Au pairs. Think I want one but am scared. Please give me the lowdown. Thanks ;-)

[Fillyjonk]

(Installement 2 million of Filly's Brilliant Career ;-) I will get there. Thanks to all those who have helped so much already, it really is helping!)

Ok I need to work out if I can cope with having an au pair in my house

Would be looking at up to 24 hours childcare work a week, I think. Is that too much? Wouldn't expect anything else really. It would be picking kids up from Steiner kindergarten, entertaining them in a wholesome way for a few hours (will plan this myself if need be) then dp or me will return and s/he is free to go and play bad music.

Do they always live in? Always? I have a small, shabby house and like to have at least one screaming argument with my dp a week, will this be a problem?

How much is a fair wage? I've seen a few sites with what appear to be very nice fun young women but no suggested pay. I don't want to offer the minimum, I want someone good.

What is this "au pair plus" thing?

I know they are coming here to learn English. But it would be important to me that my kids learnt about them and their culture. Am assumung this wouldn't be a problem?

Should I assume I would have a teenager in the house and plan accordingly?

Oh and how long to sort it all out?

My initial strategy was a UK student but uni jobshop won't place them in private homes. A shame as I did this sort of thing as a student and enjoyed it, but hey.

Gulp.

gulp?

oh crap why?

God, no, don't worry. It's just my cowardly nature. I'm a stay-at-home softy and anyway I could never be tidy enough to have anybody living in. Sorry, it was an instinctive gulp. Didn't mean to worry you

its being tidy that concerns me

my kids are currently absailing up a pile of cushions from all over the house.

They have left a trail of crumbs up said mountain for the birds

oh and they ahave turned out all the toyboxes and are digging for treasure in them.

I fear my house may be too scary for a delicate young girl

Our house is too scary for me.

Hello Fillyjonk,
Au pairs don't always live in but if they don't they are given the use of an apartment by their employers.
The hours you are proposing are very reasonable, as is the work.
You absolutely would have a teenager living with you- and usually one who knows very little about childcare. You would have to educate him/her about this in great detail, train them, almost, never under-estimating what they might not know. This can be frustrating and really hard work.
Afraid I don't know about the au pair plus thing.
As for screaming arguments- I saw a few, and it gave me a very realistic idea of marriage before I went in for it!

And anyway, an au pair can be expected to help with cleaning and tidying!

yes its the having a teenager living with me that worries me.

also leaving my kids in the care of said tenager

is there nothing in between? no older au pairs?

(tick-what even with those lovely doors? )

I have a 26 year old au pair. She is great. Just before christmas I had to sack a 19 year old au pair. She was dangerous, lazy and rude. I didn't need another child in my house. (I'm not sure how much of this was down to her age or her personality) You probably won't get anyone with experience, but it is essential to find someone with common sense ime.

I haven't used my au pairs for proper childcare, but i do need them to take to and from school, so I need to trust them. It is the luck of the draw ime.

Fillyjonk

Some useful information here . If you hover over the 'useful information' bit you'll see that there are more sections, including one on costs that explains about aupair and aupair plus. I understand that £96 is the most you can pay an aupair before the arrangement becomes subject to income tax, NICs etc. Looking through the selection of aupairs here, they are certainly not all teenagers.

I've been thinking that we'll probably hire an aupair couple this summer, so I've being doing some research!

BTW: Love the name Fillyjonk - she gets flattened in our Moomintroll book!

I have had a couple of aupairs, about 7 years ago. They were both just to pick up son from school and look after him until I got home (DH working away, me working in recruitment so some late nights).

The first was a NIGHTMARE. She would feed him strange things (pepper sandwiches ), go out and not come back until the next morning, and ran up a £450 phone bill by calling mobiles, the Ukrain, Canada, Germany.... I found out that she was planning to do a flit, and replaced her. (The agency then placed her with another family from where she DID do a flit on a Sunday night, overnight, leaving them with no childcare.

The next was wonderful, only 19, italian. She tidied my house (even washing down paintwork that I hadn't bothered with for about 5 years ). DH and I don't relly row because we can't be bothered, but she and her BF used to have some very entertaining ones (her BF was a student in a nearby city and I had no problem with him visiting). Her cooking was fab too, though it wasn't a requirement for her to cook, she would about once a week.

Apart from the anecdotes above, the biggest piece of advice I would have is to set down exactly what is and isn't required, both in childcare, but also behaviour.

Sorry for long post.

Currently on au pair number three...first oone was great at housework and OK with kids but very dark and moody didn't drive and used loads of washing powder. SEcond was the best, housework, kids, homework, even stopped my dh being a slob I used to be able to get into my hall instead of the uusal climb through school bags, bike helmets shoes...she took the kids out and then went out herself and got knocked up....but she was fantastic with the kids
number three is about to get fired...came home at 6pm the other night, she was in the house and kids were out playing, she seemed to be unaware it was very dark and my kids are 6 and 8....Oh and we never have any toilet paper
My advice choose very carefully

oh fecking hell

am feeling unconfident now

I could have written your post filly! (though I am thinking about a few years ahead really)
The thing that worries me is that experience is very mixed, and how on earth do you 'choose carefully' when you can't meet them beforehand? Idon't really trust myself to make a good choice!

It does depend how old your children are. As DS was 9 at the time he really could have told me if anything was wrong (Pepper sandwiches!). I was lucky that the agency deal I had was that they provide me with as many replacements as I needed for 2 years, for a one off fee...

Fillyjonk

If you look at the Aupair website I forwarded to you, quite a lot of those aupairs are already in the UK. So you could get to meet and interview them before you recruited them.

I couldn't access that bit w/o registering (which I'm not ready to do) Issy-thanks for that. I knew there were some in the UK but not if there were many, IYSWIM

the site generally WAS very reassuring, I must say. have bookmarked.