Au Pairs - maybe something useful for someone thinking of employing their first Au Pair...

[MrsWood]

When I came to the UK as an Au Pair with 2 of my best friends, I was "positioned" with a family with 3 kids - 6, 9 and 12 years old. My friends were in families with smaller children. One was looking after a 4 year old and one was looking after a 2 MONTH old. I spoke excellent English as I studied it for years before coming over. My friends spoke good enough Enlgish. Unfortunately, NEITHER of us had ANY experience in looking after children - neither of us even had a sibling! Upon instructions from Au Pair agency, we all lied on our application form and provided false childcare references. Agencies are trying to make money out of Au Pairs and families and will get the girls to say ANYTHING in order to get them as clients - they get around £300+ from each family and around £150+ from each girl they get on their books. We were quite sensible 17 year old girls and were NEVER horrible to any of the kids we looked after, we were actually having a very good time being Au Pairs, however, I must stress that many parents are not aware of the difference between Au Pairs and nannies. Au Pairs are meant to be mother's help (cleaning, cooking, babysitting the kids etc.) and are paid very little - £40-£45 per week - comparing to nannies with PROPER qualifications in childcare who get around £200-£300 per week (depending on your location within the UK) and are complete opposites to Au Pairs - i.e. shouldn't have to do anything around the house apart from looking after the kids' needs 24/7.
I guess the whole point of this thread is to help parents who are new to this and don't know what to ask and how to make a decision on the right person to look after their kids. After all, you have to be able to trust this person and more importantly, trust your little angels in their hands whilst you're at work or whatever.
My husband and I now have a 21 month old daughter ourselves and she is the most important thing to us and we certainly feel wiser for the experience I've had from "the other side".
As a parent and an ex Au Pair this is something I felt I needed to share with you folks

Any questions, please feel free to ask - I will help you in any way I possibly can.

I am horrified to hear of your experience Mrs Wood and I agree with Ameriscot that we are not all like that.

I have had a number of au-pairs and it is very true that most of them start off well but do tend after a while to take the P*. They seem to forget that their perks are not only financial but also the fact they live in a nice house rent free with lots of comforts, free internet access, use of the telephone, good food, etc and they dont factor that into the equation at all. I live in London and if you wanted just a room in someone's house with bed and dinner provided (like the homestay language schools offer) that is charged out at £115 per week. So that adds £4.50 per hour to whatever "pocket money" and perks you pay them.

When I employed my first au-pair I was a SAHM. Now I work four days a week and AP has sole charge really only after school until 5.30 termtime and full time (9-5)4 days pw in the hols. Having said that my children are much older (8 and 11) so I know that if she were not looking after them properly or mistreating them they would tell me.

Cant really suggest alternatives Forevermore as have only ever gone the AP route - it does work just be aware that there are a lot of compromises to make and they are really just young girls who are looking for a good time away from Ma & Pa (and why not) as long as they do what is asked of them during their working hours.

I think short-term au pairs work out well.

The first au pair I had was scheduled to stay a year. She started off OK, but only kept this up for a couple of months. Then she started to take the piss, as others have noticed. Unfortunately, my inexperience made me think it would get better, but it didn't. I ended up firing her for negligence at the five month point (at least 2 months too late). Now she works cleaning a sandwich shop nearby, and presumably either paying rent or squatting - welcome to life in the west.

My second au pair was a dream, but I could tell that she was starting to get bored with the job, so the three months that she planned to stay was about right. My current au pair is scheduled to stay for four months. Both of these girls will be going to university next year, so the au pair experience is just a bit of fun and growing up for them in their gap year.

I'm not a fan of Accession state girls after my first experience, but that, of course, doesn't mean they are all like that. I have a French au pair now, and the last one was Luxembourgoise - I have the hope that my boys will want to practice their French with the au pair, which adds another dimension to things.

MrsWood, I'm a journalist (and an ex-au pair and a parent) and I'm writing an article for a broadsheet newspaper about childcarers' experiences. I would really love to talk to you about the issues you've raised on this thread. Can you email me? I'm on [email protected]. Look forward to hearing from you!

Natasha, absolutely not a problem - I will e-mail you from work on Monday - bit busy with dd at weekends, going to the zoo (Howletts) tomorrow! Speak to you soon, and thanks for your post.

Very interesting to hear Au pairs Experiences.

