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Hey doc! Welcome to another episode of ✨Stethoscopes and Strollers✨. Today, we're diving into the world of au pairs - a childcare solution that might just change your life.
In this episode, we cover:
• Why childcare is about more than just watching your kids
• Common objections to hiring au pairs and why they shouldn't hold you back
• The real cost of au pairs compared to other childcare options
• How to navigate privacy concerns and space requirements
• Addressing partner resistance to the au pair program
• Tips for successful au pair experiences
Remember, if you're considering an au pair but still have questions, check out our upcoming webinar "Finding the Right Fit: Au Pair Essentials for Physician Moms". Visit drtoyacoaching.com/events for details and registration.
Can't make it live? No worries! Email your questions to hello@drtoyacoaching.com, and I'll answer them in the replay.
For more insights on childcare options, check out our previous episode: Navigating Childcare: Nanny vs Au Pair
Don't forget to share this episode with a fellow physician mom who's on the fence about au pairs. Your experience could help another mama find her perfect childcare solution!
Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and follow us on your favorite podcast app. Your support helps more physician moms find us!
Questions or comments? Text me through your podcast app or email hello@drtoyacoaching.com. I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time, keep those stethoscopes handy and those strollers rolling!
Register here for ✨Finding the Right Fit: Au Pair Essentials for Physician Moms✨ on August 15th at 3 PM ET/12 PM PT. Find, and keep, the right Au Pair for you and your family!
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Hey doc, I am back for another episode and we are talking about au pairs. Yes. Child care, one of my favorite topics, because you know, it's not just about the child care, right? Let me get on my soapbox for a minute. It is about you freeing up time so that you can focus on yourself and whatever that self needs, whether it be rest, whether it be time to finish your shots, just time to not be touched.
Not be questioned, or just to sleep. Or even if it's time with your children, having child care can give you back your precious time to do whatever you want to do. So that is my soapbox, so let me get off of it and go back to talking to au pairs. So au pairs are an excellent option for you as a physician mom.
So I want to talk about some of the very common objections that I hear to getting an au pair because let me tell you, I had them as well. I was staunchly against getting an au pair because I had heard all of the horror stories, just like I'm sure you have. So let me tell you about some of these stories that I have heard personally about au pairs. I had a friend who let her au pair use her car, not just her car, her Mercedes. And this au pair was like out in the streets, right? So she let her go with it. to some friend's house or something. And she was supposed to come back the next day to work for my friend's son's birthday party.
Never showed up on the morning. Then she's calling her, texting her. She shows up like two hours after she was supposed to be there with the tires completely worn off of the rim, yes, you heard that correctly. Probably. The au pair got a flat and because the D was so sweet, because she was going for a booty call, she just kept driving.
She was like, there is no way I am missing this pipe. Sorry, sorry. To go there, I just had to, but this is like one of the funniest stories that I've ever heard. I mean, it wasn't funny at the time and I'm, if my friend is listening, I hope that you're not mad at me for telling the story, but yeah, she kept driving and ran the tires completely off of the rim.
But plot twist, that au pair is still with my friend's family and it ended up turning out to be a great situation, a great match. So. That was one of the horror stories that I had, which, yes, had a happy ending. But there were so many more from people that were in the area where I live.
So I was like, yeah, no, this is not happening. However, it was when I had the rotating grandmother child care situation that I really appreciated the value of having in home child care. My mother in law And my mom came and spent three to like five months with us over the last three years. Like once COVID had kind of settled down, they started coming and it is just so convenient to have somebody in the home just for anything.
You can just call them and say, Hey, can you just come out for a second, even if they're not working and you don't have to worry about weird hours. It is like nothing we had ever experienced before because we had had nannies before we always had child care You know, I was a full time OBGYN. My husband was in the military then when he left he was a full time student We always had to have child care so this experience was just So much better and it was only as my mother in law's time with us Her final time was coming to an end.
My husband and I were like, We, we need an au pair because this. cannot be replaced by just a live out nanny, which we had actually still maintained while my mother in law was here. My son still had somebody for like four hours in the afternoon that would come and be with him while my daughter was still very young.
So that was the reason that we joined the au pair program. . So, Let's talk about why you don't want to join the program. So one of the most common reasons I hear for people not wanting an au pair is that they don't want people in their space. And I get it. My house is not that big. The room where my au pair is, is on the first floor, where we spend all our time.
The kitchen is there. It's just like weird, you know, like I like to walk around without my underwear and, you know, just having somebody there in my space. Listen to me. If it means that you are giving up a little bit of privacy, and really, is it really that much privacy? Because you could just go upstairs, but you're giving up something anyway.
