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[quote=Anonymous]I don't honestly know the answer to this question... but I will offer what I think is an explanation.

We hear, all the time, on this board about the terrible things that various APs have (supposedly) done.  I've heard allegations from HFs about APs "lying" "stealing food" "leaving a 2 year old unattended" "leaving a 12 year old unattended" "wrecking cars" etc. etc. etc.

I have no doubt that some of those things are true -- I also have no doubt that some of those things are really not true -- or alternatively ignore the role that the HF played in the mishap by not communicating well.  Since the vast majority of these things are undocumented... and the Agency frequently gets a different story from the AP ("I didn't lie, I misunderstood my hostmom's question because my English is not so good," "Yes, I left the 2 year old in front of the TV for 30 seconds while I went to the bathroom" "I didn't leave the 12 year old "unattended" -- but he's 12, and he didn't seem to want me hovering over him so I went a read a book in the living room while he did his homework."  "I didn't "wreck" the car, some idiot ran a red light and plowed into me.")

What's fair in that situation?  Some host parents here seem to think that the agency should take their statement as the Gospel truth, and I just don't agree with that.  If you have a video showing your au pair kicking your 3 year old, then SHOW IT TO THE AGENCY.  But in most cases, the Agency will take what the HF says with a handful of salt-- as they should.  Some people are crazy when it comes to their kids.  I had a mother accuse me at a playground of purposefully tripping her child... What???... Your kid ran behind me and tripped over my leg, I never even saw her coming.  I don't think its unreasonable for the Agencies to get both sides of the story and -- lacking strong evidence to the contrary -- give someone a second chance.

I rematched from two au pairs who were arguably "dangerous".  The first was a clueless but nice young woman who had her head in the clouds and/or on her iPhone.  She was not watching my extremely active 3 year old with the care that he needed.  We talked about it, but I just wasn't convinced that she "got" it.  We sent her into rematch.  Was she really dangerous or incapable of being a decent au pair for another family?  No.  I have 3 kids.  I recommended to our LCC that she might do OK with a single child, especially a slightly older child who wasn't going to get into so much trouble.  She rematched with another family with a single 7 year old girl.  I think it worked out just fine and she had a successful year.

The second was a horrendous driver.  Lovely girl, but frightening behind the wheel.  On day 2, I flagged this for the LCC, and we got her some driving lessons, and continued to drive with her all the time.  By day 6 I had had enough and we triggered rematch, and told her she could not drive the kids anywhere.  (On day 8, she scraped a jersey wall with our "au pair car" with no one else in the car, and I told her she could not drive our cars at all).  Through all of this, the AP (respectfully) maintained that she could drive -- that in fact, she was a good driver.  It may indeed be possible that she had been driving without an accident in her home country for a year.  I talked at length with the LCC about this -- trying to be fair to her, recognizing that everyone's driving standards are a bit different, and also not wanting to put her or her new HF at risk.  After much discussion, the LCC (who has known me for 7 years) listed her as a "non-driver" for rematch.  She didn't find a family after 6 weeks, and was sent home.

I say all of this to provide some perspective.  APs frequently pay a lot of money to do this program.  The Agency owes a duty of fairness to the AP as well.  These are young people.  Sometimes they make a really terrible mistake with HF#1 -- because they simply don't know any better -- and once they learn the hard lesson, they actually do just fine.

If you simply can't tolerate the uncertainty of having young women with limited childcare experience and a minimal screening process come care for your kids, you're probably in the wrong program.

For me, I've always regarded the AP program as "buyer beware".  It's worked for me.  We've had some great au pairs, and I'm not sure I'd have any better success rate with nannys.  The nice thing about nannys is, when you get a good one, you keep her for years.  With APs, you can't.[/quote]

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