Saying Goodbye to my Host Family
In the last two years I’ve surely said goodbye more than can be healthy. I said goodbye to my friends and family before I came here, goodbye to some of my Au Pair friends as they left America to go home, and goodbye to the rest of them when I moved from Chicago to San Diego. It’s been [...]
Replaced: The end of an Au Pairs’ year.
Towards the end of every Au Pair’s year, the host family usually begins looking for a new Au Pair or nanny. Often they want our opinion on our replacement as well. Most of the time, two weeks before an Au Pair finishes with the family, the new Au Pair will arrive, and they’ll be “working together” [...]
Wondering if you should extend your time as an Au Pair?
There comes a time, about nine months into their year, when an Au Pair is asked the question “would you like to extend with us?” Alternatively, you can choose to extend for a year with a completely different family and live in a different city. I was lucky enough to live for nine months with [...]
Ready to move on.
If you’ve been keeping up with my posts about my experience as an Au Pair in America, you probably get the feeling that I’m ready to move on. I was just reading over a few of my posts, and it’s obvious how disillusioned I am with this entire program. Don’t get me wrong-I’ve had an [...]
How I ended up as an Au Pair
When I first told people that I was going to be an Au Pair, the most common reaction was: “since when do you like kids?” Mostly because I have no intention of having my own any time soon. To those people I would like to say that I like kids fine, and I also like handing them [...]
5 reasons why you should be an Au Pair in America
I’m getting close to the end of my time here in America now, and it’s a very bittersweet feeling. Of course it’s exciting thinking about my travel month, and working and traveling in Australia, but it’s definitely going to very hard to leave my kids and not be able to wake up to the Californian sun anymore. [...]
Orientation with Au Pair in America: What to Expect.
A lot of future Au Pairs wonder what Orientation is going to be like so here’s how mine went: Au Pair in America sent us to Connecticut which is around two hours from New York City. I flew into JFK, and after a short wait, I was met at the baggage claim by an Au Pair America representative. [...]
Working as an Au Pair- Some Lessons I’ve Learned.
Since I’ve been doing this for awhile now, I thought it would be a good idea to share some tips and hints for anyone thinking about working as an Au Pair in America. Some of my friends also contributed to this list, and believe me I wish I’d known half of this stuff before I started! So here are [...]
“I’m…um…an Au Pair”- why are we ashamed to admit it?
One thing I wasn’t expecting when I arrived in America was the realization that being an Au Pair was something to be ashamed of. This was soon obvious when shortly after arriving I went clubbing with a group of Au Pair friends. “Ooh foreign girls”, one guy said. “What are you doing here?” “Studying.” My friend [...]
Au Pair in America-Some Things You Should Know
If you’re thinking about applying for a job as an Au Pair, here are some things you should know: You earn US$200 a week. It’s not much, but you’re not paying for rent, groceries, utilities etc. However if you want to travel, you’ll need to control your spending. The program is for one year, and you [...]
So you want to be an Au Pair?
If you want to live in America but haven’t been to college, and you can’t get sponsored for a working visa, an Au Pair program could be for you. So you want to be an Au Pair? You can be an Au Pair in many countries, but I chose the United States since I’d been there before, and I [...]
Where did I go?
Yes I am still in this world. It’s been a crazy couple of months that’s for sure, and I sort of dropped off the face of the earth for a while there. So where did I go? I started a new job as a travel agent, and of course I completely underestimated exactly how hard [...]