Aupair advice: trust your gut

I heard this piece of advice somewhere and I couldn't agree more with it. 

When choosing a family trust your guts.

I will never address this enough, but trust me, when choosing a family trust your guts. On the very first e-mail you receive from the family you will be able to guess what kind of family you are talking to. 

While some families will write you a long e-mail, others will send you a simple cold message. While some families will describe themselves, others will simply talk about the job and what they expect from you. While some families will mention including you in the family life (huge plus for families), others won't mention it at all (kind of a red flag). So for you guys to see I will adapt the first message I received from my host family and let you know why I chose this family and why I liked them right away:

I will be calling the host mom Emily, the dad Jack and the kids Nate and Cooper (though those aren't their real names, obviously, as they are French, but I don't feel confortable with sharing any info about them, not even the names).

"Hi Enara,

Many thanks for your email. 

I will try to present you our family and the region where we live.

My husband, Jack and myself are both French, therefore we speak only French at home between us and the kids. 

We are both 37 this year. 

Nate is our eldest sun, he will turn 4 on September this year. Nate our baby, was born last June, he is now almost four months old. 

I am from ________ (her hometown). My parents are still living there. Therefore we go there for week ends quite often. 

Jack is from _____________ (his hometown). We also go there to visit his parents and family. 

Both my husband and myself are very busy at work which is why we need help at home with the kids. I will go back to work full time soon after maternity leave.

We decided to welcome au pairs at home because we think it is the best for us and the kids. It is indeed very important for us that there is a real relationship between our children and the persons who are looking after them when we are not at home. 

For instance we consider Cooper's nanny (who was Nate's nanny before) a bit like his third grand mother.

We live in an appartement of 110 square meters, with a 70 square meters terrasse and 350 square meters garden. It is in the countryside , therefore it is very quiet. 

You would have your own bedroom but you would have to share the bathrooms and toilets with the kids. 

There is no public transportation in the village where we live, that is why we have a car dedicated to our au pair.  

We live at ______________. (And she sent me a link with info about the town where they live, again, how much sweeter could she be?)

There are many foreigners in the region because of the international organizations based in _______ (another link with more interesting information).

The main train station is in ________________ at about 10 minutes from where we live. From there there are trains to main French cities (...). 

We also leave at 30 minutes drive from (...) airport. It is important for you to have this information if you plan to travel during week ends or during your holidays in Europe. 

During winter we are used to go skiing. the closest ski resorts are at 20 minutes drive in ___________, It is where Nate is learning to ski on Saturday mornings during winter as soon as there is enough snow. 

(link of the ski resort where they go)

As Cooper is obviously too young to ski I will do some walks in the snow with him. 

You will be able to take French lesson in ________. (And btw they will be paying for the classes!)

You will have to take a French test upon your arrival to be allocated to a class. 

(link to the webpage of the language school!)

During those classes you will have a chance to meet other au pair and get some friends to go out. 

We look for an au pair as from July/August 2015 for ideally 12 months. We need an au pair to pick up Nate from school at 16h30 and Cooper from his nanny at 16h45 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and look after them until 20h00. And on Wednesdays we need someone to pick up Nate from School at 11h30am and Cooper from his nanny just after and look after them until I come back from work. During the time you will spend with the kids you would have to play with them, cook their meal (very basic cooking), eat with them and supervise Nate in the shower or bath. We would ask you to help us with the simple daily housework: empty dishwasher, folding and put away laundry of the kids,.... We have a cleaning lady who is coming every week. 

We live at 2 kilometers from the school (2 minutes drive) and 3 kilometers (5 minutes drive) from Cooper’s nanny. You would have a car at your disposal which you could use any time during your time off as well. You could have most of your week ends free. We may just ask you from time to time some babysitting during the week in the evenings or during the week end on a saturday evening for instance. But this would always be planned well in advance. 

In total we would not ask you to work more than 30 hours a week which would represent about _____ euros a month as pocket money.

You will find attached pictures of the kids and of the apartment. We moved in only few months ago. 

Please let me know if you have questions, I would be very happy to answer them!

Thanks for taking the time to read my message and I hope to hear back from you soon!

Emily."

This very first e-mail inmediatelly let me know what a wonderful family I had found, and when I met them I confirmed my theory.

But along the way I did get some simpler messages which did not give me the positive feeling this email did and that I decided tp , here goes an example:

"Hello nanny/aupair.

So I need an aupair as soon as possible, because my aupair must come back.

About my family, I live alone with my two kids, Gabriel, 6 and Leon, 4.

I need an aupair for before/after school, and sometimes for evening. Kids are at my house all monday and thursday and one week per two.

My aupair has her own room and share her bathroom with kids only.

We are an open minded family, friends often come at home, we love music, cinema and going out.

Can you talk about you? Your studies, your kid's experience..."

This doesn't mean that if I had kept talking to this last family they wouldn't have been a great family; I will never know. But I think first impressions are very important, and if a family takes the time to talk to you and explain everything they can about their life, their family and so on it is much more probable that they will take time to show you around once you get there and to make sure that you are feeling okay in their house. 

So overall, what I am trying to say is that you should really trust the feeling you get after reading those first e-mails.