The Total Shafting of Au Pairs

Do you like kids? How about international travel? If so, consider coming to the U.S. as an au pair. Get the kids off to school and then enjoy your time stateside — explore the city! Travel on your days off!

If only.

As the NYT reports, au pairs signed up for the opportunity to explore the U.S. and have instead been trapped by the pandemic in a 24-7 existence with their employers — and those kids.

The article is horrifying. Imagine, as one interviewee described, being stuck for every meal with a family that’s into clean living. We are in the middle of a pandemic, people. Sugar, salt, and fat are necessary to SURVIVE.

Of course, it’s not enough that these young women are stuck in their current Groundhog Day like existence far from their own families, missing the promised life of adventure. No, the U.S. has to further indicate it’s disdain for their work by declaring au pairs a risk to the labor market and suspending their future entry.

As if there were Americans willing to live full-time in the household dedicated to clean living. Ew.

If you feel like getting even more outraged about the plight of au pair’s, check out Prof. Janie Chuang’s 2013 article: The U.S. Au Pair Program: Labor Exploitation and the Myth of Cultural Exchange. Spoiler: Chuang concludes that the entire au pair program was created “to provide flexible, in-home childcare for upper-middle-class families at below-market prices.”

-KitJ