Possible au pair , does country of origin matter?

[kittywise]

I've got a potential au pair coming to see us at the weekend. We have been in email contact for a few days.
However dp is nervous because she is Tunisian but French-born and has lived in Switzerland. He is worried because she is African and this is absolutely NOT to do with race but with culture. He believes that Africans are hard on their children, sweeping generalisation I know, but I have to respect his feelings here.

The only Africans I have ever known have been from the west coast.

Anyway has anyone had experience of North African au pairs? Has dp cause to be a bit anxious?

Thanks for advice

No.

Well, no more concerned than you should be about anyone who'll be looking after your children.

Be prepared for the storm.

Africa is a big continent. Even North Africa is pretty big. I think if you want to try to guage cutural trends when you consider whether this girl will fit into your home (and this is not a racist practise -- if she is going to live in your home I think it is worthwhile to consider any cultural differences you are likely to have), you should actually be looking at French Tunisians and their home life.

Not sure where to find this, though.

surely that is just laughable i mean a uk au pair going to france for example

french family says oh uk families have strong discipline or no discipline or are all lager louts or toffs or whatever it is just nonsense surely

its like when you go to the us and say you are from england and the americans say do you know neville carter he is my cousin

For example, this bit is from Wikipedia, and I for one would not be interested in bringing these attitudes into my home. This doesn't mean I'd rule her out, but I would ask some questions about her views on discipline and appropriate activities for boys vs. girls. And I would ask her what her aspirations for herself are. My initial thought is that she might be coming to the UK because she does not subscribe to this view from Wikipedia:

Men and women have there own set of standards in the Tunisian culture. Men are responsible for making their families income. Women are then left to take care of their agricultural needs such as maintaining and preserving fruits and vegetables, spinning and weaving wool, harvesting wheat into couscous, and other means of agriculture. While the push for woman to get an education and employment out of the home has became greater in the Tunisian culture woman still endure a lot of the at home stress. The women that do make it out of the home and into the workplace are still dealing with much lower wages then men. Many men also resent these women because of their culture?s beliefs. Tunisian men believe that women are meant to be at home and out of the public eye.

She wants to have lots of children!

She has sent me her cv which has involved lots of varying jobs and she has been studying in London. See the thing is I don't want to drag her down from London for no reason.

I even sent her the famous Au pair questionnaire which she mostly answered.

God it's so difficult.

Last week a Namibian girl came to see us she seemed ok, but when I phoned a previous employer they said she had been ok apart from the fact that she had refused to clean the bathroom of a Somali child living in the house ( they wee foster parents) as she might get an illness from him .

What do you mean she answered most of the questions? If when I am interviewing someone does not answer EVER question to my satisfaction, I ask her again to complete the questions she has not answered.

Oh good grief, I just remembered you have six children. So her aspiration to have lots of children will fit right in then.

You are interviewing a person, not a racial stereotype. You would obviously agree that it would be insane to reject an Irish person because they were going to be thick or a Scottish person because they were going to make your children share one grape to save money......

Interview the woman FFS - and make a decision based on what she says!

kittywise - I have never employed a Tunisian, though I come across lots of Tunisians here in Paris in a general sort of way (lots of them run corner shops) and can be charming or horrible and anything in between, just like most nationalities.

However, what I do think is that the cultural gulf between you - an English woman with six children living outside a big city - and a French woman of Tunisian descent - will be very large indeed, and you may find that your expectations and hers differ in many ways that you cannot even begin to imagine right now. The chances of her "slotting in" to the family with no hiccups are quite slim.

Can you think about what your precise expectations are? I'll give you an example of something I would be alert to - here in Paris it is very common to see North African nounous (home helps/nannies) slap children that are in their charge, even in shops or the street. No-one here bats an eyelid at this... but you might.

i think culture always plays into it.
but, the culture of somone who comes onto jeremy kyle may be very different from your culture, even though you may both be white english.

ineterview the person. tell her whatyour expectations are. what ou will tolerate, what ou will not. she may or may not slot into the family. but you certainly must takeyour dp's opinions into consideration

seeker - you are deliciously naïve...

Anna makes a fair point, so discipline would be an important part of any interview, try to find out how she would discipline the children. You might also tell her that from a cultural perspective, slapping and any corporeal punishment is not ok in the uk, and we use other methods here. You may find that she is so young she has not even thought about that, and will look to you for her initial guidance.

Personally, as an au pair, or nanny, I rather have a mothering girl who aspire to have her own children one day, than one who only dreams of her future career as a TV presenter showing ethnicity through Kazhakstan!

Whether she is of a culture where women work outside the home or not is in my opinion irrelevant, what is relevant, is that she wants to do this job now, and she might be good at it.

She might very well look upon her position with you as "honing" her to become the perfect housewife and mother of six children (just like you ) and that should not count against her!

I have no idea but considering how easily those cultures warm up to children I would certainly preffer her over many other candidates. Besides, she seems to have moved a lot, is not that you are interviewing someone who has only being exposed to her own culture in an unadelturated way.

