maternity nurses

The Nanny Podcast episode 11 “Why should I pay for a cleaner?”

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One time I had a prospective client tell me after we had done her intake interview, filled out all the forms and she had told me exactly what she wanted, which was an au pair, we will get to that in a minute, and I told her that we could find the staff she needed, it just wouldn’t be one person, but two or three.

We have talked about what au pairs are before, they are a cultural exchange program, not a professional doing a job, so while at first it seemed to this family that what they wanted and needed was an au pair, their kids were at school during the day and the parents travel a lot and work out of the area where they live, when the list of duties and the schedule arrived I wasn’t sure what to answer except no, that’s not an au pair, that’s a part time nanny, a cook and a housekeeper. Without going into too much detail about what they wanted let’s just say that the cleaning duties went far past the kid related clean up and meal prep. When the kids were in school all day they wanted the house deep cleaned, dinner prepared for the whole family, groceries shopped for, laundry done for the whole family, the husband’s shirts ironed and before leaving in the evening, the lunches for the next day prepared for the parents. All these services are perfectly fine to outsource, in fact, we often encourage families who want to spend more time with their kids to hire a housekeeper and a chef a few hours per week to clean and prepare meals, but for an au pair, who would take care of the kids in the afternoon after they came home from school and do everything with them until their parents came home from work, the workload during the day was unacceptable. I think in their case, if it was just for the childcare, an au pair might have been fine because they were away a lot and needed the flexibility and the kids were old enough, it wouldn’t be a client for us since we don’t place au pairs. An au pair could do some of the kids’ laundry and clean up, and feed them when the parents are not there, but not clean the house, cook for the whole family and do all their laundry.

When I tried to politely explain the different roles she was looking for she got really upset and asked me why she should pay for a cleaner when she already paid for the au pair. By the way, she wanted to pay the au pair 100 euros per week, plus room and board. My question then is why should I pay for gas when I paid for groceries? Why should I pay for shoes when I paid for face cream? Why should I pay for a handbag when I paid for a hotel room? You get the gist. They are different things, that’s why. I told them that I pay my nanny and my cleaner. They do different things and I can’t do what they both do at the same time, so why should they? As you can imagine, she didn’t like it and didn’t end up hiring anyone with us. That’s fine, I prefer to work with people who are respectful and not that entitled. The thing I wonder in situations like this is if the family thinks about how it would be if the situation was the opposite. Would they take the job they were offering? Why would they, or why not? What are you offering that benefits the other person, except money, in which case as soon as something with more money comes along they will take that? I think it’s always important to try to see what you are offering from at least two perspectives, both as a nanny taking a new job and a family hiring someone to take care of your kids. Know what you offer and why that is valued by the other person.

Thank you for spending time with me today, let us know what you would like us to talk about, email us at hello@rivieranannies.fr and put podcast in the subject line. See you next time 🙂

The Nanny Podcast episode 9 “I want a French live out au pair”

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I want a french live out au pair

Sometimes we get requests that are difficult, sometimes we get requests that are confusing and sometimes we get requests that are impossible and illegal. Even though we don’t place au pairs, we still get a lot of questions about them. I think most people think an au pair is a cheap way to get childcare, it is not, and I will explain why in a minute, but most of all I think a lot of people don’t know the difference between an au pair and a nanny so we will talk a little bit about that.

An au pair is not a professional. Having an au pair is a cultural exchange program, and this is where a lot of misunderstandings happen.

An au pair does not have any training or experience (babysitting is not experience) in general.

Generally they do not know about childhood development or education, they are young people who want to experience another culture and learn a new language in a foreign country.

The laws are different in different countries, but normally, an au pair can work up to 30 hours per week, have at least one or two days off per week and should be treated like a family member.

He or she also needs language lessons, both time for them and have them organized and paid for, it is often needed to even get a visa.

Then you have to pay for their insurance and social charges, and of course you have to house and feed them and pay a weekly stipend, usually about 60-90 euros per week depending on where you live, and you have to provide transportation for them (bus card, scooter, car). The cost is about the same as a part time nanny. A lot of families break several of the rules for keeping an au pair, many don’t pay social charges or insurance or probably language courses, but that is not the legal way to work and it is definitely not the ethical way to work.

So, when we get asked, in France, if we can help someone find a french live out au pair, the answer is no, because 1. they can’t have a french au pair in France, and 2. you can never have a live out au pair because an au pair by default lives with you.

When a family wants full time help that is of course possible and in a lot of cases a great idea, when they can and want to pay for it.

When money is an issue, we always suggest instead of going the route of doing half the things necessary to get an au pair, to get a part time nanny.

Figure out what you really want and need help with and get a professional that you don’t have to worry about housing or having someone in your home all the time.

There are so many stories about au pairs ending up not working out at all, I have one personally too and it is not to say that an au pair is never a good solution, but most of the time it is not the cheapest or easiest.

