Country recommendation?

[Anonymous]

We have had 5 Au Pairs (one extended for an extra year): 2 from Thailand, 2 from France, 1 from Spain. All were great Au Pairs but the Thai Au Pairs were a bit warmer/more playful with the kids and were MUCH better at doing household duties like wiping up the kitchen after dinner, etc. We were hoping for a Thai Au Pair again this time but given the issues with visas, our agency (APC) is no longer listing Thai Au Pairs. What other countries would people recommend we look at? We need a driver (but just for local driving like picking up kids from practices), strong enough English to help with homework, and prefer over 21.

Which countries have you had experience with that are more willing to help around the house and "cherish" children? No, I am not looking for a housekeeper (we have cleaners that come once per week) but my husband and I are both tired of things not being picked up like they were with our Thai Au Pairs (one of the French ones was much better that the current one who will happily do dishes after dinner or whatever but has to be asked and does what I would consider a sub-par job that my 12 year old would do better...) So I know some of it is individual but I do think some is cultural....

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Not Sweden.

[Anonymous]

I currently am hosting an au pair from Poland and she's a very hard worker and is warm and friendly. She is tidy, is amazing clean and does cleaning and work she doesn't have to. I would have no doubt to hire another.

Previously, I have hosted from Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Italy and South Africa. I would *not* rehire an Italian or South African, for many reasons.

Of the rest, they were from OK to GREAT with cleaning and proactiveness. I have had the gamut of friendliness and playfulness, but only one German was a dud. The others have been well loved by my kids.

I think it is personality mostly. You canNOT generalize a whole country/culture by one or two or ten.

[Anonymous]

We’ve hosted 4 French au pairs and they have all been excellent. Our current ap is extremely neat and cleans up and keeps the kids extremely organized. I think you’re generalizing a lot.

[Anonymous]

Mexico.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve hosted 4 French au pairs and they have all been excellent. Our current ap is extremely neat and cleans up and keeps the kids extremely organized. I think you’re generalizing a lot.

+1

I'm always surprised to see the generalizations HPs make about APs based on their nationality. Can you imagine doing that with folks from the US? Someone saying that we're all lazy, fat, ignorant, whatever...
There may be trends in a country but each AP is different and shouldn't be counted out because of where they were born. I've had 2 APs from Argentina who were night and day from each other is so many ways, same with my 4 APs from Colombia.

[Anonymous]

Agree that you can't boil this down to nationality. I also had a Thai au pair, and it's funny because friends who also had a Thai au pair previously told me how great the household help was because "it's their culture." You can guess where this is going. My Thai au pair was one of the messiest I've hosted. Now I liked her--she was sweet and meant well, but I had wished those friends had not made that comment to me because she definitely did not then meet my expectation. And I am mainly talking about her cleaning up after herself. She liked to cook Thai food for herself during the day (great!), and she'd do her dishes but leave the stove a grease-splattered mess. She's drop her coat wherever, leave her wallet on the sofa. . .

So yeah, just try to discern a sense of tidy-ness and experience keeping a house clean, among other qualities you are looking for.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to generalize but I've found the Mexican and Colombian Au Pairs to be super loving with children and willing to help around the house.
I realized many of them lived with a child (niece, etc) so were very used to all of the things that come with childcare.

[Anonymous]

We liked our two Colombian APs.

Just look cloesely at driving experience.
Also had Brazil, Germany, France and South Africa. All comes down to the person.

[Anonymous]

2 Brazilian and 1 French. We have visited them in their countries and welcomed us as family. We treated them as family when they were with us.

[Anonymous]

We have two girls who ranged from infancy to young teens over the 12 years we had APs. There was a dedicated car available to them but no other special perks and they mostly worked long hours.

We had good to great experiences with Germans (5); English (2); Austrians (1); Polish (1); one fair experience (kids liked her, I did not, but stuck out the year) with an Austrian; three poor experiences with one Austrian, one French, one Norwegian. Poor means they either were homesick and left early or had to be sent home. There was also one English AP who spent the weekend and left on Monday; I don't count her. The conclusion we have drawn is that you really have to evaluate the individual, not country, and not be too picky about non-essentials. Our essentials were reliability and safety (children, house, car, and AP).

There were some that needed to be coached or reminded about doing the kids' laundry or keeping things neat, but I was okay with that.
Even in the worst cases, housekeeping issues never arose to the level of seeking a rematch. The girls that got sent home were moping about boyfriends that they lied about on their applications and never got connected here with any friends to do things with. Some of these also lied about smoking on their applications, but it was the lack of enthusiasm and lack of friends network that caused them to have to leave after 3 months, 4 months, and 6 weeks, respectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not Sweden.

Why not, PP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous I think it is personality mostly. You canNOT generalize a whole country/culture by one or two or ten. [/quote wrote:

That's mostly true but there are certain cultural aspects. For example some countries it's much harder to get a drivers license than others so au pairs from those countries have a better chance of being good drivers. Or we've found the french value a pretty firm sense of discipline in their school systems so our french au pairs have been pretty good and getting our kids to respect them pretty quickly.