Photo by Jana Rabenhauptova

When it was coming towards the end of our first au pair Jana’s stay, we have started to look for a new au pair. We have clearly left it a little too late as she was leaving in late May 2007 and we did not start to look till March/April. We have contacted two Cork based au pair agencies. One did not respond to our e-mail or voice-mail at all (and it is an agency approved by IAPA!), the second one had no suitable candidates at such short notice. Apparently there is always a shortage of au pairs and families need to apply many months in advance. 

Meanwhile, we have turned to the internet and found Christelle via www.aupair-world.net as mentioned in the previous blog entry. The premium membership for this site was 39 Euro for 3 months and we were very lucky finding a suitable candidate within a few days.

Then suddenly in June, we heard from the Cork agency that they have a suitable candidate that can start in July. The agency sent us a few Word documents with T&Cs, information about what is an au pair, when to call them and not to call them and most importantly their price list. An au pair that would stay for 6 months ‘costs’ 400 Euro. The agency has asked us to fill in ‘Welcome letter’ and ‘About our family letter’. They did not visit our house, nor did they ask for reference. 

The Au Pair application we have received contained these sections: personal information, education, employment history, childcare experience, family preferences, domestic duties, declaration about having clean criminal record, ‘Dear family letter’, photos, references from a teacher and a neighbour, medical info stamped by a doctor, copy of passport and signed ‘Au Pair Agreement’.

The applicant was Andrea from Munich, Bavaria, Germany. She sounded like a lovely person and we thought that if she works out and is as good as Jana or Christelle, then 400 Euro is still worth it even though it is a lot of money for an application form only! The agency does not do any vetting; we still had to do the same ‘research’ and ‘getting to know them’ before arrival as with Christelle, which we met via the WEB.

Andrea came at the end of August and she ‘overlapped’ with Christelle for a couple of days. This is always a good idea when you are happy with the ‘old au pair’. I would not recommend if the ‘old au pair’ has a few habits that you would rather the ‘new au pair’ not to pick up. You may be better off to start out fresh.

Our next au pair, Christelle, was what is sometimes called ‘a summer au pair’. We have met her through www.aupair-world.net. She was a French university student and had 3 months free in the summer (June - August). She has caught our attention because her profile was filled in well and she uploaded a nice photo of herself surrounded by young children at some camp. In her profile, she described her interest in spending time with children, improving her English and learning more about Ireland. She had experience in working with children as a young volunteer at a summer camp in Germany. She just sounded like a genuinely nice young girl and we have exchanged several e-mails and a couple of phone calls. I remember that for some reason George had a tantrum while I was trying to talk to Christelle over the phone for the first time. Luckily the crying in the background did not put her off her decision to come.

Her duty was to look after George and Clara during the summer holidays and she has done that quite well. The one small hiccup at the start was that only after 3 days, she has admitted that she did not manage to put on the cooker and therefore George was on a staple diet of cold mushy peas and cold sweet corn! Since then I make sure that each au pair is comfortable with handling our temperamental cooker.

Christelle had an amazing appetite though one would not judge from looking at her figure. She had several substantial meals throughout the day, preferable two warm meals and after dinner, she would have some cheese and bread, truly French! I watched with envy the amount and the type of food she was able to eat without putting on any weight! One Sunday, we were going for a lunch to my mother-in-law and Christelle was staying at home so I said to her to look after herself and make something nice. She was just back from a morning mass and when I asked her what she may cook for herself that day, she told me that she will make some ratatouille. I raised my concern to her that that may not be enough and she, with a big smile, put her hand into her little handbag and took out a huge sirloin steak that she has just purchased in a local supermarket on her way from the church. I knew then that I did not need to worry about her not getting enough food!

