au pare?

wuben

Hi all myself and my wife are considering getting an au pare in to mind our kids. Its through an agency and the au pare lives with you. You give the agency a once off payment then the au pare gets paid every week. We have 3 kids two of them will be under 3. Has anyone any experiance with any of the agencys or with au pares good or bad? Were just trying to make a decision on childcare that is affordable and will enable two of us to keep working. Just looking for someone who has gone down this route and how they got on?.....cheers

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of an au pair. They are not intended to be affordable childcare. The idea is that the au pair works in the home alongside the parents (usually the mother) so that they can learn the language. In the afternoons they usually go to language classes. You can expect them to mind the kids while you run out to do the shopping or to babysit once or twice a week but not to be your children's full-time carers. Remember - they have no training in childcare.

wuben

hey thanks for reply....no i dont think i misunderstood i rang the angency and she explained to me. They gave me diiferent rates for the au pair for them to mind kids 30 hours a week.....35 hours or 40ty hours. With the 30 hours starting at 100a week. If we got the au pair to mind kids for 35 hours a week surely we could work aswell??(thats the way it was explained to me on the phone). As for the lanauge yes i do understand that there here to learn but some already have excellent english but want to come for work experiance etc

Neyite

If its €100 per week to the agency for 30 hours of working, presumably the agency takes their slice, so how much is the Au Pair getting as a wage for minding 3 kids for 30 hours?

Without the agency cut of the €100, that works out at €1.11 per hour per child. :eek:

I would be too worried that someone on that pittance for such an amount of work that 3 very young children would produce would not care for them properly.

Having said that, I am only newly pregnant with my first, so I have no experience of Au-Pairs, but to me it sounds like little more than slave labour, and I would not entrust my child to that. Sorry if that sounds harsh. I'm on a low wage myself so I do see that you want affordable childcare, but you have to ask yourself, how hard would you work for less than €3 per hour?

ResearchWill

Au Pair, is from the French on a par, the person should be treated in many respects like one of the family, and not a member of staff. A friend of mine has had a number of Au pair, and happily in most cases it went very well, when he and his long term partner recently married his current and 2 previous Au pair attended the wedding.

In relation to you and wife both working, it would have to be very clear what is expected of Au Pair, if you and your wife both work 40 hours plus commute, it will be very difficult for the Au Pair, to manage.

In my friends case one child was at school, was dropped and collected by parents and the second child spent some time at home with au pair and some time in creche. My friends partner was also lucky in that there was some working from home so the over all burden on Au Pair was not huge.

In many ways I is like having an older daughter living in your house with you, some people take to it like ducks to water others hate it. The biggest problem I see is that they usually only spend a year with you which can cause upheaval if they are very good.

wuben

You pay agency a lump once off fee that's were they make there money you pay au pair 100e aweek directly plus they get meals and room included

wuben

ResearchWill wrote: »

Au Pair, is from the French on a par, the person should be treated in many respects like one of the family, and not a member of staff. A friend of mine has had a number of Au pair, and happily in most cases it went very well, when he and his long term partner recently married his current and 2 previous Au pair attended the wedding.

In relation to you and wife both working, it would have to be very clear what is expected of Au Pair, if you and your wife both work 40 hours plus commute, it will be very difficult for the Au Pair, to manage.

In my friends case one child was at school, was dropped and collected by parents and the second child spent some time at home with au pair and some time in creche. My friends partner was also lucky in that there was some working from home so the over all burden on Au Pair was not huge.

In many ways I is like having an older daughter living in your house with you, some people take to it like ducks to water others hate it. The biggest problem I see is that they usually only spend a year with you which can cause upheaval if they are very good.

Thankyou for info and reply it's something we will have to discuss

We had an au pair once when I was a child and my mum was a homemaker so she was home with us most of the day. Our au pair would play with us and entertain us but she didn't mind us full time. I suppose there are different ways of doing it. Having said that I wouldn't expect a young girl to mind my children full time for that amount of money.

My mum didn't find the experience great. The girl was nice and we got along well but it can be a bit awkward having a stranger live in your home. As someone mentioned they are like members of the family so we all ate together, watched tv together in the evenings etc. I guess how you find that depends on your personalities. I don't think I would enjoy it now, as a parent, but I'm sure that others would enjoy the extra adult company.

January

An au-pair is intended to mind the children for around 2/3 hours a day not from 9-5 Monday to Friday. Usually while a parent works part time so they can take over or while they run errands etc...

mayvic

I was an au pair twice and usually how it works is that the au pair minds the kids either in the morning (in the case of younger kids) then the parents come home, or in the evening if they are of school going age on weekdays. I was also expected to incorporate at least 30mins of an English class everyday and do occasional babysitting or Saturday morning. In the first family I had to do 30mins of cleaning every morning where as with the other I just chipped in when they cleaned. I got paid approx. €70, though I think at least €100 is expected in Ireland, a week along with food and board (my own room with wifi and open access to the food. The 1st family also gave me a tv and en suite).

My experience didn't really work out. I didn't click with either family and one of them completely took advantage of me. I didn't go through an agency and don't know anyone that has, I used aupair-world.net (I think). It really depends on your family and what you expect out of it, and what you're willing to put into it, the same goes for the au pair too!

Wantobe

I've had two au-pairs, currently have our third. They have worked out well for us but our two children are in school and our aupair drops them to school in the morning, is off for the rest of the morning and then picks them up from school and minds them until we get home, four days a week. The fifth weekday I am at home. No housework or cooking. Weekends off and occasional babysitting (very occasional since we generally spend all our time with the children at the weekend and are usually too shattered to go out:o)

I think your children are too young to be minded all day by an au-pair but you could work a combination of say, playschool/montessori in the mornings and au-pair in the afternoon.

Our two previous au-pairs are still firm family friends ( they feel a little like nieces) but we have treated them like family and have been very conscious of their needs too. Give and take is essential, we know other people who have had au-pairs and have expected far too much of them which has resulted on resentment on both sides.