What's so wrong with male au pairs?
paul
The Sunday Times - January 04, 2004
"What's so wrong with male au pairs? They wash up and iron, and they
play football and PlayStation too, but still we are prejudiced against
male au pairs, says Karen Robinson
"It is more than 10 years since British law was changed to allow au pair
boys from non-European Union countries to join their female compatriots
in the quest for an English family who would give them a friendly home
and pocket money (current rate: £50 a week). In return they'd work a
few hours a day childminding and cleaning and get the chance to learn
English and experience life in a country different from their own.
But the ambitions of many a Zdenek, Mehmet and Lech to become one of the
15,000 au pairs who come to Britain each year are doomed to remain
unfulfilled. Despite profound changes in the ways we juggle our working
and family lives these days, we cleave to one abiding tradition: nobody
wants a man to take care of their kids or their ironing.
"There's no demand from our families," says Gordon Gibbings of Au Pairs
by Avalon, in Crowthorne, Berkshire. "Out of the 120 au pairs we place
a year, about two are boys." Hanna Matthews of the North South Agency
in Hastings, East Sussex, concurs. "About one in 50 of my clients says
they may consider a male. I have one on the way from Turkey at the
moment, and I persuaded the family to take him." She thinks it's
significant that the mother is from New Zealand. "English families are
the ones who are sexist. When a family takes a boy they are usually
more desperate. We send them to places where a girl wouldn't go, like
in the countryside. Though once they have had one, they often say, I
wonder why I didn't do it before."
My son Cal, 12, and I have played host to half a dozen au pair boys
since he started school and I was able to abandon the ruinously
expensive combination of private nursery and part-time nanny for this
cheaper, friendlier and more relaxed arrangement.
We've never experienced the horror stories that come from friends'
homes: the girl who was supplementing her income by picking up tricks
at the pub and sneaking them back to her room; the one who took her
young charges to her boyfriend's flat, where the pair of them would
smoke themselves into cannabis-induced oblivion; the one who climbed
into bed with the mother and threatened to kill her; and the many who
climbed into bed with the father.
Of course, no young foreigner with limited English is going to be
perfect (what do you expect for £50 a week?).
"I've had Spanish boys who thought that their only duty was to lie in
the garden and look beautiful," says Matthews. And I have certainly
found that the Eastern European attitude to housework makes even the
average British male look like a domestic god. "Take a picture of me,
Cal, my dad doesn't believe I do ironing!" was the cheery cry from Czech
Ondrej that crystallised it for me. Our current chap, Piotr from Poland,
irons beautifully - except that the immaculately crease-free clothes
emerge from the process mysteriously wet.
So a girl au pair may (but only may) be more competent at the housework,
but will she spend hours playing football in the park, or fighting epic
battles on the PlayStation, or engaged in spirited rev-head discussions
about whether the people of her native village would be more impressed
if she were to return there in a Ferrari or a Lamborghini? When your
son has a carer who's also a pal, a less-than-sparkling kitchen sink
seems a small price to pay.
And aside from the refreshing absence of moodiness and sulking (big
features of the stop-gap girls I've occasionally hired), the lads can
turn out to have impressive and useful skills. We've had a painter and
decorator, a chef, a photographer and a teacher, all motivated by a
desire to improve their career chances by adding fluent English to their
qualifications. "I've even had a doctor from the Czech Republic and
people didn't want him," laments Matthews.
Obviously, if you have only daughters you might feel they'd be happier
with a girl, though you can't really tell till you get to know the
individual.
Ondrej, despite alarming experiments with his hairstyle that had him
going around for some time looking like he was trying to re-create the
Millennium Dome on his head, was adored by Cal's best friend's little
sisters. Atila, a heavily tattooed Hungarian, was amazingly patient and
gentle with small children and in constant demand for babysitting.
So why don't more of us want to give these lads a chance? It would
appear that there is still a visceral, instinctive mistrust of men
around children. A journalist friend (I won't name her, to spare her
blushes for an uncharacteristically stupid remark) announced to me, when
I was telling her about our first foray into male au pair territory: "I
wouldn't have a man looking after my child. Men who want to work with
children are all perverts."
Apart from the fact that an Eastern European paedophile could probably
find many easier ways to molest children than moving to a foreign
country and having to do housework, it makes no sense anyway, but the
fear runs deep. Iris Hume, of the Little Bears Childcare Centre in
Luton, Bedfordshire, says. "We do not employ any men - but that's
because they don't come forward. Men are reluctant because they are
open to accusations of child abuse far more than women."
Matthews, who is originally from Germany, perceives an almost automatic
assumption that male carers mean child abuse, and sees that mindset as
peculiarly English. Married couples, especially from working-class
backgrounds, are most resistant to male au pairs, even if they have
boisterous boys, she says. But, she adds, single mothers of boys (like
me and Cal) find it works out well, provided the living space is not too
small.
But it's not just worried mothers with lurid imaginations who are
vetoing the idea of another male wearing the Marigolds in their home. I
have male friends who can't stand the idea; they would see it as a
constant reproach as young Sven busied himself with the Dyson and the
Ajax, in between playing Action Man and Lego - all the stuff they know
they should do more of themselves (overstretched working mothers, on the
other hand, feel no guilt about this). However, the clinching argument,
as Matthews says, is probably this: "Husbands want a pretty girl in the
house."
(C) Copyright acknowledged © The Sunday Times 2004
--
paul
Season's compliments
http://www.watman.clara.co.uk/card_03.html
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Owain
"paul" wrote
| a friendly home and pocket money (current rate: Ł50 a week)....
| "I've had Spanish boys who thought that their only duty was to
| lie in the garden and look beautiful,"
Someone lying in the garden looking beautiful for a whole week for only Ł50?
An absolute bargain I call it, cheaper than a boyfriend.
Owain
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