Also I have to say that your comment about living wage is a bit disingenuous. You’re not paying her for 40 hours a week so this wouldn’t be a living wage even if you agreed with the idea that 12 dollars is a living wage.

I agree.m that’s an unreasonable ask. 2 trips that long a month with your car. Maybe one.

In terms of being treated like family, after college I lived with my parents and shared a car with my mom and yes, if I wanted to see my Bf (now husband) 3 hours’ drive away for a weekend I cleared it with my parents in advance and paid for the gas. I typically drove to him once every 5-6 weeks. Now if we fly across country (non covid times) to visit my parents and want to borrow a car we have to plan carefully. Typically we rent.

Does it even matter whether the au pair is driving on the highway or not if they're prone to dumb but common accidents like running into your other car, the mailbox, the basketball stand, etc.? The more extreme examples of this that I've heard of involve ignoring all signs and driving into plazas where no cars are allowed (think farmers market type situation) and even running over pedestrians.

Bottom line: If you're trying to parse out highway versus non highway driving... you either trust your au pair can drive or your refuse to let them drive your cars/insure them.

Whether you allow your au pair to put 200 miles on YOUR car every weekend driving to her boyfriend's and your family's social distancing policy are separate issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

You would not let a college age young adult drive 2 hours? Really? Good luck.

No, I would not let my 18 year old drive 2 hours when they have limited driving experience and an Au Pair has less.

An Au pair has less driving experience than an 18 yo? When they have learned to drive manual cars for years for the most part and some of them drive in countries where I wouldn’t dare drive myself? You might want to review the APs you pick if you entrust an AP with less Experience than an 18yo to drive your kids around. You either know how to drive or you don’t. Driving 2 hours doesn’t suddenly require more skills than driving 20 minutes. If anything highway driving is much easier than city or suburb driving.

Highway driving is also more dangerous. 20 minutes in city or suburb driving may only equate to 2 miles; at best it would be roughly 8-10 miles. 2 hours of highway driving (depending on location) could be 150 miles. The likelihood for a severe crash goes up with speed and distance, regardless of driving ability.

Highway crashes are more deadly due to speed but aren’t more dangerous. In fact , it is well known that most accidents happen at low-speed, usually at intersections or other right-of way/ traffic light situations and more often than not on people’s daily commutes due to people driving on « auto-pilot» on their usual routes and not paying as much attention as they should.

On the highway you can literally drive 150 miles in a straight line. It’s boring, but it’s much more predictable than city driving.
I have never been in near-crash on the highway, definitely had a few close ones while city driving due to people backing up with looking, people driving through traffic lights, turning without looking, changing lanes last minutes and without blinkers on.

I bet you that if we ask all the host moms whose APs have had a car crash with their HF’s car during their year 99% will say it was at low-speed in minor incidents usually Intersections and or when backing up/parking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

You would not let a college age young adult drive 2 hours? Really? Good luck.

No, I would not let my 18 year old drive 2 hours when they have limited driving experience and an Au Pair has less.

An Au pair has less driving experience than an 18 yo? When they have learned to drive manual cars for years for the most part and some of them drive in countries where I wouldn’t dare drive myself? You might want to review the APs you pick if you entrust an AP with less Experience than an 18yo to drive your kids around. You either know how to drive or you don’t. Driving 2 hours doesn’t suddenly require more skills than driving 20 minutes. If anything highway driving is much easier than city or suburb driving.

Highway driving is also more dangerous. 20 minutes in city or suburb driving may only equate to 2 miles; at best it would be roughly 8-10 miles. 2 hours of highway driving (depending on location) could be 150 miles. The likelihood for a severe crash goes up with speed and distance, regardless of driving ability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

You would not let a college age young adult drive 2 hours? Really? Good luck.

No, I would not let my 18 year old drive 2 hours when they have limited driving experience and an Au Pair has less.

An Au pair has less driving experience than an 18 yo? When they have learned to drive manual cars for years for the most part and some of them drive in countries where I wouldn’t dare drive myself? You might want to review the APs you pick if you entrust an AP with less Experience than an 18yo to drive your kids around. You either know how to drive or you don’t. Driving 2 hours doesn’t suddenly require more skills than driving 20 minutes. If anything highway driving is much easier than city or suburb driving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

You would not let a college age young adult drive 2 hours? Really? Good luck.

No, I would not let my 18 year old drive 2 hours when they have limited driving experience and an Au Pair has less.

No way would my AP take my car so far. Local errands only.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

I think the word give is the decider. I wasn’t “given” a car, nor was any teen or early 20s person I know. We all earned the money and bought them ourselves (perhaps with a parent looking over our shoulder to ask questions of us, so we’d learn what to ask the seller and what to check on the car).

Disappearing for two whole weekends every month would also not fly for some families.

This is one of many ways that comparing an AP to a family’s own grown child doesn’t make sense. There’s no way for an AP to earn enough and buy their own car, nor are they able to move out if the rules gradually seem too restrictive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Providing access to transportation is part of the program. Treating them like a part of the family is the spirit of the program.

Families are also impacted by covid, but I fail to see how the family is impacted negatively in the au pair relationship. Au pairs are disproportionally impacted - more childcare responsibilities, family home all the time, less social and travel options - the whole reason, along with improving English, that they come to the us - not just for the immeasurable joys of minimum wage babysitting.

If anything covid makes au pairs even MORE valuable to families, since child care is needed more now than ever, is in short supply, and is an added risk. Day care is super risky, nannies are hard to find and at least double the cost. Live-in child care is the lowest risk care option right now.

Or keep looking at it as a transaction and keep trying to provide the absolute bare minimum you have to by law.

Except many parents would not give their 18-20 year olds a car to drive a few hundred miles every other weekend, especially in COVID. The family has to pay gas, insurance and maintenance. AP is asking too much and that's not reasonable.

You would not let a college age young adult drive 2 hours? Really? Good luck.