Choosing a Host Family

A few weeks ago I said I was starting a series on advice for au pairs, and then I stopped posting. Turns out I found a book series that was way more interesting than anything I've done lately and read 5 books/4,000 pages for a few weeks straight much to the detriment of my blogging and social life (I actually cancelled/declined a few hangouts because I was too into reading and didn't want to stop reading). But now I'm back and I promise I'll actually be posting weekly updates now. (I even have the next two week's au pair advice post already written out!)

So once you've done enough curious googling on what it means to be an au pair and you're ready to take the next step, you'll need to find a host family. Before I go any further, I will just say that the host family can pretty much make or break your au pair experience. My number one piece of advice to anyone looking for a good au pair experience is to make sure that you find a good family. Obviously you won't be able to know fully until you actually get there and see how things go, but in preliminary profiles and Skype sessions with the families, you should generally be able to get a good feel for the family.

One of the biggest choices that you'll have to make is whether you're live in or live out. Both have huge advantages and disadvantages, so I'll try to cover the big ones. And remember, as each family and situation is different, these could all be completely the opposite, but from my own personal experiences as well as what I've heard from other au pair friends, this seem to be the general consensus.

Living In
Generally, living in gives you what is considered to be closer to an au pair experience in the original sense of a term- you live with a family for a year as part of their family and get to be fully immersed in another culture. I'm a live-in au pair so I have a little more experience on this side of things.

Pros

• Much more likely to have access to normal amenities (A full kitchen, internet, laundry machine, etc)
• The ability to have more participation in family life and cultural events
• A feeling of having a family as opposed to an employer (When you're thousands of miles away from home in a foreign country, this is much more comforting than you'd expect!)

Cons

• Less of a sense of independence, which can be hard sometimes, especially for older au pairs who have previously lived on their own 
• Curfews (Or, if not having strict curfews, an intense paranoia when you do return home late at night to be as quiet as possible so you don't wake everyone up, or maybe that's just me)
• A blurring of work and personal life, especially on weekends or other clearly-defined off-work hours

Living Out

In Paris, a lot of families hire an au pair to serve as more of a nanny-figure, and will pay for a separate apartment for the au pair to live in (usually something very small and cramped). Those who live-out are generally much more like employees for their host family than anything else.

Pros

• Your own apartment in Paris 
• The ability to be more autonomous outside of work hours (If you're the type who likes to stay out until 2 am every night, do this)
• When you get home and get off of work, you don't need to wear pants

Cons

• The food situation in general is a bit more difficult to figure out (Will the family pay you extra and you get your own food? Do they buy groceries for you? How creative can you get with a hot plate and a microwave?)
• As an employee, families can be a bit harder on you and will do things like hold the amount of money they spend on things like your apartment over your head
• Apartments often aren't equipped with things like internet or laundry machines, so you're left to figure that out for yourself

Now obviously, again, so much of this depends on your individual family. When you're looking at dossiers of families and talking with them, be sure to find out the answers to these questions:

• Has the family had an au pair before? Generally, families who have had one before will have a better idea of what they want the au pair to do and how to integrate you into their family, which eliminates a lot of confusion and troubles for both parties.
• What does your typical schedule look like on a weekly/monthly basis? How often will you have to babysit? If a family is more organized and open about things like this ahead of time, they'll generally be more likely to do the same when you're actually there. My family gave me a large file that included what a typical week would look like, along with a lot of general background information about what my job would entail and not entail, which was very helpful to know ahead of time.
• If they've had a previous au pair, can you talk to her through email or Skype? Most families should have no problem with this, especially if you go approach it from the angle of being able to talk to her to see how she handled things and make a smoother transition for the family and the kids. If they don't want you to talk to her, think about why that is.
• How involved are the parents with their children? This one can be a bit harder to get a general sense of without approaching it directly, but this is probably one of the biggest indicators of how they will treat you as well. Can you tell that they're parents who are genuinely interested in their kid's well-being but just happen to work longer hours? That's probably a good sign. Are they multi-millionaires who go to New York every other week and leave the kids with you and other hired help? Probably not so much.
• If you'll be living with the family, will you have a curfew? Again, this is something that is harder to approach tactfully. Do they want you to be home by 10:30 when you get off of work at 8 or 8:30? That's a bit extreme. If they ask that you get home around midnight if you'll have to be up at 7 am the next day to watch the kid but otherwise don't expect much, that's much more reasonable. 
• What does the family want from their au pair? Hopefully they'll at least be semi-honest in this answer.

Again, so much of this will vary from family to family, so my best advice would just be to talk with your prospective family as much as possible to see how you feel about them. When I was first matched with my family, I was a bit iffy about a) living in instead of living out and b) living in the suburbs. But I really have the best host family that I could ask for, and my situation is much better than some other au pairs that I know.

Next week, I'll be posting about going with an agency vs. finding a family on your own, and the week after that will be on how to have good Skype interviews with prospective families. Are there any other topics that you're curious about or would like to see covered?