Au pair in smallish townhouse?

[Anonymous]

If you are a nice family and treat au Au Pair well, size of home and brand of car will not matter. Make sure you find someone who is sincere about her love for babies, and clear about her goals for her AP year. You may want to focus on candidates who are from similar or lesser means than your family. You don't need to 'apologize' for the stuff you don't have. Simply focus on what you can bring on a human level. I'll add that we are 6 people living in 2000sq feet and although it's a bit tight sometimes, it is very comfortable, warm and loving (something you may not necessarily find in those larger mansions where you rarely bump into anyone else in the house).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I honestly don't think it matters for the right person. I have an iconic american house that most au pairs probably think of when they think of America. I've had au pairs who love it and those who complain that its not in the city and they'd rather live somewhere that they can walk to places. I used to live in a rowhouse in DC with its own au pair suite in the basement, walk to metro, close to downtown, the whole thing. And one au pair just constantly complained that the basement was too cold, even though she had a heater in her room (true that the basement playroom was cold, but nobody told her she had to hang out there - she could have cranked up the heat to 80 in her room and shut her door, but she still was fixated on the overall temp in the basement). Once I moved to the big suburban house, I had one au pair who found an American boyfriend and his parents were basically horders with cars up on blocks in the driveway but she preferred to spend all her time over there with them. To each his own. You can't stress about what an au pair will like or won't like. You can just present your situation in as realistic a way as possible and try to find the right person for you!

or you can have my AP who NEVER LEAVES HER ROOM!!! She spent this ENTIRE WEEKEND holed up in her basement bedroom. She never once has ventured into DC and never once has expressed the desire to travel or explore (outside of us paying for a trip somewhere where she mainly stays in her room or buried in her phone). She hardly socializes with other APs, saying they are "stuck-up". She would have just the same experience living in Nebraska here.

Sadly, I think she is depressed, but won't admit it (I've asked!).

But do you really care? I think one of the hardest things about hosting is looking at these girls who have so many amazing opportunities and seeing them waste it on stupid stuff like repeated trips to the mall, watching reruns on netflix or endless skyping. I find it very hard not to impose my views or what I would have done if I had such an opportunity. Instead, I worked crappy summer jobs and had to help my parents and scrape it all through college. Taking a year off to live and work in another country was never an option for me, much as I would have loved it! Maybe that's why it bothers me when some au pairs just go back and forth to the mall, hang around on the internet and complain about how little they get paid.

It only bothers me to the extent that I'm living with someone who is an intellectual wasteland.