She had a great imagination and she often organised special games for the children. Two occasions stand out in my mind. The first one was when she organised ‘Olympic Games’ for them. They had disciplines like throwing wellington boots, jumping in sacks etc. Clara and George enjoyed that so much - especially because Christelle has made medals and prizes for them. Another time she has organised a ‘murder mystery’ game with Clara and her friend. They spent the whole day preparing the story, setting the scene, rehearsing various characters (each had to play at least two roles). When I got home that evening from work, what a surprise it was to find a ‘dead body’ in the bathroom and through a series of interviews which took good two hours, I did my best to find out who was the culprit. The girls were outstanding actresses and they were all such convincing ‘liars’ that I did not manage to solve the puzzle and did not guess who the murderer was. An au pair, who is currently with us, Rebecca, has followed in Christelle’s footsteps recently and she also organised similar ‘murder mystery’ and again, it was a wonderful success. A lot of work goes into the preparation but if you have children, who enjoy this type of games,  it is really worth the effort.

I had an opportunity to meet Christelle again while on a business trip in Paris the following summer. We met in a lovely cafe Angelina on rue de Rivoli near the Westin Paris. The hot chocolate was nice though a little cold for hot chocolate! Till today, more than two years later, the children mention her name from time to time and we try to think of all the fun things that they did together.

Jana & George. Photo by Jana.

As it happened, when Jana arrived, I was away on business and it was my husband and our daughter Clara that collected her from the airport. Jana’s knowledge of English was quite basic at the time and the meeting at the airport and consequent journey to our home was apparently somewhat subdued. My husband does not speak Czech, Clara has a few words and I guess Jana was overwhelmed and a little shy. Luckily my mother was still with us and once they arrived home, she was able to ‘take over’ and settle Jana in. It was great that they had a few ‘overlapping’ days and my mum was able to explain to her in Czech all about George, his daily routine, about Clara, the village, our house etc. When I arrived back from the business trip a couple of days later, my mum and Jana were getting on like a house on fire.

Jana was almost twenty two and even though she did not have too much experience with small children, she got on really well with George right from the start. She used to mind him 4 days a week while we were both at work, as well as minding Clara in the afternoon when she came back from school.  She was very patient with George who was just starting to walk on his own and that requires a lot of hand-holding, catching, bending (and she is very tall!). She was fair but firm and she also had fun with him. And that’s the advise we have given all our au pairs ever since - our ‘3 Fs rule’ - Fair, Firm & Fun. Jana was truly great with him; I remember that George was very fond of his soother and insisted on having it while we, the parents, were around. But for Jana, he would listen to her and hand over when she asked him for it and do without it (he used to even fall asleep without it!). So slowly but surely we managed to get rid of it and Jana had to encourage George as much as us (because it was sometimes easier to give in  for peace sake - I agree with you, not the best parenting example!). When he was 18 months old, we put it in an envelope with his new cousin’s name on it and we told him that he should post it to the new baby. He somehow understood that it meant the end and that was the end of the ‘doodee’.

Jana helped us with a bit of housework, just general tidy up as you go along during the day. She also helped me sometimes with preparing the dinner in the evening. She had the majority of evenings free, all weekends free and extra day during the week. Au pair duties should not take more than 35 hours a week and we always try not to exceed this.

The one disadvantage was Jana’s level of English as it was rather limited at the start. This made it hard for her to communicate effectively with the Irish-half of my family and therefore it took a little while to build up rapport and understanding. The fact that she and I spoke Czech of course did not help her in learning English! On the other hand there was no room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation when it came to explaining things about the children, the routine, the country etc. And I was happy that Clara and George were exposed to my mother language.

Jana has a lovely personality and she made an effort to meet new people, improve her English skills, and explore Ireland in her free time. She has stayed with us for one year, which was fantastic as it provided stability and consistency  in George’s second year of life and of course in our life too. We are still in touch and all the lovely photos attached on the posts of my blog so far were taken by her while she lived with us. If you read this blog, Jana, thank you for the great time you have given our family!

