Working Moms’ Tips on How to Manage Au Pairs
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Whether you’re a mom-to-be, a new mom, or a mom of multiple kids, have you considered using an au pair for childcare? Are you looking for experiences from moms who have gone that route?
Our Week in the Life of a Working Mom series has become a reader favorite over the years (and we’re still looking for submissions!), and we’re taking advantage of the many posts we’ve published to highlight the info and advice these working moms have generously shared. Our first topic: au pairs.
First, we should explain how au pairs differ from babysitters and nannies. Au pairs are young people (age 18–26) who come to the U.S. to live with families and provide childcare. They work a maximum of 45 hours a week (unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, some parents break this rule) and receive about $195/week.
Besides paying several thousand dollars to an agency, each family must contribute up to $500/year toward their au pair’s education. Parents are encouraged to invite their au pairs to family activities, meals, and holiday celebrations.
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Here are four moms from our Week in the Life series who have used au pairs for childcare, three of whom are in doctor/lawyer couples:
- Elizabeth, 42-year-old consultant/attorney in the Midwest, married to a family medicine physician, four kids (ages 7, 7, 10, and 13)
- G, 40-year-old private practice physician in Westchester County (works in NYC), married to a Biglaw partner, four kids (ages 20 months, 4, 7, and 10)
- Z, 44-year-old analytical finance specialist in NYC, divorced, two kids (ages 7 and 11)
- M, a 40-year-old doctor in D.C., married with two kids (ages 6 and 8) (awww, and our very first featured working mom!)
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Delegating Tips for Working Moms with Au Pairs
The duties these working moms have delegated to their au pairs include:
- Driving the kids to and from activities
- Getting the kids ready for school
- Taking care of bathtime
- Making dinner for the kids
- Doing the laundry/helping with the laundry
- Handling small errands
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Here are some of the advantages these moms have found in hiring an au pair:
- Au pair childcare is less costly — about half as much as a nanny.
- An au pair is likely to have a higher education level than a nanny (YMMV).
- The kids learn about new cultures with an au pair at home.
- An au pair can adjust his/her schedule as needed, even weekly, and is generally more flexible than a nanny; he or she can also “split” a shift so that she’s there to get the kids out in the morning and take care of them after school, but not in between.
- An au pair can provide evening hours, which isn’t always possible with a nanny (especially for one who’s a mom herself) — plus if the kids are asleep and the au pair is staying in for the night, parents can have a date night.
- The au pair arrangement, which is a one-year term with an optional extension, requires you to reassess your childcare needs annually, and you can tailor your au pair selection to your evolving needs, e.g., an au pair who is more suited to infant care or homework help.
Have you hired an au pair? Have you considered hiring one? If you’ve chosen this arrangement, what advice do you have for other working moms interested in doing so? Did it work well for your family? What are your best tips on how to manage au pairs?
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Stock photo via Shutterstock/Tyler Olson.
We don’t have an au pair but the recent MA law now requires minimum wage for au pairs here, which is making a lot of people reconsider this program. Curious if anyone here would still go the au pair route without the financial incentive? Particularly for older kids in elementary school, where maybe the schedule flexibility is a bigger incentive?
We have hosted au pairs and love it. The best part is that my kids think of our au pairs (past and current) as part of our family–they don’t consider hanging with the au pair to be childcare like they do daycare or aftercare or a babysitter. My 4 yo includes all of our au pairs in the list of “people who love me.” My 6 yo has been exchanging letters with our au pairs (past and present and future) like penpals–yay, writing practice! Our old au pair is even flying back to visit us this summer because she misses the girls. It’s really like having our kids watched by family.
We also really enjoy helping our au pairs experience America. They get to travel extensively, with trips to Hawaii, Cancun, Disney, Grand Canyon, and tons more places. We also overdo all of our holidays so they get to really experience American holidays. It’s really fun for our family to be hosts.
Virginia is now also considering legislation similar to that in Massachusetts. I’ll be very disappointed if it passes, as it will add a ton of expense and difficulty to hosting including additional insurance, tax withholding, hours bookkeeping, etc. (Right now we never use all of the hours, so we don’t keep close track but we’d need to if we also have to be sure to pay min wage.) IMO the state legislation doesn’t make sense for au pairs given the existing restrictions that are already part of the Federal program.
Really interested in this! My kids are both in elementary school now and we’re thinking about an au pair. Glad to hear other peoples’ experiences. Questions for those of you who have had an au pair – can they stay with the kids overnight? Obviously they live there but are there any restrictions around overnight? I assume that counts as working hours?
It’s really disappointing to see this post link to that Nylon article. It is terrible journalism and so misleading. It cites statistics like 86% of au pairs work overtime, but from a poll of only 16 cherry-picked au pairs. Just stupid. It also neglects to mention that au pairs have no expenses, as host families pay for all of their food, cell phone, housing, and often even provide a car. Our au pairs have funds to take trips to all sorts of fun places, including a week at Disneyworld and Universal, trips to Hawaii and Cancun, and more. I’m sure there are au pairs that have bad experiences, but that doesn’t mean the program is abusive. All of the au pairs I know, which are dozens as our au pair likes to host parties at our house, are having a great experience. And for the few who don’t get on with their families, they are quick to rematch. It’s competitive to keep a good au pair in the current market.
