Au Pair Vs Nanny?
![[Post New]](/nanny-forum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Would love to hear the arguments people make. I'm new to this and thinking we might want to consider an Au Pair this time around.
You are 'matched' blindly right? So how in teh world do you trust who you get? AU Pairs are generally younger, so I worry about maturity a bit; how do you gauge this before a match? Is there an agency people recommend? Not sure how the expense to a nanny compares, but could someone share whats expected? I know these are super basic questions.... |
Anonymous
| How old are your children and what kind of coverage do you need? |
Anonymous
8 to 6pm M-F 4 years old |
Anonymous
|
OP, definitely do a search, there are a ton of these threads. But au pairs can only work 10 hours a day and 45 hours a week, so you wouldn't be able to cover your hours.
They also don't match you "blind" - you get to interview just like a nanny except over Skype instead. Au pairs are all under 27. |
Anonymous
| If you had to chose between a great nanny and a great AP, I think AP is the better option because it is cheaper. However, if you and spouse work long hours and need a "family life" manager, then a nanny is a much better option. |
Anonymous
| An au pair is not an option seeing that you need 50 hours a week. |
Anonymous
| Agree you need more hours than an AP could provide. For APs, you are matched based on criteria and you talk to a matching advisor who helps you narrow down what you want, and then you go through applications and talk to them to screen. We switched to AP's from a nanny after DH took a lower-paying job and we needed to save money at the same time as our kids were going to school part-time so we didn't need a FT nanny except during summer, when we only needed 45 hours. An AP has worked perfectly for us. Nannies are more expensive and less flexible, but usually have more experience. |
Anonymous
|
If you can get it to 45 hours a week (maybe M-F 8am to 5pm?), then an au pair could work. But one of the benefits of an au pair is that you can be more flexible with the hours week to week as long as you stay under 45 and 10 hours a day. If you're using all your hours 8-5 every single week day, then the benefit of flexibility goes out the window.
An au pair costs about $20k a year just for her stipend, the agency fees, and the education stipend. Then you are required to provide all meals and housing. Most families provide a cell phone. If you want her to drive, you pay for car, car insurance, licensing fees, etc. It ends up costing us about $24k a year. Then of course you have to live with your au pair. So you have to have a private furnished and comfortable room for her and be willing to share your house, which comes with lots of challenges. Au pairs also take more time than a nanny because you're basically orienting and shepharding a young foreign adult through life for a year. They are also here for a cultural exchange program, so you have to be committed to including them as a member of your family, being interested in learning about their culture, and sharing yours, and basically give them a year of learning about US culture. Finally, au pairs cannot do household tasks unless they are directly related to the children. They are just for watching kids and not for housekeeping or management. So au pair - about $24k minimum plus living with a young adult plus extra time spent training and managing the au pair. Depending on what qualifications you want and where you live, one 4yo would maybe be $15/hour for a nanny? That varies obviously, but let's say that. So 40 hours a week times $15 plus 5 hours a week times $22.50 (OT) = $712.50/week times 52 weeks = $37,050. With a nanny, obviously you don't have to live with her, she's essentially "out of sight out of mind" during off-hours, she will probably need a lot less training and day-to-day management, you can get someone with lots of education and experience (although I've heard there are some regular au pairs that have lots of experience, we've searched for months and never found one - most are young, in a gap year between HS and college, and have just babysitting or a week at a daycare center or something), and you're not limited to under age 27. You don't have to worry about your cell phone and your car that she's driving to dance clubs in DC. Bottom line is that yes, an au pair is going to be monetarily cheaper for your hourly requirements by maybe $10-15k a year. But then you need to be willing to share your home and your car and put some serious time into developing a relationship with your au pair and providing her with a US family experience. You also need to be willing to either sacrifice on child-related education and experience or search really really hard for an au pair who is well-qualified. Alternatively, there are programs like the au pair extraordinaire program that offer better-qualified candidates, but they will run you about $5k more a year in fees and stipend, so that starts to close the gap between au pair cost and nanny cost (worth it in our family's opinion, but that's just us). |
Anonymous
|
Pros for nannies =
can work more than 45 hours will do more housekeeping easier to replace if you make a bad hire do not have expectations nor do they want to travel with you live outs leave at the end of the day, no privacy issues broad range of ages and experience in candidate pool Pros for au pairs= better educated than the nanny pool, better for school age kids with homework will expect to travel with you and it doesn't cost extra beyond paying for the transportation/room/meals more of an older college age cousin/sibling type experience cultural exchange/new language/more part of the family costs slight below live in nanny more likely to find an au pair that is a strong swimmer, and likes/wants dogs/pets than a nanny with these skills or willing to tolerate pets |
Anonymous
I've had APs for 5 years now. This is my personal view of this topic. First to answer your questions: No, you're not matched "blindly." The Host Family (HF) chooses the AP (and the AP can choose to decline the offer) -- so there has to be mutual desire to match. It is very much like on-line dating these days, where potential APs create searchable profiles and you can see their age, experience, etc. Each Agency does the match process a little differently. Some Agencies (like Au Pair In America), offer a fairly hands off approach that allows the HF to search and interview multiple potential APs at once. I am with APIA, I like them, and I like this system. Other Agencies allow more restricted searching access, or have counselors that suggest different potential APs to the family. But at the end of the day, the decision is always with the HF. I like APIA, and I recommend them. my web page is funky... going to continue in a different post... |
Anonymous
|
PP here... continuing.
