Anonymous wrote:My au pair left our family (and the program) without notice on 12/26 - 14 hours before she was supposed to start work - after she got married and applied to change her visa status. I am not in the DC-area but in MA.

This scenario has caused me to SERIOUSLY question the au pair program in general, especially after I read the "agreement" I signed with my agency with a new lens and see that there are basically no protections for the host families. The au pair is protected at all costs, but the host family is incented only to remain with the program and to continue matching with au pairs.

A scenario like mine opens up a lot of grey areas between the host family, the au pair, and the agency and makes it hard to discern who is responsible for what. Because of that, the program make no sense and, in my opinion, puts children at risk. I understand now, after my own experience and what I'm reading online, that to many au pairs, it is simply an easy way to get into the country, and there are just no protections for the host families (primarily THE CHILDREN) that are sacrificed for the au pairs desire to immigrate. I would gladly participate if there were a way to take significant action against the agencies.

I am so sorry about this, how awful! So she got married in secret?

If you really wanted to be vengeful you can report that she violated her J1 visa by getting married

My au pair left our family (and the program) without notice on 12/26 - 14 hours before she was supposed to start work - after she got married and applied to change her visa status. I am not in the DC-area but in MA.

This scenario has caused me to SERIOUSLY question the au pair program in general, especially after I read the "agreement" I signed with my agency with a new lens and see that there are basically no protections for the host families. The au pair is protected at all costs, but the host family is incented only to remain with the program and to continue matching with au pairs.

A scenario like mine opens up a lot of grey areas between the host family, the au pair, and the agency and makes it hard to discern who is responsible for what. Because of that, the program make no sense and, in my opinion, puts children at risk. I understand now, after my own experience and what I'm reading online, that to many au pairs, it is simply an easy way to get into the country, and there are just no protections for the host families (primarily THE CHILDREN) that are sacrificed for the au pairs desire to immigrate. I would gladly participate if there were a way to take significant action against the agencies.

Anonymous wrote:We are in dispute with CC also. Our au pair arrived with SEVERE debilitating anxiety and was a potential risk to our children every time she got overwhelmed. She definitely was not screened as she admitted to us there was a history of mental illness in her family and when she ultimately decided to go home after we told her we needed to go to rematch, the agency was trying to push her to stay in the program even with her mental health issues!!

Our AP reported no MH issues on her application. Once she arrived she verbally told us she was seeing a counselor and ultimately left early b/c of depression. So, yeah.

We are in dispute with CC also. Our au pair arrived with SEVERE debilitating anxiety and was a potential risk to our children every time she got overwhelmed. She definitely was not screened as she admitted to us there was a history of mental illness in her family and when she ultimately decided to go home after we told her we needed to go to rematch, the agency was trying to push her to stay in the program even with her mental health issues!!

I believe the new policies the federal government is floating that will pay aupairs $18/hr and only allow host families to deduct $10/day for food will greatly discourage families from hosting.
I cannot think of a reason why I would host an aupair and pay $18/hr while providing car access, cellphone and gym memberships on top of it. It's so much more expensive than daycare at that point. The only reason why we tolerated someone living in our home and the extra mental 'load' of hosting was because financially, it was about the same or less than daycare.
I assume the extremely wealthy families may still host but the program will shrink to where it's simply not profitable for some agencies to continue the programs as they are now.
I think the program needs an overhaul. I wouldn't have started with wage. I would have started with capping agency/company fees. Otherwise, you have priced out the vast majority of families.
It's one of the only visas for unskilled young workers and I can imagine dropping from 20,000 visas to 1000 a year will make it difficult for applicants to get an aupair visa.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim. I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program? Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair? Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?

Oh that is MUCH better that a corporation gets $10,000 while the caretakers themselves make less than minimum wage. Everyone understands the economics here and still thinks that these women are being exploited. If you can't afford live in care at a livable wage then that is fine but don't hide behind claiming that others don't understand why someone wants to pay low wages.

We may have to agree to disagree, because I think you've missed my point. Your point is that the au pairs "make less than minimum wage." My point is that you cannot calculate an au pair's "minimum wage" simply by dividing $200 by 45. The au pair program is not set up as an hourly employee paying a wage.

Nevertheless, if you are going to attempt to calculate the au pair's wage, you also must include the things that are paid on the au pair's behalf, for her benefit. Such as food, housing, health insurance, car insurance, cell phone plan, etc.

I understand why you want to disregard these line items - it undercuts your argument that au pairs make under minimum wage. Because once you add that stuff in, au pairs likely do make above minimum wage. Do you have a response? (Something other than your comment that I "can't afford live in care at a livable wage").

You say that parents are getting "free childcare," yet parents can literally look at their bank account and easily calculate how much their au pair has cost them. If those costs aren't relevant to a minimum wage argument, how do you account for them? Because you say "everyone understands the economics," yet you haven't acknowledged these costs at all.

I think what you and I CAN agree on, is that the program should be dismantled. Young women wanting to caregive should be provided a living wage, and support themselves on the wages.

But dismantling the program would shut down these girls’ ability to get into the US! Let’s be real, that’s the point for them, which would be fine if they also weren’t trying to fleece host families. Can you imagine the hours they’d have to work and how far out they’d have to live to earn a ‘living’ wage with that skill set?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim. I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program? Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair? Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?

