Reflections Of An Au Pair

It’s wild to think that in 2018, I just up and decided to au pair in Paris.

I returned home from South America in December 2017 and started working part-time at David’s Bridal. The job was fun and I enjoyed meeting brides and helping them find their dresses, but, there were a lot of “buts.”

I was living at home with my parents. If I went full-time, I would be locked into a retail job working in the same neighborhood where I grew up. Maybe, if I saved carefully, I’d be able to move out in a year. Was I ready to put down such definitive roots? Maybe not, but at 23, I also lacked the professional qualifications or family connections that would have made moving to a major US city a good idea.

Also, life in the US seemed… colorless compared to the freewheeling traveler life I’d just experienced

In my peer group, concerns about test scores to get into expensive Master’s degree programs abounded. So did jokes about what would happen when we all turned 26 and wouldn’t have healthcare anymore.

Ultimately, adulthood in the US loomed with swirling dark humor veiling what seemed to me a very real risk of being unhappy (and poor, and without access to good healthcare) if I allowed myself to “do something just to do something.”

I couldn’t articulate what I wanted, so I had to trust that making a feelings-based decision would steer me in the right direction. I didn’t want to go back to school, I didn’t want to ease back into the fold of a reliable and quiet suburban community, and I didn’t want to live at home.

So, how did I decide to au pair in Paris?

I always explain it like this: It doesn’t make sense, until it does.

France was the first country I ever visited outside of the US. By complete happenstance, back in 2009, my godmother spoke with someone who knew a French family in Marseille. They were looking for an American family who might host their daughter for a few weeks in the summer. In exchange, the American family would be welcome to send their child the following summer. My godmother mentioned this to my mother, and the rest is history.

From a practical perspective, Paris made sense, too.

The French capital is very centrally located in Western Europe, making travel to other countries relatively simple compared to the transatlantic flight Americans have to take.  Finally, there was the wonderful coincidence that one of my best friends was going to be doing his Master’s in Paris. If I could find a live-out au pair situation rather than a traditional live-in, we could go halfsies on a big studio.

A lot of people have asked me about how I found a family to au pair for.

Personally, I used GreatAuPair. It’s extremely easy to sign up and start searching for families. Just click on the “Au Pairs” bar when you arrive on their homepage.

When you find a family you’re interested in, you can send them a message, but to view their reply you need to pay an official subscription fee to the site. For a 30-day membership, the fee is $60, which is what I spent to browse families, message a few, set up a Skype interview with my favorite, and ultimately get chosen to be their au pair.

After the ball was officially rolling with my family, we moved to regular email communications. Mais attention: GreatAuPair also has a section for families looking for a nanny, which is not the same thing at all as an au pair.

What’s the difference between an au pair and a nanny?

An au pair is a person typically between the ages of 18 and 27 who wants to experience living in another country in exchange for providing basic childcare services.

Many families describe their ideal au pair as a “big sister or brother” to their kids. They are looking for mature younger people who have at least some childcare experience and are passionate about experiencing life in a new country.

Traditionally, au pairs live with their families and will have their bedroom and meals provided. However, in major cities, other arrangements are possible.

Au pairs responsibilities may include

• helping with the kids in the mornings before school
• picking them up from school and doing homework
• bringing them to/from their activities
• helping with dinnertime
• occasional babysitting in the evenings.

It’s important to note that any babysitting or extra hours agreed to outside of the contract, such as during school breaks, should be addressed during contract negotiations and included in the final contract.

Daytime and weekends should be free to explore or take language classes. Each family will present prospective au pairs with their specific terms, and it is up to them to negotiate the terms to make sure that they are fair. It is a good idea to do some research on the country you want to go to or to speak with someone who has been there recently so that you can spot any red flags.

In France, for example, an au pair cannot legally work more than 25 hours each week and is entitled to at least 320 euros/month in a traditional arrangement. I’m emphasizing traditional arrangement because it does happen where au pairs and families will come to a separate agreement, perhaps outside the terms of the contract, but at its baseline, au pairing is not meant to be a financially lucrative position. Also, verbal agreements are not binding, so only coordinate outside the contract if you’re willing to take the risk of getting screwed over by your host family.