When our second child was born in April 2005, I was well used to the ‘Irish’ way of having children and raising children. It certainly did not mean 3-4 years of maternity leave! I knew right from the start of the pregnancy that in order to keep my job (which I really enjoyed) I have to return back to work six months after the birth. I have truly enjoyed the first six months of our son’s life with him at home.

We were extremely lucky then to have my mother to move over from the Czech Republic for 6 months to help us to raise George till he was one year old. We are really grateful to my mum for deciding to take an early retirement and coming over to help us and to spend time with her grandchildren. It gave us great comfort to know that the first year of our son’s childhood was spent within a very close family circle. The question was: “What to do next?”

As both of us work full time, it was hard to decide what kind of child care to choose next as the one thing we knew for sure was that we did not want George to go to a crèche for 9 hours a day 4-5 days a week. We wanted George to get a lot of one to one attention in a familiar setting till he was at least two years old and despite how well a crèche is run, the opportunities for one to one interaction are limited. The price of full time care in a crèche and also having to secure minder for our then seven year old daughter was also a big factor.

We have looked at various options. Finding one of the local childminders that look after children in their homes was one option. These childminders are usually women with their own young or teenage children or older ladies that have raised their family and now want some extra income or/and something to do and maybe to have company too! The problem with this was that we did not know anyone suitable and it was also not the cheapest option (which is fair because these people deserve to be paid appropriately for the responsible and sometimes stressful job). And it was also not going to help us with one more ‘problem’ we had and that was that occasionally I have to travel abroad on business and my husband works a few evenings a week. We needed someone reliable who was able to stay in our home some evenings. The most favourable choice was to get a ‘live-in’ help and hosting an au pair fitted this requirement quite well. As I have been an au pair myself, I knew what being an au pair involves and now I was about to discover what it is like to be at the other side.

A friend of my sister was interested in learning English and spending a year abroad and she liked children too and that’s how we got our first au pair Jana.

When our first child arrived, daughter Clara,  I was lucky to be a stay at home mum until she was 1.5 years old. It was a natural thing for me to do as the norm back in the Czech Republic was to stay at home and look after a child for 3-4 years. I was young, had no serious career behind me and no clear picture of one ahead of me and therefore there was not too much to think about when deciding about staying at home and looking after my own child. However that time in Ireland the official maternity leave was about three months and I was quite surprised to find out that many women had to return to work after the three months were up, otherwise they may loose their job.

It was a ‘funny peculiar’ thing when I decided to join a full-time employment work force because in Ireland I was considered very lucky to have been able to spend 1.5 year with my child while back in my native country I was frowned upon as an irresponsible mother for voluntarily terminating the time of minding my own child!  The reality was that I had to go back to work to earn a living and also to stimulate my mind that was somehow less active and focused mostly on feeding times, nappy changing times and trying to get some sleep times! I was craving adult’s company, especially I did not have that many friends in Cork then. We have found a local childminder, a lovely lady in her late 40s with older children, for 3 full days a week. It took our daughter 3 weeks to settle in as she was used to being with me all the time. The minder has told me during the week 4 that should the crying have continued also that week, she was not sure if she could continue looking after our daughter. Thank goodness Clara was great from the 4^th week on!

We have not considered au pair as an option of affordable and suitable child care because the house we lived was too small. Every au pair is entitled to a private, clean, bright and warm bedroom and nobody should even consider having an au pair unless they can provide these basics for them.

Once Clara reached 2 years of age, we moved house and she has started attending a full time crèche (4 days a week) till the time she started school (she was almost 5 years old then). The crèche was relatively expensive but since she was our only child, it did not take more than half of my monthly income and therefore it made sense for me to keep working (to earn money of course but also because I really enjoyed what I was doing). The care they provided in the crèche was excellent and Clara continued to attend the afterschool that they run as part of their operations once she started school. She is a very sociable child and we believed then and now, that she has benefited from this type of care.  It seemed to suit her personality and she also had opportunity to socialise with children of her age. When baby number two arrived, seven years later, things were very different!

