Sunday 1 March 2015

Au dear...

So apparently I'm one of a large number of slave drivers across Ireland taking advantage of poor foreign girls and using them as a cheap form of childcare. The Sunday Independent has - for the second week in a row - included an 'exposé' on the horrors that aupairs in Ireland face. I've been seeing a lot of this lately - on online forums and the like. People who keep aupairs and pay them €100 per week are disgusting and should be ashamed of themselves...

We're currently on our fourth aupair - well sixth if you count the girl I sent home after two days and the other who said goodbye to us after two weeks because she was homesick following the death of her father. We're still in touch with all of them and next month one of them is spending a week of her holidays with us. In fact, our last aupair will be coming back this summer and working for us again until September. If things were so bad when you're living with a family and being paid €100 per week, surely she wouldn't be returning for seconds?

I've no doubt that there are some families in Ireland that take advantage of their aupair, but they're few and far between. There are dozens of aupairs in our small town alone, and for the most part - bar some small hiccups - they're more than happy with their host families. They live rent free, don't have any food bills, have free access to wifi and the comforts of home. We always treat our aupairs like extended members of the family and they've always been happy to spend time with us, even outside their working hours.

It's a shame that a handful of unkind - and let's face it - pretty damn horrible families, are giving the rest of us a bad name.