Last Monday our six year old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  The whole event was so un-dramatic for something that changes your life so much.  Jean-Paul wasn't very ill.  He had a fever about a week before.  Nothing serious.  We kept him out of school for 2 days.  He is rarely sick.  I noticed that he was urinating a lot and kept asking for more to drink.  At first I thought it was related to the fever but then I noticed he had lost a little weight. 

I was starting to get more concerned because I recognized the symptoms....I had family members with type 2 diabetes. I even did a search ion the internet of the symptoms he was experiencing.  They matched diabetes. I tried for a day or 2 to convince myself that it was nothing...of course you can't wish certain things away.  Sunday night I told my husband Marc that I thought Jean-Paul had diabetes and I was going to take him to the doctor first thing on Monday.  Monday was Yom Kippur.

There we were at the doctor's office.  His pediatrician listened to me as I described his symptoms.  She asked the nurse to check his urine and another checked his weight. He had in fact lost a little weight but initially they only saw a little sugar and ketones in his urine.  There was sort of a moment of optimism...then the nurse checked his blood with a glucometer.  His blood sugar was 178 and he hadn't eaten anything yet.  I knew that it was certainly diabetes.  I called my husband at that point and told him. He head over to the doctor's office.  The pediatrician wanted us to go to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). 

At this point I started to cry.  Jean-Paul had been so great.  He's always such a good sport when it comes to visiting a doctor.  He gave me a huge hug and I tried to explain what was happening.  I think he only felt a little scared because he knew I was scared. The doctor also helped out in explaining things to Jean-Paul.  My husband arrived and we spoke briefly with the pediatrician. She said there was a slight chance that it could be something else… some sort of viral thing that would pass.  Marc and decided that it was better not to be holding out hope for that. She explained that we needed to go to the emergency room at CHOP.  They were expecting us.  They would confirm the diagnosis and then Jean-Paul would be checked in to the hospital for a 3 or 4 days so that they could get him started on insulin and educate us...with the emphasis on educating us.

The au-pair program is positioned in the following way… the au-pair is a young adult between the ages of 18 and 27.  They join the program to have the opportunity to travel to live abroad for a year.  In exchange for a place to live, some money towards education and a weekly stipend of $139 a week, the au-pair is expected to take on child care duties in the home for up to 45 hours per week. (I’ll talk more about this later).

The au-pair program is regulated by the US government.  The terms of the program such as the type of visa, education requirement, duration of stay, compensation, limits on work hours, are mandated.  The various au-pair programs such as Au-Pair in America and Cultural Care implement the program based on the guidelines. 

The au-pair’s are usually students or recent graduates of their country’s equivalent of high school, trade school or university.  Possibly they are taking a year off from their studies to travel and improve their English.

The various agencies such as Au-Pair in America, Cultural Care, etc. broker the relationships between the au-pairs and the host families.  They generally do the following:

• Prior to arrival: interview au-pair candidates through offices in the home countries, interview perspective host families, confirm references for both the families and the au-pairs, process visa paperwork, arrange travel.

• Once an au-pair has arrived in the US, they have local coordinators who meet with the families and the au-pairs on a regular basis, coordinate local activities, help the family and the au-pair settle in and broker issues between the family and the au-pair if they arise.

Marc and I decided to hire an au-pair last year when we moved to Philadelphia from the UK.  We had shared an au-pair with our neighbor in the UK and found that the flexibility of having an extra pair of hands around the house was really helpful.

Marc is from the Netherlands.  Dutch is his first language.  His parents speak primarily Dutch so we thought that it would be really great to get an au-pair form the Netherlands who could speak Dutch to the kids and perhaps they would learn a bit of the language.

Marc started looking around on Dutch websites and Bulletin boards and we found a girl from the north of Holland who was planning on signing up with Au-Pair in America and wanted to come to US.  All seemed good and she eventually joined us in the US. 

To make a long story short, things did not work out well for us.  We learned a lot about the pitfalls of the au-pair program.  We also discovered that our own naivety and lack of preparedness really came back to bite us. 

We found that issues were basically related to 3 things:

1-      Our preparedness as a family to add in essence another family to our household.

2-      The au-pair’s expectations, maturity and understanding of the au-pair program.

3-      The involvement of the au-pair agency.

For those of you considering an au-pair, I thought I would share our learnings.  We will be applying what we have learned over the next year as we add a new au-pair to our household.  I’ll keep you posted…