With a nanny you don’t have to worry about them getting drunk and crashing your car.

With a nanny you don’t have to worry about their boyfriend coming to visit, and then he doesn’t leave.

With a nanny you don’t have to worry about them abusing your children, verbally, emotionally or physically.

With a nanny you don’t have to worry about them leaving in the middle of the night and stealing from you.

With a good nanny you don’t have to worry about any of those things, and the more things you have talked about before the start of the contract that we think you should always have, the less things you have to worry about in general.

The Nanny Podcast episode 7 “I want a qualified nanny twelve hours per day, six days per week and pay less than minimum wage”

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Welcome to the Nanny Podcast.

If this is the first time you are listening to our podcast, welcome 🙂 this is where we talk about everything nanny, we talk about how to improve your career, things you love about nannying, how we as an agency work and so much more.

Today I am going to tell you about a kind of situation we run into here at the agency every once in a while. It happens more often than I think it should and I want to talk about why it is unreasonable and what we do when it happens. It is a little bit of a behind the scene of the nanny agency if you want 🙂

When clients contact us we ask them to fill out a questionnaire, telling us about the kind of nanny they are looking for and what the job they are offering looks like. We want to have a profile of the client, just like we do of the nanny so that we can make the best matches. This is a typical conversation in this kind of scenario:

Client: Hello, I need help finding a nanny for my two children age 18 months and 3 years. Can you help us?

Us: Hello, yes of course we can, can you please fill out the application form. (there is usually more of a conversation going on, but to simplify it a little, it’s usually something like this)

They fill out the application form, often not with all the information we ask for, sometimes because they don’t know, sometimes because they don’t want to tell us right away. Typically, in this particular type of family, they leave out the hours they require and the salary. Our reaction, privately is “oh boy”.

What happens then is that they tell us how qualified they want the nanny to be, on top of the basic trainings and certifications they typically want at least two languages spoken fluently, a good presentation, a smart and sophisticated nanny (which makes us delighted since this fits the profile for most of our nannies) because, you know, they will be taking care of their children. You would think that the person who is going to help them raise their children would be someone they respect and pay fairly, right? This far it sounds good, right?

Ok, then we get to the hours. Many families ask for five or six days work. Often ten to twelve hour days. We often try to negotiate the hours to be more sustainable, explaining that when their nanny is rested and happy, she is a better nanny (it should go without saying, but it doesn’t always) and then we try to explain the benefits of a nanny who is able to have a good balance in her life. That in a good relationship there is room for other things than work and a nanny who has no way of doing things she likes outside of work will not want to stay in the job. In general, there are probably exceptions but I can’t think of any. Maybe there aren’t. For most jobs like this the best solution would be two nannies in rotation.

So they say for example that they want six days per week, 7 to 7. That’s a long day and a long week so for me, I am already thinking in my mind that it leaves me with fewer nannies to present to them and the salary requirement will go up. Remember they are looking for a high end nanny with long working days, and we haven’t even gotten into the fact that they might want the nanny to do some light housekeeping when the kids are sleeping, which may or may not be appropriate or reasonable depending on the qualifications and experience of the nanny and of course, the salary.

What I try to explain to our client at this point is that you have quality, quantity and price. You can pick two. When working with us you always have good quality, so that one has much less flexibility than the others, it is more a question of wanting a junior or senior nanny. You can’t have a senior nanny for many hours for a low price. Do you see what we do here? We are trying to set up the job to be successful for both the family and the nanny, making sure that the expectations are met on both sides and the relationship starts out in a professional manner with open communication. This is the point when we often don’t hear from the client again, I don’t know what their reaction is but I can imagine that they are upset because they can’t have something that is not reasonable, and I told them that they couldn’t, and what do I know, I’m just a nanny agent. Maybe it’s less dramatic than that, and sometimes the clients get back to us a few months later, after they realize that they do in fact need our help finding a good fit for their family and our job wasn’t as easy as they thought and they tried out a less qualified nanny who accepted the terms they offered because she just wanted a job, and now she left because she found something different or it just wasn’t a good fit and now they are back to where they started. And then when they write us again and we ask them to give us the specifications of the job they look a little bit different.

Thank you so much for listening to the Nanny Podcast, please join us again next time.

The Nanny Podcast Episode 4, The Celebrity Nanny

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Hi, welcome to the nanny podcast, I am so happy you are listening 🙂

I want to talk about something that might make some of you nod in agreement, some of you irritated and some of you not know about. The celebrity nanny, or rather the person who has been a nanny to a celebrity family.