Oh that is MUCH better that a corporation gets $10,000 while the caretakers themselves make less than minimum wage. Everyone understands the economics here and still thinks that these women are being exploited. If you can't afford live in care at a livable wage then that is fine but don't hide behind claiming that others don't understand why someone wants to pay low wages.

We may have to agree to disagree, because I think you've missed my point. Your point is that the au pairs "make less than minimum wage." My point is that you cannot calculate an au pair's "minimum wage" simply by dividing $200 by 45. The au pair program is not set up as an hourly employee paying a wage.

Nevertheless, if you are going to attempt to calculate the au pair's wage, you also must include the things that are paid on the au pair's behalf, for her benefit. Such as food, housing, health insurance, car insurance, cell phone plan, etc.

I understand why you want to disregard these line items - it undercuts your argument that au pairs make under minimum wage. Because once you add that stuff in, au pairs likely do make above minimum wage. Do you have a response? (Something other than your comment that I "can't afford live in care at a livable wage").

You say that parents are getting "free childcare," yet parents can literally look at their bank account and easily calculate how much their au pair has cost them. If those costs aren't relevant to a minimum wage argument, how do you account for them? Because you say "everyone understands the economics," yet you haven't acknowledged these costs at all.

I think what you and I CAN agree on, is that the program should be dismantled. Young women wanting to caregive should be provided a living wage, and support themselves on the wages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim. I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program? Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair? Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?

Oh that is MUCH better that a corporation gets $10,000 while the caretakers themselves make less than minimum wage. Everyone understands the economics here and still thinks that these women are being exploited. If you can't afford live in care at a livable wage then that is fine but don't hide behind claiming that others don't understand why someone wants to pay low wages.

You are 100% ignorant. Most host families pay much more than minimum wage into the program. What I've paid into the program is closer to $50K (not in DC area anymore and not an extremely HCOL area either) + room.
Agency fees are $12K a year. Stipend is $12K a year. Free phone. Free housing. Free food. Free vacations - yes I've bought her plane tickets and hotel stays for separate vacations. Disney tickets for her off days. Insurance ($2400 at least a year). Free car use. Free gas for local driving. Threw her a birthday party. Cash bonuses. Reimbursements for all outings (like lunch or ice cream after playing at the playground). $$ for education credits.

The value of her room alone is minimum $1200/month, and yeah I wouldn't mind getting that back. I could use that room. If I rented it (low impact to us since it's ensuite, big, and has a separate entrace), we would easily get $1200/month for it. For us to upgrade to a house with one extra bedroom is at least $500K in purchase price.

If we actually paid au pairs minimum wage which is what they would get given their experience and age, and they are responsible for their own housing and food, they would have $0 or less than $0 spending money left over for fun and travel. I'm sure there are some bad families that actually try to exploit au pairs, but au pairs on a whole are certainly not exploited and have freedom to rematch to a different family or go home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim. I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program? Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair? Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?

Oh that is MUCH better that a corporation gets $10,000 while the caretakers themselves make less than minimum wage. Everyone understands the economics here and still thinks that these women are being exploited. If you can't afford live in care at a livable wage then that is fine but don't hide behind claiming that others don't understand why someone wants to pay low wages.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim. I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program? Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair? Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?

Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:people are so naive in the US. Young women coming from poor countries will tell you anything to get out of their current circumstances. It is totally worth for them. The ultimate goal is to get settled here through marriage, and many do get married here. It is the easiest, cheapest form of immigration. I do not blame them! Families get what they pay for, and this is why nannies are thriving, with smarter families who do not even consider an au pair, or exploiting other people which is what using au pairs is.

Families abuse APs, this is well known, hosts treat them as slaves and pay them about $200 weekly. Families would say they provide food(cheap and frozen meals), boarding(guest room). AP program should shut down, terrible management agencies that sell a bill of goods to hosts and candidates.

Whether it’s immigration fraud or exploitation of poor foreigners, shutting it down is still the right answer.

To the OP, did you pursue the law suit? What was the outcome. I have in writing from our last au pair that no one called his references so I know they aren't doing the "Screening" and they are misrepresenting the information in applications. However, they claim it's the family's job to screen through interviews, etc. Is it legal to share information with us stating that it has been screened, and then put a clause in a contract saying final decision lies with the family?

Thanks for any advice.

Anonymous wrote:*that said, I agree the program should be disbanded. There’s no reason for a program where the applicants feel like they are “slaves” and the host families feel the Au pairs are barely pulling their weight.

We really wanted the au pair program to work for us—the cultural exchange element was exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately the only candidate we ever found who would match with us and didn’t fake her references was rejected by the State Department for not speaking English. Talked with way too many severely problematic candidates before that rejection, and that was the final straw for us. With my son excluded from daycare for the second week in a row for a non-illness, I desperately want the au pair program to be what they advertised it as, but agree—it should probably end.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am sorry you have a disabled child but I find it incomprehensible you would use this program to find child care. You know more than anyone how hard it is. You think a young woman from another country can deal? I don’t care what they told you.

This was entirely predictable.

Read the posts and thought Same!

Why in the world would you think that a young person here for a paid vacation would work out managing a difficult child when most barely manage the typical child?

THIS 100%
You must find a trained caregiver for your disabled child; APs are not qualified for it.

I have a now young adult with autism and he was a holy handful back in the years when an au pair would have been appropriate to our care needs. I don't want to lay it on a fellow SN family, but for others considering the same. You MUST have someone experienced with SN or else it will be a disaster. No way around it.