Dear Future Au pair

After spending hours and hours going back and forth with potential new au pair candidates a few years ago, I finally realized that the right au pair will recognize herself if she gets a good look into the experience of being an au pair in our home.

I asked my past au pair's to write an honest letter about their experience with us, so that, after reading it, you will probably have a good idea if we're a good potential family for you.

You can read our most recent au pair, Lea's letter, as well as our last au pair, Barbara's letter and our second au pair, Ramona's letter here and our first au pair, Micha's letter here.

In addition to letter's from Lea, Barbara, Ramona and Michaela please take a look at our somewhat outdate family picture blog and pictures of our house for my airbnb listing (it isn't always this clean but we try, and my au pair's help me a lot).

If you think we could have a great year together, please contact me at lists4lisa at gmail dot com.

-Lisa

PS. I dearly love each of these girls and appreciate all they contributed to our lives while they lived with us. I'm also grateful that we have each of them in our lives still and I suspect for many years to come and we all consider them part of our extended family.

PPS. I asked the girls to write an honest letter with the good and the bad but looking over the letters they didn't write much that is negative.  I think that is largely because we spent a lot of time making sure to have a good fit.  Also, these girls, like me, understand that every situation and every person has positives and negatives and so, I guess, they never held the negatives too much against me.  In an attempt to give a full picture, here are some of the things which might be seen as negatives (especially for the wrong person; for the right person, some though not all, may even seem appealing).

a) Our house is busy! This means that it's sometimes loud, chaotic and disorganized.  It can be a lot of fun but it can also be work to prepare, manage and organize for events, classes and social gatherings.
b) I am disorganized.  Combined with being busy this means that my au pairs often find themselves in the position of helping me find my keys, pushing me out the door to make sure I'm not late and helping find sanity and calm etc.   This kind of skill and help is SO appreciated by me.
c) Our kids are wonderful but can be challenging.  (I suspect this is true of most kids but I get worried when I read au pair applications that say they love kids because they're always smiling and always fun.)    Kaizen is 13 and a boy and sometimes he needs reminders mostly related to social skills.  He can challenge patience by "not hearing" or "forgetting".  Soleil is intense and emotional and dramatic.  She can wear a person out with her persistence.  She is also fickle and might love you one minute and tell you to "go away" the next.  Yet they both have extreme charms.
d) We are an unusual family in many ways.  We have a lovely and privileged life but we don't live the typical American Dream.  We don't have a TV and we are thoughtful and careful about mainstream influences of most kinds.  We like to go our own way and sometimes that's very different from the pack.  For a very conservative person we are very likely to seem weird.  And for someone looking to experience Martha Stewart-like American holidays they may be disappointed in our company.
e) We try very hard to have a healthy diet and to teach our kids about nutrition.  Joe and I try to eat mostly good quality proteins and lots of vegetables.  Joe is often trying some new unusual food approach and so, often has to make his own food separate from the rest of us.  We try to keep sugar, white bread and pasta to a minimum.  Our kids challenge this but we still try to encourage love of a whole food diet in them and will need your contribution.  

Lea's Letter

Hey there.

I'm Lea, and i'm the current au pair of the Betts-Lacroix family. It's been exactly a year today that I landed in New-York and since my year is almost sadly done, i guess it's time for me to give to some one else the chance to live what I've experienced. It's been so far, the best year of my life : and i'm pretty serious about it. I considerate myself a lucky person. I'm the kind of person who find a great parking spot without even looking for it. I am lucky in my day-to-day life. And I've realised it even more during this past year. I've met some amazing people here, some people who've changed the way I 'm thinking, the way I'm living, the way I am . I've grown : A LOT. I believe that I've become a stronger person, with much more confidence, with much more abilities.
And yeah, I owe that to every single person I met here, but mostly to Lisa, Joe, Kai and Soleil.

Are you ready to live something big ? Are you ready to change ? Are you ready to use some maturity ?
Because if you're not, there 's maybe an other program for you. I did (and still do) believe that being an au pair is more than driving kids to school every morning, picking them up in the afternoon and watching tv while they are struggling with their homework. I'm pretty sure you would find an other family if that is what you are expecting.
You have to like being overwhelmed by the love of 7 years old little girl, you have to like pretending to be a kitty, you have to like reading stories again&again ( and over again : WE HAVE LOT OF BOOKS, strangely a couple of them are more love than the others ). You also have to remind that you used to be a teenager, and it wasn't long ago : dealing with a teenager is so much easier and fun when you share what you remember about it .

