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Finding an au pair family is scary. And hard. Which is why there are a lot of agencies that say they can help match you. I understand the temptation. However, I really don’t think they are necessary if you want to be an au pair in Europe.

(If you want to au pair in the USA that is another story and you are actually legally required to use an agency. This is extremely expensive.)

If you have the money and want to use an agency, go for it. If, like me, you are dirt poor and prefer to do things yourself, then it’s important to find a family that you trust. 

Here’s how not to get ‘Taken’.

When I first told my parents I wanted to be an au pair, the first thing my dad said to me was, “Have you seen the movie Taken?” For those of you who haven’t, it’s basically the story of a girl who goes to Paris and gets kidnapped.

“Yes dad, I have seen Taken.” Massive eye roll.

Unfortunately, he’s right to worry. There are a LOT of scams that happen in Paris. This is why it is important to use the proper tools. 

I used aupairworld.com to find my host family. The families have to pay to be on the site, and they have to go through a background check before their profile is approved.

I strongly caution against finding your host family on Facebook. It may be tempting because there are so many good offers. I swear to god these are almost all scams. I don’t know what it is with scammers and Facebook.

In general, if you look at the profile of the person who is proposing these jobs on Facebook, there are almost always brand-new with no other posts. It’s because they are SCAMS. 

I tend to think this kind of stuff is obvious, but there’s always that one au pair asking in the group chat if ‘so-and-so’s posting is a scam. 

There is another website, aupair.com. I tried to use it, but something about it just gives me the ickies. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem as safe, and it’s not as user-friendly as aupairworld.com.

Host family profiles

Don’t entertain any families if they:

• Don’t list any info on the site, and tell you to message them off-site.
• Don’t have any photos.
• Offer a salary or job offer that is obviously too good to be true.
• Are looking for something other than an au pair – like a full-time or travel nanny. 
• Don’t provide specifics about the job offer.
• Ask you to pay a fee for WHATEVER reason. 

The biggest red flag

If a family is not willing to do a video call, you know immediately it is a red flag. You absolutely MUST have a video call with the host family before moving halfway across the world to live with them. Ideally, you will meet the kids over video call beforehand, too. And you can ask for a tour of the house and your room, so you can see that everything is in order.

I had dozens of video calls with my host family, so I knew they were legitimate people.

I matched up the inside of their house from the video calls we did to the outside of their house on Google Maps from the address they gave me. The front door had the same wacky window style, so I knew they weren’t lying.

Not that I really thought they were, but still.

Don’t wanna be “Taken”, do I?

Also, you should never transfer money to the host family. There is almost no reason.

I say ‘almost’ because I actually did transfer money to my host family. It was to pay the pre-registration fee for the French language school, so that I could have that certificate for my visa.

I didn’t need to do this, I could have paid it on my own and had my host mom reimburse me the half we agreed upon. But I felt more comfortable having her book it for me, so that’s what I did. But this was only after months of video calls.

The same thing goes for agencies. Sometimes there are scammers claiming they can help you obtain the visa.

Listen, no one can help you get the visa except you, yourself, and your host family a little bit. These scammers will say they need you to give them money to pay the visa officers or something. 

Just don’t do it. If you aren’t sure if something is a scam, leave me a comment, and I am confident I can help you figure it out real quick.

The job of an au pair

Your job as an au pair is to watch the kids. You can be asked to:

• Cook the children breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack
• Take the children to school and activities, and pick them up
• Do the children’s laundry
• Clean the kids’ rooms
• Entertain the kids
• Go buy something and run errands for the children
• Contribute to daily household tasks – like the dishes or wiping surfaces you and everyone are using
• Babysit so the parents can go on a date

Host families can NOT ask you to:

• Cook food just for the host parents
• Do the host parents’ laundry
• Clean the house or any area that is not an area the kids have not been in
• Go grocery shopping for the whole family
• Run errands for the host parents
• Watch the kids all by yourself for a weekend while the parents go on vacation
• Work more than 25-30 hours a week (without extra pay at least)
• Watch kids who are under 3 years old full-time. If there are children under 3 in the house, they must show proof of attending a day care (creche)
• Do anything sexual with them (duh)
• Take care of the family pets
• Work 7 days a week (you must have at least one day a week off)

Everyone breaks the rules

There are a lot of gray areas when you are an au pair. 

For example, I have broken a lot of the rules I just listed above.

What can I say? I am a teensy tiny bit hypocritical.

For example, I offered to deep-clean my host family’s house. Because it was a mess. And I didn’t want to live in a messy house personally. But what is important is that I offered, and they absolutely never asked me to do that, and were very clear that I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to. 

I only did it because I genuinely wanted to help them out. I was also more than happy to do their laundry when it was tossed in with the kids, and to go and get groceries and take care of the turtle. And I would frequently cook dinner for the whole family, because that is how it was structured. 

I am just so nice.

It’s all shades of gray

Personally, host families have asked me to:

• Work 35 hours a week without extra pay
• Go unpaid for two weeks every two months while they went on vacation
• Work on Sundays (when I was already working the other 6 days a week)
• Lie to the next au pair about how much I was paid, so that they could pay her less
• Attach an Apple AirTag to my keys so they could track me
• Told me I was not allowed to go on dates during my free time
• Told me I could not spend the night elsewhere (again, on the weekend, in my free time. They were very upset that I planned to spend the night with a friend.)

Stories I have heard from other au pairs about what their host families asked them to do:

• Take care of a kid with severe special needs
• Be in charge of walking the family dog
• Share their room with a member of the family
• Refused to pay for their food or groceries
• Told them what they could and couldn’t wear
• Deep clean the house 
• Not pay them their au pair salary

The French website doesn’t do the world’s best job of explaining this stuff. It just says that au pairs look after children and do light housework.

Unfortunately, a lot of host families genuinely misunderstand the purpose of an au pair, and that’s where the confusion happens. And it is easy for au pairs to feel coerced into doing tasks they don’t want to because they want to please their families.

This is always a risk when your housing is tied to your employment. I am quite used to this. I was a resident assistant in college, and then I worked and lived at the same apartment complex. So believe me when I say I understand how stressful it is to live with your employer.

If you have crazy host family – or even crazy au pair – stories, I want to hear about them!