Photo by Jana Rabenhauptova

I did return to Cork the following summer but not as an au pair as I could only spend two months there and that was not enough time to commit to a family as an au pair. I believe that 3 months are really the minimum a person should stay as au pair so the children and the family and the au pair herself/himself can build up rapport and relationship.

The family I au paired for the previous summer had a new au pair but they kindly allowed me to stay with them free of charge while I worked in a local guesthouse. I don’t think I have ever really thanked them enough for putting me up that summer. I should send them a card all these years later and tell them how I appreciated it and what a great help it was to a penniless student from Eastern Europe.

That summer I met a lovely Irish man and we could leave it here by saying ‘…and the rest is history’ but let’s rather say ‘…and the rest is the start of a second part of my journey through the au pair world’. I have returned to Cork again the following summer after finishing my university master degree and stayed till today.

Photo by Jana

I guess I better tell you how I got on in my au pair role rather than in my ‘visitor of Irish pubs’ role otherwise I will have to rename this blog and reveal some very embarrassing moments of my life!

You may have already guessed that by mentioning the number of children - 4, it meant I was kept busy. The family has 2 boys (then 10 and 8 years old) and two girls (6 and a 1.5 year old toddler). They all have lovely Irish names though it took me a while to learn how to pronounce them and another while how to spell them.

It was the middle of their summer holidays when I arrived, so there was no school, no homework, and no lunches to prepare. My main duties were household chores and looking after the youngest one. A day or two after my arrival, I got a piece of card board (from the Cornflakes box) with my duties written on the back of it. This ‘document’ was passed from au pair to au pair judging by how tattered it looked. It was something on this note if my memory still serves me right: Laundry washing and ironing every day. Hoover the hall every day. Keep kitchen clean everyday. Monday - hoover the sitting room and polish, clean downstairs and upstairs bathroom. Tuesday - polish brass door knobs, wash potatoes; Wednesday - wash the kitchen floor, half day off in the afternoon; Thursday - clean downstairs and upstairs bathroom, Friday - change sheets; Saturday half day off in the afternoon, Sunday off. Pretty busy agenda and of course there was the little girl to mind and the others too sometimes. I would start around 8am and generally have a break from 3pm till 5pm and then help with preparing the dinner, cleaning afterwards and sometime babysitting - mostly on Fridays. The host father actually only spent weekends at home because he worked in another city that time, so it was nice for him and the host mother (let’s call her Helen) to go out on Fridays if he was not too tired after a long week and a long commute. I was busy, I was tired and many afternoons I took a nap during my 2 hour break; something I never had to do since I was small but I needed to re-charge.

My English was really not that great and one day Helen told me that I am ‘full of excuses’ (after I said to her when she was looking for her poppies that I did not wash any potatoes because I could not find them). I thought she meant that I was polite by excusing myself whenever I could not complete a task or did not understand. How surprised was I later to find out from a friend (another Czech au pair in Cork) what the words ‘full of excuses’ actually mean! I was a bit hurt but realised that I will have to make more effort to show and admit if I don’t understand something or if I don’t know where things are (like a big bag of unwashed potatoes is always in the garage and one has to bring a few in and wash them and store the washed ones then in a special basket under the kitchen sink - easy, right!).

One thing I learned pretty fast is that one should never trust an Irish person telling you they will be back in two minutes or ten minutes. At the start I took it almost literally, a ‘defect’ of Central and Eastern Europeans as we tend to take things literally. Two minutes mean usually about an hour, ten minutes about two. At the start I used to wait for Helen to return before feeding the little girl to makes sure I do it right but after a few days I figured it is better to feed the little girl rather than waiting and putting up with crying of a hungry child.

