Hope to be back once in a while – but not until May 2012 when I finish a new teacher training program (yoga). Who knows, maybe one day I can offer a yoga workshop for au pairs?

Are you going to continue your blog? I just found it when you stopped with au pairs, now I wish I have been an active reader all along.

We are an experienced host family, but still I haven’t found a foolproof way to guarantee a successful experience – or rather a foolproof way to get a great match outright. Just as I thought I have figured it out, our recent rematch blindsided me and took me by suprise. But it added another criterion to my matching madness to try to prevent this latest variation of a disaster.
Hoping now for a smooth sailing with our newest au pair…

The thing with au pairs is that they are just like everyone else. Imagine you had an employee at an office. What do you expect? That they understand their job, are conscientious, reliable, etc. That they work up to their potential but don’t try to take on more than they can handle. That they don’t try to “manage up” by telling you how to do your job…. Au pairs are not office employees, of course, but some of the skills are transferrable. I think our most successful au pairs were good project managers. The projects, of course, are the kids’ lives (not the kids themselves). Au pairs get all the essential pieces in the right place to help things run smoothly, so that the family can have the most efficiency and the least stress. It doesn’t mean they are “efficiency experts”, but it does mean that they are thoughtfully and actively working to make your own job (as parent) easier. If you have an au pair like that, it doesn’t matter that once in a while she forgets to …. or screws up the …. Just like any other employee. But if your au pair doesn’t seem to get it or doesn’t care, then the little things like forgetting to do the laundry so the kids don’t have their swimsuits for camp or telling you about the engine light being on in the car (that she uses) just as you’re ready to leave for vacation take on a significance that would seem out of proportion if you tried to explain to someone else why “your au pair is driving you crazy” and why you suspect that she’s taking advantage of you. I think many families get disgruntled because they don’t nip problems in the bud but instead let them fester. If an au pair really isn’t working out, you need to make a change. If she is, but you are still unhappy, then you also need to make a change – just don’t blame the au pair!

after a few months your au pair still can’t find her way to the grocery store, your kid’s school, etc.;
you are never sure when you speak to her if she actually understood what you said (whether or not her own English sounds fluent);
she’s fixated on money and how she thinks she’s not earning enough, meanwhile putting the minimum effort into the job;
most of her day that she’s not working she’s spending time talking to friends from home rather than making new ones;
she hides in her room for the whole weekend rather than spending time with the family or going out to give you any “breathing room” in your home;
she’s sick, or appears to be, and you can’t tell if it’s real sickness, homesickness, something else or simply a ruse;
your kids keep missing your prior au pair rather than bonding with the new one….

Here’s the thing about au pairs, which is probably true about most in-home caregiving –
like that old cliche about the girl with the curl, when it is going well, it can go very, very well, and when it is bad, it is horrid.