes in a college bar i understand but come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of people like the cultural aspect of it. As for the husband thing...if you can’t trust your husband not to cheat with the AU pair...you have so many other problems.

I personally know of too many cases where the wife thought she could trust her husband with au pair and was wrong. It’s a cliche, but it happens pretty frequently.

If it’s going to happen with The aupair it’s eventually going to happen without an aupair.

Ok but like why would you think the au pair would be interested??

DP. I don't think they are, but they are young and easily victimized.

Victimized implies DHs are sexual predators. If you married a sexual predator you got bigger issues than your childcare arrangements yo

I tried this once, she kept throwing herself at my husband....like any time they were alone she would come into his office half naked and make moves on him. He told me, he didn't cheat. I had a nice chat with her and she made it clear A LOT of them come over with this in mind. Needless to say, we no longer use au pairs, but I also know folks who have wonderful experiences. Just not for me...

What country? Sorry but I find this way hard to believe. What possible incentive is there to hooking up with the host Dad and risk getting booted and sent home? Now picking up dudes in a college bar i understand but come on.

I don't believe this either.

I do have a cousin who divorced his wife and then married his au pair. They've been married for 15 years now. He had infant triplets when they got the au pair, and the kids are now in high school. I am not privy to how it went down, but it certainly happened.

[Anonymous]

What would hourly rate be if you include the base costs (room and board, excluding family vacations)?