Another thing I have learned is that some women suffer from a lot of headaches and to get rid of them requires one to retire to their room for a little rest…but why not if you have an au pair, who can keep an eye on the kids and household for you when you take a little snooze?! A lot of tennis mornings and coffee morning meetings can also play havoc with your time keeping and even give you headaches. Today, as a mother of two in full time employment, sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to work and still have an au pair to give me a hand around the house and with the kids.

I guess I would enjoy it too and have the occasional headache or a game of tennis or maybe even a game of golf!

I had great four months in Cork in 1994. The weather that summer was lovely, plenty of sunshine and great music by the Cranberries blasting out loud everywhere! I liked the family, the city, the country. I missed the children after returning back home to my studies, I missed especially the youngest one as I spent a lot of time with her. I knew in my heart that I would come back.

Photo by Jana Rabenhauptova

I remember my first impressions when we passed a sign announcing that we have just entered Cork city from the Waterford side - the road leading into it along the river Lee looked a bit lonely and grey and buildings were small compare to Prague or Brno or London and many of them looked fairly run down with trees and plants growing out of windows and gutters! It was a Wednesday, the 20^th of July 1994. When we arrived at the bus station of the Republic of Ireland’s second largest city, I was amused at the size of it and that it had no clear bus stops dedicated to each destination. Buses were lined up in front of an ugly building. The station looks much nicer these days since it got a face lift for the 2005 European City of Culture year. 

I was waiting for a while as I did not see anyone who resembled ‘my family’. Luckily after about 20 minutes the host mother and one of the children arrived. The little girl (about 16 months old that time) was just so adorable; she was wearing a lovely summer dress. Something that you would only see on Czech kids for very special occasions and also only in about 25 degrees Celsius, not 17. After the usual ‘niceties’ upon arrival - like how was my journey, what’s the weather like where I came from we drove towards their home but first we had to stop at a shopping centre to get some groceries to make lunch with. They lived in a very nice neighbourhood but that time I did not really understand what difference this makes as where I grew up, there was no such a thing as good or bad neighbourhood or at least I did not feel there was. The family’s previous au pair was still there for a week or so. That was great as she was German and I spoke very good German and the transition was easier for me and the family too.

 I remember arriving in the house, meeting the rest of their 4 children and the au pair and then starting to cook ‘my’ lunch straight away. I was a vegetarian that time (hard to believe these days!) and I did not want to inconvenience the family by having to think about what I eat or not…so I cooked spaghetti with a creamy mushroom sauce…funny what memories stick in our minds! I remember marvelling at the house’s newly refurbished kitchen with a lovely big wooden dresser full of Portuguese pottery and other nick knacks (which seemed a bit kitschy at that time but I understand that it is part of the Irish and English décor and I actually kind of like it now). I remember admiring the lovely old house with its long very green garden full of old fruit trees and a small pond. I felt quite comfortable there right from the start, but I guess that’s the kind of person I am, maybe too comfortable a little too fast for more reserved and traditional conservative Irish custom. Nevertheless, it all seemed that it should work out and that we will all get on. The family had many au pairs before me and a few from the Czech Republic (including one of my best friends), so that made it easier too. A smile and a nod go a long way, something that I got to appreciate with au pairs in my own family many years later. 

