Werthless wrote:An au pair is $19k/yr. Many are certified in infant care. Many folks (including me) in my personal network have went with that option, or are considering it moving forward. I'd be happy to talk more about my experience.

Yeah. We are considering this as well.

A major concern for me with that option is what to do if the au pair gets sick. What do you do for childcare then?

where does one get an au pair

I went through an agency. It's a bit like online dating, in the sense of mutual matching ("Host families" get on extensive access to candidates' applications/testimonials/3rd party interviews/etc. Many au pairs submit a video in their application, in English, so you can evaluate their English proficiency.). After both the family and au pair candidate agree on mutual interest, it opens up communication channels (text, email, whatsapp), and then video calls for the interviews. The agency handles recruiting and vetting au pair candidates, maintains the site of candidates (note: you can filter for infant qualified candidates), paperwork for the visa process, logistics on travel, best practices for how to handle the interviews, etc.

We went with an au pair for a variety of reasons. We like the cultural exchange aspect of the program (we have pursued spanish speakers to encourage my kids' exposure to the language). The cost was cheaper or comparable to day care. The flexibility of an au pair is good (they are popular with physicians who have odd hours). An au pair can stand at the bus stop with your kids, for example.

If your au pair is sick, it's what you would expect. You need to figure it out, whether it's a parent using a sick day or neighbor or family member stepping in. Same goes with vacation... Our au pair gets two weeks of vacation. We've used my mother in law, my mom, and our own vacation days to handle those occurrences.

PM me for more details, and I can offer a referral.

APw/B

We had a lot of au pairs. Very mixed results. We learned to stick with German's because they had the most incentive to go home (but still had a bad apple there too). If you go that way, interview the hell out of them. Make them do the work with answering all the questions you have in writing. IT shows commitment. Also, talk to them a lot. Be sure that they are part of the family, not just 'the help' because you reap the rewards. Several are still good friends and part of the family.

There is a lot on you too. They are living with you. You have to be clear what the work week is, and what off times is. Also what "chores" are family because you do not want to be cooking and cleaning up after an extra person. Plan somewhat regular check ins. Tell them that you will treat them like a family member and that means that you have rules for your house. Those rules have to include safety. They really do not like that, but you do not want to deal with a drunk, drugged, arrested, pregnant or dead youth whose parents live in another country (see that from afar, and it is impossible).

Get to know their parents and make a commitment to the parents. It builds a shared responsibility. We invited people to have their parents come visit after they were there for 3 months, because they might not last that long. The parents are still friends with us too!

By all means, reward them. Little things pay off! Just remember, your employee lives with you.

All that said, we had 11 and fired 5. One lasted a month only because she had a friend pass through and stay for 2 weeks (which was 9 days longer then we were told). Don't accept lying or anything that negatively effects you. This was the only time/place I ever met a compulsive liar, and it is shocking (it is what Trump is, lying to lie because they cannot stop).

One of our daughter's camps is refusing to give us a refund on her week there. Every other camp we signed up for has given us several options or just decided it wasn't safe enough to have camp and gave us a refund. We were comfortable letting the other camps hold on to the money and use it next year because we have a pretty good feeling they'll be around next year. The other camps also gave us the option of just receiving an outright refund.

This other camp, though, seems kind of bobo and is only allowing us to hold it for next year or write it off as a tax donation. I'm kind of pissed and just want the money back because I have no clue where they'll be after this summer. Any chance I can rightfully get a refund? If not I'll let it ride but I'd hate to be out $1k when this place closes shop

Any written agreement with a stated refund policy?

Nope, they're just making it up as they go

I don't expect everyone to handle this perfectly, bc this is the first time we've all gone through this, but some places really are handling it much better than others

GYAC (one of the youth athletic leagues here) sent an email asking about interest in trying to start up the baseball and softball seasons that were supposed to start on May 5. They sent a one question "survey" saying "We will follow CDC guidelines, are you in or out". I replied asking what these guidelines would look like, and the director said "We're following CDC guidelines". I asked for a set of these guidelines so we could make our decision, and I didn't hear anything. We remembered a friend's husband was coaching in the league, and asked her if she heard anything. She said you have to reply "Yes", that you were going to participate, then you would receive the guidelines. Seems really backwards

The Dude wrote:One of our daughter's camps is refusing to give us a refund on her week there. Every other camp we signed up for has given us several options or just decided it wasn't safe enough to have camp and gave us a refund. We were comfortable letting the other camps hold on to the money and use it next year because we have a pretty good feeling they'll be around next year. The other camps also gave us the option of just receiving an outright refund.

