Au Pair: The Truth

I know I've mentioned we're getting an au pair.

She arrives in less-than a week. I'm extremely nervous (hence my solid and frenetic cleaning effort, combined with the burned memory of my mother telling me that au pairs were a bit 'loose' when I suggested, at the age of 12, that being an au pair was a possible career option).

When I talk about our impending au pair, I'm certainly not 'big-noting' myself. If you knew us in real life, you'd concur how simple (possibly the wrong word), and down-to-earth we really are.

To be honest, I'd enrolled Martha in a handful of day-care centres, but because of her age, there are no places for her. I was told I'd be on the waiting list (at each Centre!) for a year. And I put her name down six-months ago. And I can't wait a year because the next course I'm doing requires me to be out of the house for four-days-a-week from 9 to 5.

We don't have any family living locally who can mind Martha, or collect the other three from school.

So, the decision to go with a foreign au pair was difficult, but unquestionably necessary.

We went through an Agency, which cost a considerable up-front sum, but they provided us with a list of 'suitable' girls, and we interviewed a selection of those via Skype.

We didn't choose ours because she came from Finland - that was pleasant serendipity.

We chose her because she was one of the oldest (maturest) girls; she had a some experience looking after children; she laughed at my jokes; she called each child by his/her name when she saw them on the camera-thing; and she didn't seem fazed by the prospect of being in charge of all four children. (I forget how daunting that task may look to some people. I still get stopped in the supermarket by people who tell me I must have my hands full. But you just do it, don't you, without thinking about it? And you scream a lot. I do.).

Anyway, by no means were any of the girls 'nannies'. They all seemed to be very young, innocent European girls primarily looking for a holiday in Australia. So, fingers crossed, our selection was the right one.

And we won't be treating this girl as if she's a slave. We still plan on cooking dinner and getting everyone ready for school and doing the cleaning and washing. Her main purpose is to mind Martha and deal with any crises while we're away studying/working.

I'm hoping she'll be fun; that the children love her and she loves them; that she gets us out-and-about cuddling koalas and poking kangaroos and doing things we normally couldn't be stuffed doing; and that she is, in fact, of Moomin blood.

If you're interested, I can keep you posted on how we go.