THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409230477
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
IT'S THE midnight hour, a Friday night, and Elena Iglesias is still dancing despite a day that began at 6 a.m. This rollicking Virginia Beach night club is a world away from her usual duties as an au pair, days that usually go like this:
Breakfast for 2-and 4-year-old brothers, Barney show on TV, baths, play time. Preschool drop off and pickup. Lunch. A trip to the park.
Story time at the library. Supper with her host family. It is a knee-level look at American life. But now the 23-year-old Spanish woman is soaking in another view of this country at Worrell Brothers night club.
Blaring music. Lights that flash red-blue-green across a dance floor. People laughing, talking loudly, crammed together in a room with sticky floors.
``I would like to meet people to talk, to practice English,'' she says. ``But the men, many times, they don't want to talk, they want to joke.''
Iglesias has learned to balance her day world - caring for children - with her night world - absorbing American culture.
But she knows it can be tricky. Some of the au pairs she knows are unhappy. They feel overworked. The parents don't talk with them much. The au pairs don't have time to experience life outside the home. ``Some families think you are here just to work,'' Iglesias says.
But she says au pairs don't always have the right attitude either. ``Some au pairs don't understand. They come here and think it's for going out and having a good time. They aren't into taking care of the kids.''
Iglesias has learned to do both.
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The dark-haired, olive-skinned woman is one of an increasing number of young foreigners who come to the United States each year to live with families and care for their children.
Since the child-care practice got the government's official blessing in 1986, the number of au pairs has grown from 300 nationwide to nearly 10,000. Popularity of the program is fueled by two factors.
The demand: Families want at-home care at a reasonable cost. The cost of an au pair, when you average in application fees and weekly stipends, is about $170 a week. That's less than hiring a professional nanny.
The supply: Young Europeans want to see America. As an au pair, they can hone English skills and earn spending money.
Usually, the two objectives dovetail. But occasionally the needs of the family conflict with the desires of the au pair.
Each side can tell horror stories: Au pairs who say they're treated like low-paid servants. Parents who say their inexperienced au pair seemed more interested in culture outside the home than inside.
Those tensions, plus a case where a Dutch au pair was arrested in August on charges of shaking a baby, have forced the government agency that oversees au pair organizations to take a hard look at the practice.
The U.S. Information Agency has drafted guidelines that propose more training and screening to protect parents. And more limitations on the work week - currently limited to 45 hours a week - to protect au pairs.
``One of the problems is the perception of American families,'' said Jim Morgan, spokesman for the U.S. Information Agency. ``Their interest is child care. The interest of the au pair is cultural exchange. Sometimes those two don't fit together.''
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It's a Wednesday morning, about 9 a.m. Two-year-old Chad Paulson is bouncing up and down on his bed.
``Time for your bath,'' Elena says chasing after him.
``No,'' bounce, ``no'' bounce, ``no,'' bounce, Chad says.
Elena captures him and puts him in a bathtub where big brother, Chris, 4, is already splashing. She starts scrubbing them, leaving them time to play with boats and frogs.
Despite a day that begins before dawn and goes full speed until 4 p.m., Iglesias considers this the good life.
She has experienced the best and the worst of being an au pair. She arrived in the United States in January, and first lived with a Charlottesville family. ``When you come here you feel, `Wow, I am alone.' The first month is the worst.''
Adding to the culture shock was the family with whom Iglesias first lived. The mother stayed at home, and a full-time nanny cared for the children during the week. Iglesias took care of the children on weekends and occasional evenings during the week.
But the children often rejected her, crying, ``I want Mommy.''
Iglesias struggled to find a place in the family, but the parents rarely talked with her. ``I thought, `What am I doing here?' '' Her halting English, which has since improved, didn't help.
Finally she told a counselor with the agency that arranged her stint as an au pair about the situation, and the counselor recommended a new family. She moved to Chesapeake in June to live with Steve and Shelley Paulson.
``Now it's completely different,'' she says. ``I feel great with them. It's wonderful.''
She feels comfortable talking with the Paulsons. She enjoys their children, even though caring for them all day is harder than she expected. On weekends she goes to movies, the beach, Williamsburg, even DisneyWorld, with other au pairs.
Helping Iglesias this weekday morning is Katrim Weller, a German woman who was the Paulson's au pair last year. She's returned for a visit.
Weller agrees that the Paulsons are the family most young people dream about when reading au pair brochures. But ``your chances of getting a family like them are about 10 percent,'' she said. She places the chances of getting a family you can get along with at 50 percent.
