Au pairs provide daycare option and more

Calgary mom Paige Shaw found herself in a bind when her nanny decided to return to Toronto last year.

Her two boys, aged three and five, needed full-time care, a chauffeur to various activities and an energetic playmate.

So she turned to the Internet to find their next caregiver and joined a growing number of Canadians seeking new ways to manage what can be frustratingly hard-to-find child care — by hiring an au pair.

The 38-year-old says she had never heard of the concept before last year, but after finding a 19-yearold from Perth, Australia, she says it is “hands down” the best arrangement for her family.

“She really has become part of the family,” says Shaw, noting that her youngest has developed a taste for Vegemite. The phenomenon of hiring a young traveller on a holiday working visa instead of a traditional live-in nanny is definitely on the rise, says Manuela Gruber Hersch of the Vancouver-based International Nannies and Homecare.

“We started about four years ago with a few, and then basically the placements after that doubled,” says Gruber Hersch, who is also the president of the Association of Caregiver and Nanny Agencies Canada.

She pegs the rise to changes two years ago to the federal government’s foreign caregiver program that made it “risky, very expensive and cumbersome” to secure a fulltime nanny from overseas.

One of the reasons au pairs are lesser known in Canada is that many are hired under the table, says Gruber Hersch.

Cost is a big issue, since parents must adhere to minimum wage rules and make deductions for Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan and income tax.

While a nanny generally has specialized training and experience working with children, au pairs are typically young women with only a casual babysitting background, which might not be suitable for younger kids.

Au pairs primarily help look after children, but they can also be relied on to ferry them to appointments and help parents with light household chores — added duties that can vary depending on the nanny.

A big plus for Shaw was that her au pair, Kim Spence, stayed on the clock when her kids were home sick or had a day off from school, unlike most daycares and nannies. The appeal for Spence, now 20, was the chance to travel and explore a country she’d heard great things about.