Are you on a par with your au pair?

An au pair will not work in your family if it is the last choice . . . letting someone into your home to mind your children takes real commitment

THE CHOICE of becoming, or having, an au pair is always the least bad option – it is never motivated by a desire to take part in the “pseudo family” engagement which legitimises the arrangement.

That is the bald and rather bleak conclusion of a new book on the lives of au pairs. In examining the reasons both sides participate in what should be a cultural exchange, authors Zuzana Búriková and Daniel Miller identify what they describe as “a new trend towards inequality”.

The au pairing tradition originated with wealthy English and German families sending their daughters to similar families in France or Switzerland to brush up their French. These days the term “au pair”, which, translated from the French, means “on a par”, must sound very hollow indeed to vulnerable young women who have been exploited.

Titled simply Au Pair, this anthropological study, published by Polity Press, confines itself to the experiences of 50 Slovak women staying with a total of 86 families between them over one year in London.

Yet the accounts of problems caused by the cultural, generational and language gaps, and when both sides feel they are being taken for granted, illuminate how difficult the au pair-family relationship can be.

Despite, and partly because of, the recession, au pair agencies in Ireland report a steady demand for their services. A fall-off in the number of families looking for summer au pairs seems to be balanced by an increase in those looking for longer placements starting in September.

It is not a solution for working couples who need full-time childcare, but can be ideal where one parent is working part-time or the children are in school for half of the day. Some women whose partners have had to go away to find work are also turning to au pairs.

However, in today’s safety-obsessed world of parenting, the potential pitfalls of inviting a stranger from a foreign culture who barely speaks English to live in your house and take care of your precious children, equipped with only some babysitting experience, are obvious. The risks are even more apparent for young women who rely on internet sites to fix themselves up with a host family in a country where they know nobody.

As Búriková and Miller observe, nobody should be fooled by the idealistic notion of Heidi meets Mary Poppins. Cheap and flexible childcare is the big attraction for families; most admit that opening their home to a stranger is the bit they dread.

For their part, au pairs who talk about “loving children” may see it primarily as a way to escape their own parents, to put a failed romance behind them or the means to some independence in the absence of a “proper job” in their home country.

The surprise is that, in Ireland at least, it seems to work more often than not. Of course, there are bad experiences on both sides, but to hear families and au pairs gushing about each other would restore your faith in humankind.

(Interestingly, Au Pair notes that: “If there is a ‘sort of English’ that Slovak au pairs seem on the whole very happy with, it is probably the Irish.”)

Nicola Keogh, a mother of two children who works full-time outside the home, had never considered having an au pair until four years ago when her childminder suddenly had to give up. At the time, childcare was phenomenally expensive and difficult to find.

“Our next door neighbour had an au pair and we decided we would try it as a last resort, and we haven’t looked back since.” They went through an agency and got a woman in her mid-20s from Poland who proved to be “a real life saver”.

“It was just fantastic to have the children minded in their own home, by our rules, eating our food.” They have had a succession of au pairs since, with Keogh feeling confident enough after the first couple to find them herself on the popular internet site, aupair-world.net.

Their latest one, the 19-year-old daughter of a Polish family living in Germany, who started last week, is already proving to be one of the best yet. She is their eighth au pair – or ninth if you count the Belgian woman for whom Keogh bought a return air ticket within 48 hours of her landing in their house.

On paper, this 21-year-old woman had seemed exactly what Keogh was looking for. But even in the course of the journey from Dublin airport, with talk of drinking in nightclubs until 6am, she had revealed a very different personality to that of the “home bird” which she portrayed in the application process.

In her first hours with the children, she read a book while they ran riot, and later thumped the family dog. The final straw for Keogh was the sight of the new au pair dancing in their back garden in torrential rain, singing, “Alleluia”.

“There was no way it was going to work. You would not leave the dog with her, never mind the children.” says Keogh, who can laugh about it now. If you go down the au pair route, you’re bound to get a bad one some time, she adds, “but nine times out of 10 it works”.

Using a reputable au pair agency should help families avoid such grief – and they will provide a replacement if necessary. Agencies, which charge families in the region of €200 for a summer placement and up to €700-plus for a nine-month one, source au pairs who have already been vetted and interviewed in their own countries by partner organisations. Equally, they protect au pairs by checking out the families here and having a written agreement of expected duties.

When Fiona Byrne of the Shamrock Au Pair Agency in Co Carlow gets inquiries from couples who are both working full-time and have pre-school children, she tells them straight that what they need is a nanny. Generally, an au pair should not be expected to work more than 30-35 hours a week in return for full board, lodging and about €100 “pocket money”.

Byrne would not recommend au pairs for the care of a baby under six months unless a parent is present. Nor can they be expected to cope with three children under four. Leaving them overnight alone in the house with the children is also a no-no.

Families can be a bit taken aback to be told by an agency that they are not suitable for an au pair, but it is unrealistic as well as unfair expectations which lead to disappointment and exploitation.

Even where both sides are well intentioned, putting the right au pair into the right family is vital. Agents, such as Caroline Joyce of Cara International in Castlebar, see “matchmaking” as a key part of their job.

In her experience, the most common causes of problems are: personality clashes – “two strong women in the house”; families expecting au pairs to do all the household jobs; and homesickness.

The interpretation of “light housework” varies. Joyce says it should be kept to that associated with the children. “You don’t want them ironing baskets of men’s shirts or cleaning windows.”

Swiss-born Celia Anderson runs a “tiny” agency in Co Mayo called Au Pair Solution. She says there are some “scary stories” of the experiences of people getting an au pair online, or au pairs finding families that way.

She is more concerned about the latter “because the families can always say, ‘Go away’”. She has “rescued” three au pairs who came here independently but turned to her when things went wrong.

In two cases they were being paid only “now and then” and one of them was also overwhelmed by having to care for a young baby. The third au pair was being used “like a slave”, Anderson reports.

“She had to do all the cleaning in the house and was not allowed to go out. I gave her the bus fare to get here from Donegal. She stayed with me for four weeks, but she was so rattled by the experience I advised her to go home.”

Anderson says that if she has a family for whom everything has to be perfect, she would prefer to give them a Swiss, German or Dutch au pair. Whereas for a family who likes a more relaxed life and wants somebody lively, she would opt for an Italian or Spanish one.

Gayle and David Foulds, who run their own business, Prontaprint, in Dublin city centre, saw an au pair as the best and most affordable option for their school-going children, now aged six and eight, when she needed to increase her part-time working hours to full-time. And on the whole it has worked well for them.

They are unusual in this country in having used a male au pair. In hindsight, it was not one of their better experiences, and they were not too sorry when his stay was cut short by being called up for military service at home in Austria.

Gayle puts their problems with him down to his immaturity, being only 18, rather than his gender. “We found living with him a bit of a pain in the neck.” He was not very interesting to chat to, she says, and after that they decided to look for au pairs aged at least 21. She also stipulates no vegetarians or fussy eaters.

It is from experience that families learn what type of au pair is likely to drive them bonkers – and they can then screen candidates accordingly.

Anybody considering using an au pair for the first time should reflect on whether they can cope with the loss of privacy – and be honest about whether they are really prepared to treat him or her as one of the family.

“You would only take an au pair if you think you can make it work,” says Foulds. “If you are desperate, with no other option – you probably should not have one!”

swayman@irishtimes.com