However, considering how prone the family is to cultural sterotyping I would say you are not the right family for her.

Besides... living near a school I see MANY English women shouting at their children like fishwives, feel shocked at the rubish children are fed sometimes, and constantly complain about people warming up more to dogs than children

BUT

I still believe these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

kittywise, I don't have experience of North African aupairs, save that a French-Algerian one I made an offer to decided she wasn't going to turn up one week before she was due to start, despite the fact that she was super enthusiastic and pressured me to make her an offer months earlier. I am a bit more wary now about being strung along, but that is almost certainly a one-off, reflective of the girl herself and not her origins.

Great that this aupair wants a big family. I would say that almost all aupairs insist they LURVE children, so I would take that with a pinch of salt.

The questionnaire is just to get a feel for her and, as I am sure you know, they can write all the answers they want you to hear in their leisure. It is the interview and references that finally count.

If your dh is concerned about
their 'hard' childrearing ways, try to get specific examples from him, and give her little scenarios to answer. Will she be expected to have sole charge, especially of your younger ones?

What is her standard of English like?

If she is currently in London, is she in an aupair job? If so, you should tell her that you are very keen to talk to her current family and would like their telephone number - if the interview goes well. Particularly focus on why she is leaving the family.

blueshoes, she is on a course in London that she says she is having to give up because she cannot afford the fees anymore.
She says she has a friend in Brighton and so knows she likes Brighton .

But I am not so sure she wants to au pair per se, just that she has to finish her course. likes Brighton and needs somewhere else to go.

Her name sounds Arabic to me actually.

Perhaps I should continue emailing her questions, especially about the discipline aspect. But since she was an aupair in switzerland that must be a good indicator as my swiss friends says they are strict about au pairs there.

I must ask her for the references before I see her, that's right isn't it?

Thank you for all your input, it's been very helpful.

Anna, what you have said has really given me food for thought.

well just because she was an au pair in switzerland doesnt mean she likes children or was any good

in fact it means very little

you just need to see her and decide if she is right for you

i dont think you can draw any conclusions from any other source

There are some very harsh comments on here which are directed at Kitty. Kitty is just trying to get a feel for typical Tunisian cultural traits. This is not racist, or even unreasonable. Of course she is going to interview this girl. But if people farmiliar with the culture in question to could help her as only Anna has done so far it might help her formulate more helpful questions for the interview.

Kitty is obviously not racist or "prone to cultural stereotyping" or she wouldn't be interviewing the girl.

kitty, I would be a bit concerned about what her plans are. To a certain extent, it is none of your business, but it does affect how long she intends to stay for, and whether or not she even starts (!) and how happy she is in the role. As a rule, I don't like drifters with no firm plans because they can change their minds any time and also shows a lack of being-together.

Questions for the aupair include whether she is going to finish her course and how she intends to do it in Brighton and how she is going to fund the fees? Is she intending for you to pay for it. I had a prospective aupair say she upfront she needed me to pay for her to continue her English lessons (£100 per week just for the lessons) - and wanted to meet up to explain. I took her off my list.

In your aupair's case, because she is going to have to come all the way to Brighton, you could be saving her a trip if you ask for references first and a chance to speak to them before she comes. I would really insist on the Swiss family contact details (they should be able to speak English) to check her out.

You can also speak to her tutor at the course, though it will be very general stuff about her punctuality, reliableness etc and not necessarily the full story needed for a live-in aupair.

i hope i wasnt being harsh

i find it interesting tho that in the uk we dont say that a nanny will have a particular set of cultural defined attitudes

id dihave a french au pair she was lazy and like having a teenager to look after

i think that was her rather than frenchness

have you had au pairs before kitty?

i think they are very variable because of course it is just a stop gap thing to learn a language and cultural exchange not a job

Thank you blue, yes I get a strange feeling about her motives too. It's like she has stumbled across my ad rather than she was actively looking for that particular type of work.

Zippi I had one aup air last year. I was was stupid and naive and got and English one. I have learnt my lesson well

At other times I have had live out helpers who have been wonderful, but they do cost more and I think I need the fact that someone is on site.

Au pairs do seem to be VERY thin on the ground atm, I think I might just get another live out helper and then wait for the warmer months when there might hopefully be richer pickings!

I'll be getting the fishing net back out then

kitty, you are wise to rely on live-out helpers until the summer. There are other mnetters who are also having difficulties finding aupairs to start at this time of the year.

There will be aupairs aplenty for the summer (called 'summer aupairs') who just want to be here for the summer. Then, from September, you get the gapyear aupairs who want to stay for up to a year.

One aupair who answered the ad I put up in the local language school, rather than from my profile off an aupair site, had absolutely no clue about the role of an aupair. She just wanted someone to finance her stay in UK for the next year of her English lessons. When she asked how she was going to pay for her (expensive) private English classes out of the pocket money I was offering, I gently steered her on her way.