Kaizen a.k.a Kaikai, or Kai is 13, he eats minestrone soup, frozen tamales, chicken, pasta and candies. He's the smartest kid I've ever met and kinda know it. He loves video games, computering – which is a family thing - ( Silicon Valley thing ), and reading. He has probably read more books that i will read in my life. He 's pretty easy going, but he need to be directed. He will help you, if you need it, and if you ask for it. He sometimes forget what he needs to do, not because he doesn't want to do them but because he's a boy and yeah I guess some stuff are more interesting and easy to remember than clearing his desk, or putting his plates on the dishwasher. He needs authonomy, and space. He's a very interesting kid who has a lot to talk about,and who 's worth to be listen very attentively. I've learned a lot with him. He is into math, music ( teaching himself how to play drums : he's pretty good ), he sings, play piano and loves to perform.

Soleil a.k.a Pineapple ( cause it's my favorite fruit) is an adorkable little girl. She's gonna love you so much that it's gonna very hard for you to tell her ' no'. She knows what she wants, and she is good at figuring out how to get that. She likes to pose, she likes making funny faces in pictures, and she loves crafting : and she 's good at it. She has a lot of imagination, she likes listening to stories, and making some up. I guess she will read pretty well in a couple of month and she will earn in authonomy with books. I'm sure she will never let go of the bedtime/snuggling story time though.

She LOVES her parents, and yeah she wants to spend all her time with them : don't take it personnaly. I did feel sometimes useless cause I didn't know what to do. You can't really force someone to be with you, and to play with you, and it's even more difficult when mummie is around. As she's getting older, she 's maturing a lot. I remember that a year ago she didn't really want to try new things, new classes, meet new people : she was just fine with the way things worked at the time. Now, even though she still like laying down in bed, playing card games and messing around : she enjoy and try things – it's better when friends are around -. If she's hesitant on trying things, she's not with food, with her dad they love trying weird/disgusting food mixes ( peanutbutter and jelly sandwich smoothie, or ice cream and salmon eggs) it is really fun to observe how she actually likes it ( or pretend to ) while she refuses to eat whatever she decided she doesn't like. She is pretty picky, however she would always be hungry for a desert. She 's in a relationship with candies - sugar in a general way - : wich is turning close to the addiction.

Lisa and Joe are pretty awesome people. Always here when you need it, always trying to make things work for everyone. If you don't feel confortable with them, you won't feel confortable with anyone. They are open minded person who will really do whatever they can to get to know you : to know who you are, where you come from and what you want to become. Lot of people around : be warned. I've met some incredible people this year through the homeschooled community, throught their friends, throught all the people we hosted. You will see a lot of things going on in this house : concerts in the living room, lot of kids playing/messing around in the playroom, lot of parties and dinner, and of course classes. I did enjoy it a lot, and i'm not a super social person though. If you are a homie kind of person who doesn't like having people around all the time : might not be the best fit. But again you don't have to be part of it if you don't want to, I'm just saying that it's nice to be around, enjoying good conversation.

I definitly get a much more healthier attitude towards food : i'm a baker's daughter, I love sweet, I love white wheat, I love bread. In france american food is presented as fat, and non healthy : giving mcdonald as 1st exemple... It's not like that at all here, Lisa and Joe are paying attention to what they eat : the pantry won't be the same that what you're used to eat. I did get a bit homefoodsick at some point – they are still plenty of places where you can find whatever things you FEEL like eating. And Lisa loves cooking, Joe is famous for making great dishes out of left over : so don't worry you won't be sturving : if you are, it's just because you're picky :)

Lisa is great trying to schedule work time paying attention to if you have plans or not. I usually have my schedule for the week on sunday, and organise myself according to that schedule. Kai is getting older and doesn't need too much playing : he does have bunch of classes all over the bay and need to be driven. He's pretty much self efficient : may sometimes need to be reminded that he has to eat when too involved in a good book or a video game. Soleil wants to play all the time, but she does also have class she has to go to. Every morning we try to see what need to be done, and we slipt the work with Lisa. Kids laudry is usually once a week, I do cook a lot : cause I LOVE it.

Concerning the cleaning, there are always things which are need to be done : it's normal, it's a house with kids. If you are into museums-houses, in which “dust” is a swearword, may not be a perfect fit. Don't get me wrong : the house is not dirty or anything : it's just a living house, with real people who don't spend each second of their day cleaning after children. We do have some cleaning spot on the calendar, but when I see something which need to be done, I just do it.

My experience here was pretty amazing. So radically different that everything I experienced before. It worked perfectly cause I wasn't expecting anything special. I was totally open to start something new. Jump in like I'd always been a part of it. It was great cause the Betts-Lacroix was my perfect match. And they are now a part of life, they will be a part of it forever. After a year, I still do think the matching process is the MOST important thing. And you shall be pretty serious about it if you want to have a as great experience as I have.

Feel free to ask anything.

Peace & Love .