Ever had a male au pair?

[Magnolia36]

Hello, we had a nanny (female) for 5 years and it was great. Now considering an au pair as the children are older: dd is almost 11 and ds is almost 9. As my dd is a real tomboy and both kids are sports mad am thinking of a guy. I’ve seen the profile of a great kid (21), Recommended through an agency, but wanted to know if others had had a positive experience with a male au pair...

yes, we had a young turkish man. he lived out though as we don't have the room here. He collected ds from school, looked after him and played games etc, cooked dinner and did some very light housework. It worked really well for us.

All bar two of our au pairs have been male. How well they worked out was more to do with how sporty they were, one of the women was very sporty and the DC loved her but they didn't like the other woman so much. Same with the men, the sporty, extrovert ones were much better than the quieter, more serious ones. I'm trying to count them in my head, I think we had six male au pairs.

I don't know if it's just coincidence but the ones who became part of the family were men (one now works for DH so the DC see a lot of him and he has taken DS to visit his family in Spain, another works in this city and drops by occasionally, the guy we had last summer is coming back again this summer even though the DC are bigger now and don't really need an au pair).

We had several male au pairs. Quality varied as with anyone; but as we have 2 boys they tended to find more in common with our male au pairs. We had a great lad from France who helped them build secret dens in the garden. Sad when he left.

Yes, we've had a male AP, a bit older, had his own life when we didn't need him. Was good with the kids and reliable, I would have a male au pair again.

When I worked at summer camp one of the male counselors stayed on as manny to the directors kids. He was the best help theyd ever had.

Yup he was great. I'd say sportier the better in general. He played swords, made cardboard shields, archery etc. DSS loved it.

Lots of au pairs, one bro pair: awesome dude, kids loved him, endless energy and a fab addition to our home.

We're seeing him this summer in Anfield!

Also it'll make your life much easier when looking on au pair world, where most of the candidates are male!

We had one male au pair. He was amazing. Really really good with the kids and a nice person.

He did eat alot though!

Yes, I was going to say, male au pairs do eat a lot more , so be prepared to add to the budget for that. They're less shy of asking for what they want food-wise which is fine by me as I have sometimes worried about whether our female aps are eating enough when they insist they don't need anything, but hardly seem to touch anything of ours, which they're welcome to!

He was the easiest to talk to about any problems though. Just " can you do it this way / not that way" etc and that was that. He was pretty good at accepting that I couldn't support and all-protein diet for a gym bunny and would buy his own top up stuff if he didn't like what was on offer (he liked to eat whole packets of smoked salmon at a sitting, which I couldn't stretch to!)

Five male aupairs. Mainly Spanish/South American origin. All varied but overall loved loved them (especially 3 out of 5) and really good for my growing sons.