Male APs

[romina]

I know the "should I consider a boy" topic comes up fairly often and as we've just got our first wanted to share my thoughts!
We've had 7 APs from the brilliant to the dreadful, over 7 years and this is our first male. I know it all depends on the individual, but in a word - awesome!
No moodiness, very helpful (including carrying things, fixing things), proactive, tidy, a great cleaner and very active. Sees it as a job (is older and has worked), professional attitude, thinks ahead, takes DS (9) on their bikes, lots of sport and healthy eating without fads.

I do have to be a bit more careful about wandering round in a towel, and things like that (to prevent my own embarrassment!) but on balance I'd 100% recommend. Even my husband thinks he's the best AP we've ever had and he was very anti...

Just my opinion obviously, but I was so disillusioned I felt like giving up on having an AP at all (which would mean giving up work after just spending years training!)

There are loads of Spanish chaps who are qualified teachers and looking to AP given the horrendous unemployment there - but not many takers - so you can be super selective (we had almost 300 applications)...

Worth thinking about? Hope it helps

I've pretty much given up on aupairs, can't be doing with the stress of it, just can't seem to get it right. I'd really be willing to give a male ap a go but DH said no. How did you convince your DH op ??

I basically just kept explaining that he'd be likely to be more sporty (DS very sporty), no "personal care" now needed as he's 9, DS also wanted to try a boy, and I went for the whole role model thing.
When the applications came in it was a matter of showing the sheer quality.... Qualified and experienced junior school teacher, specialist in PE, very sporty, lived on own many years, worked part time as a cleaner before, prepared to take a sabbatical year to do this so very committed.... Just couldn't really be compared with a babysitter only experience, no qualifications, never lived away 19 year old girl!

It did take several years though :-)

We've had great experiences with male au pairs too. We've had two female and are on our second male. They've all been good, but one of the women wasn't really sporty enough, she would play football for a bit but her heart wasn't in it. DS needs a lot of physical activity or he gets very unruly, and our current au pair has the stamina to run DS to a standstill, and he's sports-mad enough to talk about football with DS for ages (my brain goes melty within 5 mins of football talk). DD likes him a lot too, and he seems happy enough to be her personal factotum, I'm in the background saying "Say 'please'!" while he's already trotting off to fetch her a tasty tidbit.

All of our au pairs have been easy to live with, very unobtrusive, but there has definitely been a bit of a 'Lynx-effect' with the men. For about 15 mins following their shower the whole house smells of body spray. . It's the only negative that I've noticed of male vs female though, and it's just liveable with.

I'm going back to work in January. Just come across this message, and really quite fascinated by the whole male AP thing. After reading this, I may well consider it, but my two youngest children will be 18mnths and 6mnths in January. Do you guys think a male AP is just as capable at looking after two very young children/babies as a female AP? Would love to know your thoughts!!! :-)

KIS5, absolutely not, regardless of male or female. You need a nanny for babies and todlers

I've had a male AP before and my DH was not keen. Unfortunately my male AP had no rapport with my dc, particularly with my dds. However he did turn out to be exceptionally good at doing the household chores, tidying up and the odd bit of ironing. Our male AP was less sociable than our female APs. Much to my Dh's disappointment our male AP had no interest in football either.

We didn't continue with him in the end, not because he was a male, but because the relationship with my dc was non-existent, and as I have a cleaner I didn't need his housekeeping skills.

I'd be willing to try another male, but many of the male applications I receive have no babysitting experience and tend to be various sports instructors, scout leader etc. My male AP had this background but it seemed that he struggled without having organised activities and just 2 dc of different ages to contend with.

KIS5 - I would only ever use APs for before /after school care. The majority of APs just don't have the experience of a qualified nanny, childminder or nursery staff.

I wouldn't be using an AP of either sex for babies that tiny. A male nanny on the other hand I would strongly consider.

It's interesting - I think that is they have been, for example, a teacher, they are used to planning activities - I also would worry more about someone who had lots of experience with kids, but only through being told what to do with them! Babysitting experience is a funny one - sometimes it means sitting downstairs whilst kids in bed - or it can be real childcare and perfect preparation for being an au pair!

But I agree, if the connection isn't there there's not much that can be done about it and its never going to work well - our worst experiences have been with those who are just not "connected" into the family...

Although an AP is cheap, as the others have said, they shouldn't be in sole charge of very little ones - they aren't qualified or experienced enough with babies - I know how stressful it is even when I loved DS as his mum and wouldn't inflict that incessant crying on anyone who didn't know it was coming/had chosen it as a career, rather than an English-learning vehicle - sorry!

ObtuseAngel - you made me laugh - the Lynx effect! Recognise that very well!

I've given up on my selection process. Of the many au pairs I've had over the years, it's been the emergency ones (hired when the ones I'd carefully selected turned out to be lying cheats) who were the best. And each time, I hired them as a stop gap and thanked my lucky stars for them!

We are on our 2nd male AP and it s going well. Boys are 7 and 9 and this time we asked for their views, and another boy it was. The sport s important and I do think they are less complicated than girls. Highly recommend it. DH has no issues with it (nor did I when we had girls) and the only problem is that I hate football...and the guys don't!