As for cost, generally nanny's range from $40-80K per year. APs are cheaper, and generally run about $22-24K per year once you've added in some hidden costs and intangibles. If your 4 year old is in pre-school for even a few hours a week, you don't have to count that time as time your AP is working. So you might be under the 50 hours/week you initially stated. But it is true, there are certain restrictions on how much time you use your AP for. It is a 45 hour week max. No more than 10 hours per day, and there are other restrictions about making sure they have at least one weekend off per year. My husband and I both work full time, so we tend to use all 45 hours each week... so we don't use them on the weekend. You can interview both nannies and au pairs until you're blue in the face, and you can do a good or bad job of interviewing... and even then you can get "taken" by either. I do think it is a bit harder to check references for au pairs. But I've heard horror stories with nannies as well. With au pairs, you get usually 2-4 written letters of recommendation that have been translated -- but it is hard to actually speak with a reference unless you speak the language. 90% of au pairs are young women who have little more than babysitting experience. Some have a real interest in elementary education and children, and some don't. For older kids who need an adult around to drive them to soccer, its usually OK. For a full-time stay-at-home-mom type job with one or more little children-- I think someone who has really worked with kids and can deal with 4-year old meltdowns, etc... is really important. I made a bad choice with my first au pair, and hired a well-meaning, nice au pair to take care of two small boys. I think the long days were overwhelming for her, and things started to fall apart. I made a bad choice. Ever since then, though, I have learned my lesson. I've made better selections on our subsequent au pairs, and the next 3 have all been STELLAR. And I do mean stellar. I think they do just as good a job as some really high priced nannies in this area. gahhhh... dumb computer... will continue |
Anonymous
|
PP again... sorry for the glitches.
So, I'm thrilled that I have gotten what I consider "top-quality nanny care" from a series of 24-year olds at a bargain price of $24K. I'm sure some former APs will jump on me for using slave labor... but the regs are what they are. But it does lead me to my final point. A nanny is an employee. At the end of the day, you pay her, she goes home. While you might have a friendly relationship with your nanny, and care about her as a person -- as an "employee" she is expected not to bring her personal issues to work, you don't make your personal issues her problem, she collects a paycheck and goes home. (And please, I don't mean to castigate nannies here -- many feel very much a part of their families, and give excellent care to their charges). An AP is structurally a different kind of relationship. Yes, there is absolutely an employee aspect to it -- but they don't work well when people are unhappy, and there is an additional "family life" aspect that is expected. She is a young woman, but the maturity levels vary. She may be homesick, she may have trouble making friends, she may have personal issues. You are expected to help her adjust, and help her get a good experience out of the year. After all, she didn't come here JUST to take care of your kids. They all want something in addtion. Some may want to party, some may want to perfect their English, some may want to just experience living abroad. After 5 years, I can say that a happy au pair is much more likely to be a good au pair. It is in YOUR best interest to help her get something out of the relationship other than a room and a paycheck. When the relationship is a two-way street, it works much better. So think about whether you WANT to host an au pair, and whether you generally are interested and like meeting and getting to know young women from other countries. If you're not sure about the privacy issues, but you generally feel that you like people you meet from other countries, it might work just fine. If your stomach turns at the notion of having to "mother" (or "friend") some strange girl -- it will not be a good fit for you. |
Anonymous
Good input, PP with the computer issues  The price difference between a live-out nanny and an au pair gets thrown around a lot as an indication that au pairs are "cheap" labor and that's why host families choose them. I always caution that if you're choosing an au pair because it is cheaper, then both you and the au pair are going to be really really sorry. PP is right that it is a fundamentally different relationship. If you seriously just want someone to take care of your kids and then leave you alone, you are going to be miserable with an au pair really quicly (and the au pair will be miserable with you).
I imagine there are many many families that wouldn't think the $10k a year you're going to save on an au pair versus a live-out nanny is anything close to worth all the stress of sharing your home and life with an au pair. |
Anonymous
| We also need 50 hours of care per week and have an au pair. We only ask our au pair to be available during those 50 hours, but she doesn't work over 45. On normal weeks, we make up the extra 5 hours through one of a couple of back-up sitters (and which 5 hours it is may vary). Sometimes our schedules are different because of other things so we parents are able to pick up the time, or then there are weeks with holidays, etc (like next week), so then she gets the day off and we only need 40 hours w/o any supplemental care. So we do typically do pay someone else a little extra to help us get to 50 hours, but it has worked well for us. |