We are will soon be looking for our third AP, the going rate inthe northwest is about £60week. However after having our first AP and at the time I was at home with the kids and watching the pennies. I soon realized the real cost of ou AP was an Extra £45 a week on shopping, as she would never eat with us and after using up all sandwich stuff started to asked for particular foods and hid food in her room. Our household bills increased dramatically, especially the phone bill and not to mention the other perks.( I was push over) I think she started to take the p...s after 3 months, she started hinting for extra money and moaning that her friend AP only did the childrens Ironing, she could never get up in the morning and ruined loads of clothes, and hoover and washing machine. She use to really drunk at weekends, and come home trying to get in our neighbours house with her door key, or set the house alarm off, or in a police car....( she could not remember and thought it was a taxi)

She eventually left for £5 extra a week to a family in scotland for better perks, so she said but only lasted 2 months.

I insisted our last AP eat with us, and didn't raid the fridge,but she was more than welcome to help herself to other snack things however, she's recently started using all our bathroom cosmetics...I can live with that, at least she's considerate in other area and not a party animal ( like i was at 20 )and great with the kids.

I think it really is a lottery finding a good AP, I never use agencies for all the the things mentioned onthis thread. I just ask loads of questions, some seem quite personal.. but what the hell she will be living with us.

Celtic,

Our first au pair experience was similar cost-wise. We paid her £60 a week, but also forked out a lot extra on top of that - special food since she was so picky; she used our phone - to excess towards the end; I gave her a mobile phone and about £50 of phone cards; she arrived speaking no English and without a dictionary so muggins had to pay for one for her; I had to buy her a bathing suit so she could go in the pool with the kids; I drove her to language classes every week to save her the bus fare etc. etc.

As soon as she met another au pair, she realised that girl (good English speaker and with driving license) was getting £5 extra a week and felt very hard done by - she didn't count what I gave her as perks.

Now, I pay a higher rate, and no extras.

Yes - i have crossed this bridge twice now about what other Ap get paid and do.

The last conversation I had on this subject with our AP cleared the air at least I think!!. I said all families are very different and therefore have different needs, just like APs, some speak better English, have done the job before and get paid more, and some families like us can only afford to pay what we do pay.

I think somewhere along the way, they lose sight of the AP and family agreement, to learn Enlish , experience another culture, have some pocket money in exchange for help with kids and light housework not to mention all the other perks.

If other families are better, invite them to find another job - it sounds like it should be an easy thing to do .

MrsWood it's great that you have been so honest and shared your expierence, it proved to me about au pairs. And judging by what some parents are saying about their au pairs I really am not suprised that au pairs take the piss.
Only paying £60 a week and the au pair, cleans your whole house and looks after your children so basically is running your house doing your job and then you moan that the aupair doesn't want to eat with you so costs you, what an extra £10 a week? That is disgusting!
People forget that the idea of au pairs is for a cultural exchange, they come over here to learn the language (not always but often) and to learn about the country. In exchange for you letting them stay and you supposbly helping them settle in, they will 'HELP' with the household chores and babysit for you. Au Pairs are legaly not allowed to be left with under 2's either because the majority of them have probably not spent any time with a small child.
I am a full time nanny and I earn £270 net a week, they provide a cell phone and a sole use car. I do the family ironing and care for their one 6 yr old boy as well as the dog. I'm allowed to eat what I like and being a vegetarian and non dairy eater I often buy differen't food for myself and they don't have a problem with that. They treat me as human being, they respect me so in return I respect them, their house and their children. I don't mind doing favours for them, extra babysitting, running extra errands etc.
It's no wonder au pairs who really have no interest in childcare in the first place plonk the kids in front of the tv. And doss about on their rare time off. Then parents moan and tv shows like 'nannies from hell' get made, even though none of the women on that programe were actually nannies though.

You concluded all that from Mumsnet, Penny?

Yes, What an amazing and distorted conlusion......

I

I agree with Penny if you want cheap childcare in an au pair then you can't expect them to be professional and treat you and your family with respect

Yeah, talk about confirming the paradigm...

Yes i agree Ameriscot.

It seem pennylane you made you decision long before you read this thread, as many points made are taken out of context...I can only guess by your comments you assume Au Pairs, are exploited?, i'm sure that some are, alondside many other workers in this country.

IMO £60 plus cell phone, use of a car if needed, college fees paid, usually for a young inexperienced girl that requires lots and lots of guidance and supervision, and is by no means a 'substitute nanny 'is fair. This is for doing the school run, light housework, family ironing, ocassional babysitting, and looking after two school children between 3.30 - 5.30 twice a week... hardley exploitation!!! who mentioned anything about cleaning the whole house? Even if an AP did clean the whole house ( within the 25hr a week duties) can't descibe that 'doing my job' or 'running the house' or even hard done by. I think its fair game for AP to do these sort of duties if it was all agreed before hand, or what else would they do for 25 hours a week?