Kat, I’m disappointed in this site for citing internet gabage as fact.
I’d be so tempted to do this, but I live in a relatively small Midwest city/town where this isn’t really a thing. Without other au pairs with which to form a network, I think she’d be completely miserable.
I feel like you have to be pretty extroverted and comfortable with strangers for this to work? My husband and I work from home a lot and it was kind of a disaster when we briefly had a nanny. All of us (nanny included!) were uncomfortable with so much togetherness and she was just in our house 9-5 M-F and never saw us in our bathrobes or anything like that. I love my child’s daycare teachers, but I also love that my interaction with them is limited to a polite hello and goodbye at the beginning and end of each day. ;)
I didn’t have one but I think it would work well when combined with daycare or school-aged kids. Or perhaps as a day care replacement combined with preschool with two parents with flexible schedules (so the au pair would take care of the kids during the day but have the early morning and late afternoon off). That is, not big law hours or physician hours.
But if it were me, I’d have to have a house with a basement or ADU/in-law-suite where the au pair would have their own room, bathroom and perhaps a sitting area or rec room. I wouldn’t want the au pair around all the time, nor would the au pair probably like it.
We are on our fourth AP, soon to welcome our fifth. Kids are 1 and 3. The 3 year old is in preschool M-F, 8:30-3:30.
We have really enjoyed the program – getting to know new people and their cultures, sharing our city and our vacations with them, helping them plan trips of their own, encouraging them to get out and meet friends and enjoy new experiences. We live in a large city so our AP does not drive. We pay higher than the minimum stipend (all of our au pairs are at the high end of the age range and have substantial educational and work experience). Our AP works 4 days a week, 8am-6pm, and occasionally a Saturday night shift after the kids are in bed so that my partner and I can go out to dinner. My mom watches the kids on the other day of the week, usually on a day that I have an evening work meeting so that I don’t have to rush home at 6.
When my partner and I went away for a kid-free vacation recently, the grandparents stayed at our house but the AP continued her normal duties, which worked out well. Here is the list I made for the grandparents about the tasks the AP can handle:
THINGS AP CAN TAKE CARE OF/HELP OUT WITH (during work hours):
Changing baby’s diapers, spraying poop diapers
Kids’ laundry (clothes and cloth diapers) – washing, folding, put away
Preparing meals for kids (breakfast – both; lunch – baby; dinner – both)
Cleaning up kitchen after kids’ meals (unload/load dishwasher, put dishes away, wipe counters)
Tidying kids’ toys
Putting baby down for naps
Taking baby to playdates or morning activities
Taking toddler to school (usually my husband and I do this)
Picking up toddler from school
Taking toddler to dance class or playground
Washing toddler’s lunch box
Clipping kids’ nails
Supervising toddler’s homework (usually two worksheets) and packing workbook in backpack
Picking up food for kids at grocery store (we gave the AP a credit card to use for kid/household expenses)
In terms of picking a good au pair, we have typically focused our match efforts on “Year 2” APs who have already been in the States for a year and are looking to go to a different family or different place. Usually they are with a very strict family with a workload that does not conform to the program rules and so they are very happy when they get to our urban home with lax rules and their weekends and evenings free. Our incoming au pair is currently in her home country (a first for us since our first AP) but she previously was an AP for a year here so is functionally a year 2 AP.
I was a former Au Pair myself years ago and now working mom in the US.
SNS was not a thing back then, so some things are different–like networking with other AuPairs in the area. But if the system is not so different, they are supposed to have monthly meeting with area coordinator and that was the opportunity to meet other AuPairs. Au pair has to pay ~$3500 to their local Agency to apply and the Agency does the screening and matching.
There are great host family and not so great ones and there are great AuPair and not so great ones–I remember hearing horror stories on both end. Some girls are from economically disadvantaged area and come to the US/UK to support their family back home. Some girls come to find a mate and hope for better future. Some, like myself come to prepare for academic advancement, hoping to improve English before starting school there.
If you treat AuPair like a family or an extended family, they will likely to go above and beyond for the host family. If you treat them like a maid, don’t expect anything more than they are supposed to do. It is just not fair. Please be mindful–AuPair has to start from scratch at your community. Typically, there is no friends, no relatives to turn to when they need support. Well, they could receive support via online nowadays, but it is still different to have real in-person relationship. It is not easy thing to do for young girls.
We have loved having an au pair!! Although, We haven’t found it that much less out of pocket. Maybe 2-3k less. But there is a lot of factors and variation in said factors that can go into the numbers beyond the bare minimums so our costs maybe different than another’s. We love (and need) the flexibility. It’s a good fit for our family as of now. It can be more work on a family’s part because you are literally bringing someone into your family and helping them navigate a new life, but the rewards can be pretty amazing too. I will add that I do not think that au pairs are “underpaid.” There are many ways to look at it, but at the end of the day, even with the minimum stipend, they basically have 800+ a month for fun money. Most nannies do not have that much extra money and that is considered a career. I also think of au pairs as being in an extended internship. Not necessarily in their abilities in child care but more the help and safety net a host family provides by helping a young person navigate life in a foreign country and the knowledge that their au pair years are not a career path but a stepping stone for their next steps in life.