Childcare Woes

Why is good childcare so hard to come across? I went back to work in September 2008, and since then we have had nothing but bad luck finding responsible childcare. Are our expectations too high? Are we going about it the wrong way? These are questions that I've asked myself over and over.

Daddy-love-bones (as I like to refer to my husband), has been through this process before, when he needed childcare for our Princess-Pie, during the time when just the two of them were living together. He had warned me that finding good childcare is stressful, difficult and a pain-in-the-butt. But how hard could it be?...I thought. Well, now I know the answer- VERY HARD!

I had a little meltdown yesterday. For the past 4 months we've been stuck with an au pair agency that charges a lot of money for very poor service. We decided to go through them because we thought we would get flexible, reliable, and quality childcare. The decision to go through this agency was probably the first mistake we made.

Over the past few months we have had two au pairs move into our house, and then move out. The first au pair was okay with the baby, but she was emotionally unstable and cried almost every day. She would also take the baby on long 2 hour walks and would only play with the baby in her bedroom. She did anything she could to stay out of the house. She felt uncomfortable around us because she couldn't speak English well. And then, to make matters more complicated, she found a new boyfriend here in the US, while still maintaining a boyfriend back home. She started breaking our curfew rules, stole our alcohol and would wake up hungover the next day. That caused all kinds of emotional turmoil and we felt that in order to regain peace and sanity in our house, she needed to go.

The second au pair had absolutely no interest in children. That's all I really need to say about why we got rid of her, but for entertainnment sake, I'll give you some details. All she cared about were hamburgers! Specifically McDonald hamburgers. During our weekly meetings we would go over her needing to clean the baby's bottles better so that no crusty milk was left inside them. She didn't change the baby's clothes until we told her that she needed to change them at least once a day. We would explain that she needed to wash her hands after the diaper changes and before preparing meals, since we NEVER saw her wash her hands and since Sienna was sick from the moment this au pair arrived. We would explain that it was important for her to interact with the baby- hug her, talk to her, read to her, and play with her, instead of sitting in silence with the baby watching TV. At one meeting we actually had to tell her not to walk out of the room when leaving the baby alone on top of a table! We had observed this shocking behavior, and even after telling the au pair, she still did it. Her usual response after every meeting would be- "Uh huh...uh huh...Uh huh...Can we get McDonald's for dinner tonight." Ahhhhhh! It was so frustrating.

So we got rid of her as well.

For 3 weeks we have been without childcare. Luckily, my husband has been able to stay at home with the baby since he is in between jobs, but let me just vent by saying that the au pair agency has been NO help in finding a replacement. Their program manager even had the nerve to tell us that we need to focus on the positives in our au pairs and not the negatives. Do they expect us to focus on the positives until our baby falls off the table because of a negligent au pair!

These agencies tell the families that they will be getting reliable, quality childcare. They tell the au pairs that they will have a wonderful experience abroad in America and will have the opportunity to be part of a host family. In my opinion, these agencies are making a whole lot of money selling something to both parties (the families and the au pairs), that really isn't true. And in the end, the agency provides no support when both the families and the au pairs end up unhappy. The families are unhappy because the au pairs are not even close to how they are portrayed by the agency, and the au pairs are unhappy because they realize that this is a job that needs to be taken seriously and not just an opportunity to party in America!

I have heard of some families being very happy with their au pairs. Where are these au pairs and why didn't we get any of them?

Anyways...I'm done with that agency. I'm going on my own childcare search!