That evening (despite the fact that I slept little in the previous 2 days), myself and the German au pair went to her favourite pub downtown. It was a proper Irish pub! What an introduction to Ireland, could not wish for much more. Packed with chatty and friendly people, no sitting at tables with a docket full of beer marks (one stroke per pint) like in the Czech Republic. Here you had to try to make your way by squeezing yourself through a crowd to get to the bar and then attempt to attract attention of whoever was serving behind the bar and then pay immediately. Yes, that was a culture shock but one gets used to this quite fast and with the price of a pint compare to what I was used to in the Czech Republic that time, one appreciates that nobody ‘pushes’ more pints in your direction than you actually want and also you don’t end up with a long docket of beers to pay for when all your friends conveniently disappear before settling the bill like it happened at home sometimes. I thought it was a great place, full of wonderful young and very friendly Irish people (not man foreigners around in those days). Looking back at it today, I would probably not be very happy if my own daughter frequented such establishment like I did then, but when you come to a new place and don’t have the feel for the country’s society and the culture, it is hard to judge. And of course when one is young everything seems more fun and cool. And it was fun. Only many years later I realised that one of the people I met who told me that they may be going on a foreign holiday soon probably meant they were going to jail for something or other.  Of course I wished them happy holidays in my ‘beginners’ English never to see them again. For anyone, who knew Cork that time, it was the Phoenix bar, next to Charlie’s bar on the quays. Charlie’s was another place where I liked it because you could just go there on your own, sit down, order a drink and read a newspaper by the fire and nobody would look at you twice. Try to do this in a continental Europe and I would imagine a few ‘labels’ would be immediately attached to you as a young lady with no company. There it was perfectly acceptable and it is till today and this is also one of the many wonderful things about this green island.

 One thing (or actually two things) that are not so wonderful about this island and which bugged me a lot at the start - are taps: one for cold and one for hot water. I still don’t get it, even after all these years! You either freeze or burn yourself. I understand that maybe the idea is to use a plug a plug, let water flow into the basin, where the hot and cold water mix and only then use it for washing hands or teeth but frankly, how many sinks have working plugs or if they have plugs, are the sinks clean?! Eek! Can someone tell me why in the UK and here people still install these taps, why using the mixers only in the kitchen?

Photo by Jana Rabenhauptova

My next au pairing experience was in Ireland. A great friend of mine, who has been an au pair in Cork for several summers was changing her summer destination for Canada and I had the opportunity to become a summer au pair with her ‘old family’. I welcomed this change of destination because I have spent a few previous summers near Dusseldorf and was anxious to discover new places. I found it quite hard to meet young people in Germany and I have heard that I will not have such a problem on the Emerald Isle. My only fear though was a lack of English because I have never really studied it. Russian and German were the two languages I learned through secondary school and at university. I had basic knowledge of some English words and expressions from songs, films and from a time of a short ‘love story’ with a handsome and kind English guy, who was that time an exchange student in my university town. (We are still friends and in touch but the difference now is that I can actually understand every word he says.)

I guess because the arrangement with the family was made via a friend, we had very little contact before me actually arriving in Cork. I remember writing them a letter letting them know the day and time I will be arriving and they sent me one back to confirm that they are looking forward to my arrival. Originally my friend became this family’s au pair via an au pair agency, to which she had to pay a ‘finding & placement’ fee and the family had to pay a substantial amount to the local agency too. My friend recalls that she was only interviewed over the phone by the ‘sending agency’ in the Czech Republic. There was no face-to-face meeting. So much for charging high fees by ‘traditional’ au pair agencies that claim going via them is the only safe way…but let’s talk about this some other time…

Going back about 15 years, the time I first travelled to Ireland, I must say it was a different world to what we know now. It has never crossed my mind then to even find out how much a flight ticket would cost because there was no such a thing as cheap flights with Ryanair or EasyJet. The cheapest ticket from Prague via London or Amsterdam to Cork even a couple of years later was around 400 GBP. So the only way to get from Prague to Cork was by coach for half that price. The bus would leave Prague in the morning and jolly 24 hours later, it would spit you out at Victoria bus station in London. The journey was made more exciting by crossing the channel by a ferry (certainly a novelty for a young person from a land-locked country) and then one would be wide awake and slightly shaking before an interview with famous emigration officers in Dover. The joys of the days prior to EU enlargement! Till today I have a fear of officials at airports, ports and border crossings. One never knows what paper is missing, is the passport in good enough order, is the right visa in it, OMG - where is the invitation letter?! Travelling to the US these days strongly reminds me of that time.

Then there would be about 12 hours of waiting to get on an overnight bus from London to Cork. It is a long long way to get from Prague to Cork…