This other camp, though, seems kind of bobo and is only allowing us to hold it for next year or write it off as a tax donation. I'm kind of pissed and just want the money back because I have no clue where they'll be after this summer. Any chance I can rightfully get a refund? If not I'll let it ride but I'd hate to be out $1k when this place closes shop

Talked to someone who has the same problem. They are going to be open but the child is at higher risk and the parent is afraid to send the kid. From her side, the camp has been not understanding at all. The option they gave her was they hold onto the full payment until next year (a couple thousand) and the kid can come then. Which is a pretty horrible option because it is not like the family just has an extra few thousand laying around to get their child in other, safer options for this summer.

CalvinBall wrote:

The Dude wrote:One of our daughter's camps is refusing to give us a refund on her week there. Every other camp we signed up for has given us several options or just decided it wasn't safe enough to have camp and gave us a refund. We were comfortable letting the other camps hold on to the money and use it next year because we have a pretty good feeling they'll be around next year. The other camps also gave us the option of just receiving an outright refund.

This other camp, though, seems kind of bobo and is only allowing us to hold it for next year or write it off as a tax donation. I'm kind of pissed and just want the money back because I have no clue where they'll be after this summer. Any chance I can rightfully get a refund? If not I'll let it ride but I'd hate to be out $1k when this place closes shop

Talked to someone who has the same problem. They are going to be open but the child is at higher risk and the parent is afraid to send the kid. From her side, the camp has been not understanding at all. The option they gave her was they hold onto the full payment until next year (a couple thousand) and the kid can come then. Which is a pretty horrible option because it is not like the family just has an extra few thousand laying around to get their child in other, safer options for this summer.

Yeah, we're trying to be pretty open-minded about the whole thing, but this is the only camp giving us a problem, and it's all indoors, with mixed ages, meaning there will likely be 3 year olds who have no intention of wearing a mask.

The Abington Club offered a full refund, and also offered to roll it over to next year and give us a family membership for the summer

The Dude wrote:Nope, they're just making it up as they go

I don't expect everyone to handle this perfectly, bc this is the first time we've all gone through this, but some places really are handling it much better than others

GYAC (one of the youth athletic leagues here) sent an email asking about interest in trying to start up the baseball and softball seasons that were supposed to start on May 5. They sent a one question "survey" saying "We will follow CDC guidelines, are you in or out". I replied asking what these guidelines would look like, and the director said "We're following CDC guidelines". I asked for a set of these guidelines so we could make our decision, and I didn't hear anything. We remembered a friend's husband was coaching in the league, and asked her if she heard anything. She said you have to reply "Yes", that you were going to participate, then you would receive the guidelines. Seems really backwards

Yeah, I backed out of baseball this year because I didn't know what it was going to look like. They provided no detail, which caused me not to trust their approach. Like, do they think coronovirus is a hoax? I have no insight into how they are planning to run this league.

Au pairs are hit or miss, but I really liked that option for the language opportunities and it's just nice to have someone you get to know better than a daycare. We had two french girls who were great, though one of them was clearly better in terms of comfort with the kids and all that. We had to train the one a bit. In China, we had one very bad one we fired after the first year (couldn't find anyone else mid-year). I would come home during the day and she just wasn't interacting with our child much. One time I came home and the child was in the little bathtub in the bathroom and the au pair (ayi in chinese) was sitting in the living room on her phone. That was it for me. So we put the little one in a pre school and went to half time with a different ayi. It was great until COVID. Now we don't know what we'll do if we go back. We've been paying the ayi all this time because we like her and it's not much money. Plus, it's not her fault. She also does the cleaning and laundry, which is awesome. She gets there before the pre-school is over for the day and does the cleaning part of the job.

Well, the Au Pair game is trashed. J1 visas are suspended indefinitely, so you do not have any legal options.

thephan wrote:Well, the Au Pair game is trashed. J1 visas are suspended indefinitely, so you do not have any legal options.

does that men Melania has to go back to Slovenia?

Today my 4 year old broke my daughter's ipad then ripped a piece of trim off the wall that was a divider between two different paint colors and took wall off with it

She did it for your birthday! She heard you telling your daughter to get off of screens, so she took care of that, and she knew you wanted to do some remodeling and wanted to help you get started!

Meh. Just wait till she has her first fender bender. To be followed by a second one. And another (but this one won't be her fault.)

I might need a longer timeout than the kid after that.

TenuredVulture wrote:Meh. Just wait till she has her first fender bender. To be followed by a second one. And another (but this one won't be her fault.)

Wait until your au pair has an accident with your second, parked car. :/