Matching With Our Next Au Pair

It was a sobering realization that living in Minnesota and taking care of four children is not every au pair's dream.  It may be our dream, but when au pairs have one year to live the American dream, they want California or New York and one or two (school-age) kids. I desperately hoped someone would be open-minded enough to look past the number of kids and the location and focus on what we had to offer - friendly, welcoming family, city location, access to a car, steady hours and no evening or weekend work.  Then we found Marcel who was willing to give Minnesota a try and be flexible as we adopted two children midway through his year.  I'm sure his experience has not been what he initially expected, but he's nonetheless having a memorable year.

With this living proof that an au pair can have an awesome experience outside of California or New York, I set out on our search for our next au pair with a great deal of optimism.  I updated our family's profile with adorable pictures of our newest additions and wrote about what a wonderful year we're having with Marcel.  As I proofread our profile, I thought, "Who could say no to us?"

Apparently a lot of people.  Seemingly as soon as I hit send on the introductory e-mails I sent to each au pair candidate, the rejections rolled in.  Many never even responded.  It shouldn't have surprised me that most of the reasons focused around not wanting to come to Minnesota and/or take care of four children, but it was still depressing.  Even the woman who could do a handstand on a moving horse (she competes in a sport I'd never heard of called vaulting; it's like gymnastics on horseback) thought four kids was overwhelming.  Let me repeat, SHE COULD DO A HANDSTAND ON A MOVING HORSE - yet she was afraid she couldn't handle our four children. 

We did eventually find our next au pair.  She rides horses, but as far as I know, cannot do a handstand on one.  But we're not hiring an equestrian.  We're hiring an au pair.  The one we matched with is almost 20 years old, from Germany, and has an impressive application filled with extensive babysitting experience and an internship at a daycare program for children with special needs.  In Skype interviews and e-mail correspondence, she came across as kind, social, fun-loving and family-oriented.  In fact, she started to seem too good to be true.  So I ended up sending her one final e-mail where I laid it all out.  Winters are long in Minnesota.  Our kids are loud and you won't be able to sleep in on the weekend.  The hours are long.  There's a lot about the job that's not glamorous, like driving the kids to school, packing lunches, cleaning, doing laundry and cleaning up potty accidents.  In your country the drinking age is 16; in ours it's 21.  I had to cut myself off and hit send before I completely scared her off.  I knew she was the one when her reply left me feeling confident that she wants to spend the year in Minnesota with our family - four kids and all.