She, too, knows what it's like when you don't meld with a family. She spent three months with another family she never felt comfortable around.
And she's heard other au pairs complain. Au pairs who have had to clean bathrooms, wash cars, do laundry, tasks that aren't part of their duties.
She doesn't think a limit on au pair hours would help. ``It's not the hours. It's just that you don't expect to bring up the kids, and that's what the parents are expecting sometimes. They don't want to bother with their kids' problems. They want to have fun with them.''
The difference between a good au pair experience and a bad one depends on one thing: whether you're treated like family.
``If you feel part of the family, you don't care about taking out the trash,'' she said.
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It's 5 p.m., and Steve Paulson, a Navy nuclear engineer, has been home about an hour. His wife has just arrived home from her job with the Coast Guard. Chad lays his head in his mother's lap before running off to play with Iglesias and Weller.
The Paulsons have tried both a day-care center and in-home care for their children. But nothing has worked as well, for as long, as au pairs.
The trick, they say, is to set your criteria before you interview. They have a list: Someone at the high end of the 18-to 25-year-old range. Someone who can drive. Someone who doesn't smoke. No boyfriends.
``That's an important one,'' Steve Paulson said.
They establish ground rules up front as well. A curfew of midnight during the week, 2 a.m. on the weekends. ``We lighten up once they're here, but it's important to establish the rules in the beginning,'' Shelley Paulson said.
The Paulsons interview several au pairs a couple of times before choosing one. But even those efforts don't always produce the perfect au pair. One au pair the Paulsons hired had a boyfriend in Sweden. ``She didn't bond with the family,'' Shelley Paulson said. ``She didn't seem serious about her commitment to be here.''
She spent most of her free time away from the family, rarely talked with them in the evenings. She told her counselor she wanted to go home after three months, even if it meant losing her $500 deposit.
That's when Iglesias took over.
``My major concern is that they're happy,'' Steve Paulson said. ``If they're miserable, we're not happy either.''
The risk of getting an au pair who doesn't fit the family is worth the advantages the Paulsons get from the ones who do work out. They've had three au pairs they've loved.
The biggest benefit is being able to keep their children at home without breaking their budget. ``The girls are more enthusiastic, more adventuresome, more independent than someone you would hire to come to your home every day,'' Steve Paulson said.
Sometimes it's a matter of just knowing what you're getting into, seeing the arrangement from the au pair's view.
Luanne Ormsbee, a Norfolk mother of 3-and 5-year-olds, said she was happy with the care her au pair provided, but felt the woman wasn't happy with the cultural end of the deal. She seemed dependent on Ormsbee to introduce her to people.
``There was quite a bit of tension,'' she said. ``If I was expected to provide an age-appropriate social life, I failed miserably.''
Most au pairs and parents are happy with their arrangements, said Lauren Hunt, who represents AuPairCare in the Hampton Roads area. When problems do arise, counselors try to smooth out tensions or switch au pairs.
``There are families who are so busy they don't have as much time to give to the cultural aspect as we would like,'' Hunt said. ``But we also have au pairs who are self-starters, who can go out and socialize themselves.''
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After an hour at Worrell Brothers late on a Friday night, Iglesias admits to being a little tired. A week of child-care tends to catch up with you by week's end.
What Iglesias and other au pairs say they want from their au pair experience is to become fluent in English and see how Americans live.
That requires talking with the families. And meeting Americans, which they say is very hard.
At the nightclub, they mostly hang out with each other. They arrive together, talk together, dance together.
``You want to meet people to talk with, but sometimes they want something else,'' Iglesias explains.
Still, they have fun.
After a year here, most au pairs are reluctant to leave. Weller cried for weeks after she returned to Germany. Iglesias has mixed feelings about returning to Spain.
She'll miss the Paulsons, Chad and Chris, and yes, the American night life.
``My time is flying by,'' she said. ``It's wonderful to be here. If you have good luck and find a good family, you can have a good time.'' ILLUSTRATION: PAUL AIKEN/Staff color photos
Elena Iglesias checks on Chad Paulson, 2, as he takes a nap.
Elena Iglesias' day as an au pair includes coloring book breaks with
Chris, 4, the eldest son of Steve and Shelley Paulson of Chesapeake.
Iglesias is among the nearly 10,000 au pairs in the United States.
One of Iglesias' goals is hone her English speaking skills, so she
studies the language during her quiet time.
by CNB