There are so many famous people in the world, and many of them have kids and I would guess that the vast majority of them have nannies. It’s actors, singers, artists, athletes, politicians, royals, people that are famous because they are famous and so on. So many nannies have worked for someone famous as some point and are not affected by it at all, and don’t feel the need to brag about it, after all, they are just people and it is just another job, perhaps demanding in an unusual way, but still, it is taking care of and educating children whether they have famous parents or not. In my experience these families value discretion and professionalism even more than us mere mortals and would rather hire a nanny who is less star struck and more focused on the job.

When it happens it makes me giggle, we sometimes get nannies who have worked for celebrities and come to us with the attitude that their former employer’s fame and success is somehow theirs and expect some kind of special treatment. Let me say one thing straight, we treat everyone equally. Whether you are a client who is a celebrity or royalty, or a middle class family, we treat you the same. Whether you are a nanny with thirty years experience or a junior nanny just starting out, we treat you the same. Let me elaborate. The same service, has the same price and the same time requirement whether you are famous or a normal family. The requirements for you as a nanny to register with us are the same whether you are just starting out or have been working for many years for very famous people. If you are rude to us, we will not work with you, I don’t care how famous your former boss is. If you have lots of experience, an impressive CV and a professional and great personality, we will be very happy to help you find work. If you have an impressive CV with celebrity names on it and a crappy attitude, we will be much less excited to work with you. If you have nothing to show on your CV but are willing to listen and build it, we are happy to work with you. If you have no nanny experience and just want to come and work in Monaco, we don’t really think nannying is for you and we do not want to work with you.

I understand, it’s easy to get star struck. When I was in university I lived in cities where lots of famous people live, and would see famous people all the time in the grocery store, and honestly, I almost peed in my pants every time I saw Vincent Gallo, who was very cool at the time, or Ethan Hawke who lived around the corner from my school. It’s exciting, I get it. But don’t be a jerk, their fame is theirs, and in the end they are just people and because you know details about their personal lives because you have taken care of their kids does not mean that you are entitled to different treatment than others (I’m not even sure what kind of treatment is desired, maybe it is just a level of awe these nannies are after) and it definitely doesn’t mean that you should use that information to try to impress us or your next family. You are awesome, you have experience and merit, you don’t need to leverage your former boss’ fame to impress, you are impressive as you are.

Your CV will get you the interview, your personality will get you the job. That is just how it is.

Thank you for listening and spending time with me, see you next time 🙂

The Nanny Podcast Episode 3, “I want an exotic nanny”

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“I want an exotic nanny”

Welcome to the Nanny Podcast. I want to tell you about a kind of situation that surprises me every time and I want to share how we handle and advise in a possibly tricky situation.

There have been times when clients ask for “exotic” nannies and it doesn’t necessarily mean what you might think, we have had families say to us that they just want something different from everyone else. Here the nanny becomes a commodity, it is not longer about getting the best care for the child but rather about the image you project. A keeping up with the Jones’ if you want. Hiring a nanny is a really great thing for your family, you have another adult who is professionally trained to raise babies and children. When picking the perfect person for your family there are many things to consider. What language the nanny speaks is of course important. If you want your kid to speak a foreign language fluently and understand a foreign culture, hiring a nanny who can give you that is a great idea, but realistically he or she would have to spend years with you for it to have a benefit.

A client might tell us that they want a Chinese nanny to teach their child chinese. In some cases, this is a very regular request, we understand the logic. Then we ask, are you looking for Mandarin or Cantonese? There are times when we don’t get a response here and it gets really tricky for us to know how to help. The benefits of a foreign nanny can be huge, but the decision should be taken consciously. In one particular case when the family lives in a place where there is no chinese community to find local nannies in we would find them a qualified Chinese nanny who is willing to move for the job. That is also normal and quite common, but of course, this kind of job is not going to be a minimum wage one, if a nanny moves for a job, it will be for a good job with good terms and a good salary. In one particular case we explained this and that they would have to sponsor a visa for the nanny, at an additional cost. All this is ok until they see the numbers. That is when it starts to get strange. We show them a good solution, they don’t like it and come back saying, maybe we will take a Greek nanny then. Another pause from us. Ok. Chinese and Greek language and culture are not exactly interchangeable. We find a Greek nanny, same conversation happens again. They don’t want to pay what it costs. We suggest they hire a local nanny for fewer hours per week at a price they can afford. At this point they admit to us that they just want “something exotic” and “something nobody else has”. In my mind I think they should get a pet snake that they walk around with and a proper nanny who can take care of the needs of their baby. Your nanny is not a status symbol, or shouldn’t be. He or she is not a handbag or a car, they are the person helping raise your children. If it is necessary to brag about having a nanny, brag about how qualified they are. Brag about how they help you solve problems you didn’t know how to solve on your own. Brag about the relationship you have with them, how you respect each other. Brag about what they bring to your family. Brag about how you work together and about how you have provided your children with a loving and professional adult who helps educate them. Brag about the content, not the format. That’s worth telling your friends about.

Thank you for listening, join us again next time.