As for the food issues, i think I need to clarify one or two things. I was spending an Extra £45 a week extra on the food bill for our 1st AP ( not £10). But like a fool I did it, i was more concern with keeping AP happy. Every friday she would produce a shopping list of ready meals and cereals, or use up all cooking ingredients or sometimes snack on smoke salmon, or eat the kids chocolate in the evening, I would say that is inconsiderate, selfish and picky( I think Americscot knows what I mean)

Yes i do insist our current AP eats with the family early evening ( at weekends its left in the fridge to reheat if she out on the razz) IMO its not unreasonable, she is very happy to do this, i would never make meals she doesn't like and yes she does have an input..yes she can help herself to snacks for the fridge - same as myself and DH, and anything else she can buy it herself. I don't think its 'disgusting' I call it integrating with the family ( just what being an AP is about) I think it better to be clear, upfront and tackful about these things beforehand, to avoid resentment and confrontations later on.

Anyway we like our AP and treat her with nothing but respect. I think she would have cleared off ages ago, or her family would of dragged her back to Poland, after they came to stay, if we were that bad!!

As for parents moaning, I thought thats what Mumsnet is for... I am sure AP have their own slant on the subject or a similar forum somewhere for good old moan?

As for nannies from hell its just another ...from hell T.V show like builders, hoildays, families and grannies from hell( crap T.V)

I actually didn't come to a decission before i came here, it was reading this thread that had me so shocked I had to post. And also looking at au pair adverts on gumtree and what people were requesting.

Pennylane, I just ran the sums according to the nanytax calculator (on nannytax.co.uk) and figuring 40% tax for your employer. And, in order to pay you £270 net per week, you employer must go to work to earn roughly £35,000 per year. That's a lot of money! This does figure that your car and phone cast another £1200 or so per annum.

The more money and benefits that nanny's demand the fewer there will be who can actually find employers who can afford them. And then there will be even more of you in the market, and then supply further outweighs demand. I think we can all see where this is going?

The truth is a lot of people who hire nannies can not afford your prices. Simple as that. So, of course if someone else comes along and says "hey I can do that for less" then of course they are going to be hired, and people like you who have become dependant on these higher rates are going to find themselves out of work or forced to reduce the rate.

If I were you, I'd start petitioning the government to reduce parents tax liabilities so that some more people can afford nannies, and possibly save your industry.

No one is forcing these "exploited" au pairs to stay. While you may view them as slaves, do you really think they are prisoners as well?

The only aupair I actually met was one who worked opposite to one of my jobs. She was from Slovakia I believe and was a lovely person, she had some babysitting expierence before she came but was left with 3 children of 5, 3 and 6 months, she did the housework on the saturday when the parents were home, but that meant she worked 6 days a week. She said she didn't mind as they were nice to her which I'm sure they were but still, she hardly had any life of her own. I didn't dare ask her how much she got payed.
But credit were credit is due, she was great with the children. But still should not have been left with the baby imo.

Ameriscot, go on confess about your cellar where you lock up the au pairs and only let them out on a ball and chain to scrub your toilets with a toothbrush. Oh and tell them about the electric fence you have, just in case they try to escape.

Penny, it is a parents decision with whom they want to leave their children, no matter what age the child/carer.

I wouldn't leave a baby with an inexperienced young stranger all day. But, if they did, that is their choice.

I'm paying £70 for 25 hours + 2 nights babysitting (in reality it is only one night's babysitting on average).

I don't see why the au pair shouldn't work the full 25 hours. If there's very little childcare because the children are at school, what's wrong with having them clean/iron/whatever for the other hours? As long as the actual tasks are "everyday" tasks (not spring cleaning-type), that's what they are paid to do.

Many girls who come as au pairs need to learn a work ethic and what is expected of them - timeliness, etc. For very traditional au pairs (late teens), their au pair year is a very valuable growing up time, where they learn how to conduct themselves in the adult world.

My secret's out, you wise old owl!

I was very friendly with an au pair from Slovakia, we got on great, she and a couple of friends (also au pairs) even came out for one of my birthdays.
She worked in the house next door to where i was nannying at the time and she came into where i worked a couple of times a week to clean as she wanted extra ££££.
she was fed up to the back teeth of working all the hours and not having enough money to go out or do anything much.
She even asked me how she could get into doing a childcare course to get a recognised qualification so she could get out there and earn a proper wage.
She haded working for pittance and doing so much, she was exhausted.