Au pairs are expected to be caring towards their young charges and genuinely interested in immersing themselves in the local culture. (Feel free to ask me more specific questions about France in the comments!)

The terms of the contract are decided upon between the family and the au pair

Then, the contract is sent to the host country’s government for approval. After, the approved contract is sent to the au pair so that they can bring it to their visa appointment. A visa appointment is necessary because it gives the au pair official residence status in their host country and permission to stay for a year.

Nannies, on the other hand, are full-time, contracted employees of a family. They often arrive at work early in the morning and don’t leave until after dinner. They may also live with their families if they are taking care of very young children or babies.

While au pairs might be asked to do some light cooking or cleaning, nannying is an intense job that often involves various household management duties in addition to looking after the children. Nannying is a profession that earns a yearly salary, and as such the expectations of a nanny are much higher than those of an au pair. Additionally, a role that pays a salary in France will require an American to obtain the appropriate visa, which is different from an au pair visa.

The bottom line on being an au pair in Paris, France

Good families will recognize that au pairs are likely still exploring career options and will encourage them to get out and explore and remember that a life-work balance is important. Au pairs come for the cultural experience, after all. While nannies can have similarly close relationships with their families, at the end of the day, a nanny contract is a professional arrangement, while an au pair contract is a culture-exchange arrangement.

Who is au pairing for?

Honestly, I wish I’d discovered au pairing about four years earlier. I think au pairing is for literally any young person who likes children, isn’t sure what to do with their lives, but intuitively feels that living in another country sounds like a cool thing to do. It would also make an excellent gap-year option, particularly before college, in my opinion.

Gap years were not at all in the public consciousness when I started college, but they have become a more common phenomenon very recently. I think this is awesome because more and more, people are realizing that maybe the four-year American college model isn’t the best and only option for them, or maybe isn’t the right decision straight out of high school.

So often, there is an insistent social push to go to a four-year college so that you don’t feel left behind

Or, kids just go because that’s what everyone else is doing and it’s hard to conceptualize the exorbitant amount of money college costs when you’re 18 years old, especially if parents are offering to help. All this to say, I went to college like I was expected to at 18 and came out at 22, only to realize I didn’t know what I wanted to do still. Fast forward a year and I still didn’t really know, which is how I ended up an au pair in Paris at 23.

That’s not to say I was ancient by au pair standards, nor would I discourage mid-to-upper 20-somethings from applying. I just mean that when I reflect, I wish I’d known about au pairing earlier so that I could have taken time to grow into myself a little more before going to college. I like to think I also would have taken time off from college to go if it had occurred to me to do so.

In American culture, the pressure to do something important and become someone of consequence is extremely pervasive

However, in Paris, I didn’t witness this unhealthy obsession with breaking fast from a self-imposed starting gate nearly as much as other au pairs from other countries.

One of my closest friends was an 18-year-old German girl who wasn’t sure what she wanted to study, so she decided to take a gap year and work as an au pair and learn French while she mulled over potential majors.

Maybe she’d go to law school or something, she told me, but college seemed like a frivolous thing to undertake if you didn’t even have an inkling of what to study or felt generally directionless. I remember listening to her and feeling intensely aware of my own English Literature degree waving in the back of my mind rather, well, frivolously.

Would I au pair again?

Maybe. Being an au pair in Paris was one of the hardest and most rewarding things I’ve ever done. But, rarely does a week goes by without thinking about my former charges.

Being privy to the inner workings of another family is a privilege that pushed me to grow in ways that never happened in a classroom. I will forever be grateful to the parents who entrusted their children to me. Every memory and friendship that I made throughout the year living in the City of Lights can be traced directly to them choosing me to be their kids’ “big sister” and I will never forget that.

Have you au paired before? Are you interested in au pairing? What do you think about gap years? Tell me about it in the comments!