And that's really What I want you to think about with all of these objections that you have, you are already sacrificing something. So you have to decide which sacrifice is going to serve you better? Because Right now, without childcare, you can't stay late. To finish your charts at work right now, you have to rush home and feel like you're running here and running there and never have a minute to breathe to relieve the babysitter or to get the child from daycare or whatever else right now, as soon as you come home from a long day of seeing patients, you are immediately switching onto mom mode and have a long period of time in which entertaining, feeding, cleaning, like all of these things that you're doing for your children, which may or may not actually include meaningful time with your children.
Then the end of the day comes and you are wiped out. You're sacrificing something. So do you choose to maintain that sacrifice or give up a little bit of privacy in your home? The decision is yours and there are ways that you can avoid having somebody who's going to be really in your space, which we can talk about
but if you have a room in your house, you can have an au pair for the program. The only thing that is required is that they have to have a private room, not even a private bathroom, just a private room with a door. I think it's supposed to be able to lock from the inside, not the outside. That's it. So, you may say, Oh, well, I have a room, but I have my desk in there or something.
Move that shit. Move it. We are talking about getting you childcare. We are talking about getting you time, your energy, move the desk. All right. So, that's it. Where am I going to put them? If you have a room, you have somewhere to put them. For us, we put our children in the same room. So that we just had more space to spread out and do what we had to do.
We had a guest room. I needed an office. So my husband gave me his office. He's in a loft with a curtain. My kids are in one room and the au pair has her own room. We made it work, right? Because we knew what was important. Okay, the next thing is, there's some reason that people think au pairs are expensive.
And in the grand scheme, yeah, it's a lot of money. But it's over a year. And it's for 45 hours of childcare. For every single week. So, when you actually break it down, these girls are making like 10 an hour. Actually, they're making less than that. That's what you are paying, including the agency fees and fee to them.
So, it is the cheapest option. Unless you're somewhere where your nannies are costing 9 an hour, let me know so I can move there. Most likely, you are going to be paying way more for a nanny and definitely more for daycare. And yes, most people need some kind of combination of daycare and au pair, so it may not get you out completely.
But if you're comparing apples to apples, meaning nanny versus au pair, au pairs are way, way, way cheaper. So 20k all in is usually what I tell people, and I actually look back at my recent invoices, and I, we paid around 21k for the entire year all in, and then you, the room and board things are a little bit harder to quantify, because the person's in your house, it's like a little bit of extra food, a little bit of extra electricity, and all those things, so those things, , uh, a little bit harder to pinpoint the exact amount.
And then if you decide that you want to do extra things, then obviously the costs are going to go up, so the next one that I feel like I need a whole other episode for is I'm on board, but my husband does not want anybody in the house. Tell him to get over it as well. So I'm going to record a separate episode about different techniques that you can use to convince your husband.
But this is one of those things where if this is something that you need, you are drowning and you bring it up and they're shot down, don't let that be the end of it. Because you deserve to have this level of relief and to at least have it Be considered because it can be such a great help for you. So there are things that you can do to convince your husband, your partner, if you have decided that this is a good idea, and I'm gonna talk about that in another episode.
I just thought of one more, like what I talked about in the beginning, the horror stories, all of these things happen, everybody I know has had a bad experience with an au pair, that's why I don't want to get one. Doc, let's be real now. If every single au pair was bad, would this program be able to survive?
I don't think so. I think it is one of those things, like divorce rates, you're going to hear the most from the people who are having bad experiences. That's why, like, if you're in the physician au pair group, sometimes they have positive, Or pay a post because there's so many negative ones. It's good to let people know that there are positive experiences out there.
And just by the law of averages, people must be having positive experiences. This is a big industry. So I guarantee you, once you, can vet properly, interview properly, and you have your expectations managed and, you know, you really know what you're getting yourself into and what you have to do to make it successful, you will not have any of those horror stories happen.
Will it be perfect? Of course not, but you can set yourself up for success and avoid those crazy stories like this chick running the tires off the car, so it does not have to be that way. And I've had my own personal experience with a very bad situation. But looking back, we didn't vet properly.
Like we didn't do a good job there. And that's why we ended up in that situation. And usually once you get into the weeds, you can find where there were areas that Some of these situations could have been avoided, so those are usually the Objections that people have to finding an au pair and let me just tell you I do not work for any au pair agencies I do not get any money.
I Work for you, right? I want to help you Get your time back. So that's why I am encouraging you to consider this. And if you still have questions, you still are not sure about if this program is right for you, sign up for the webinar on August 15th at 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, and we will go through all of it.
It's called Finding the Right Fit or Pair Essentials for Physician Moms, and the last one I had was great, and this one is going to be even better, and you can come live and ask your questions. If you cannot make it live, because yes, it is 3pm, and you're like, I have to work. I understand. There's no good time for anyone, so send me your questions beforehand. Email me at hello at drtoyacoaching. com with whatever questions that you have and I will answer them for the replay and you can get all of the good information from the replay. So the link will be in the show notes. It's also on my website, drtoyacoaching.
com slash events. Make sure you sign up. Even if you hear this episode after August 15th. still sign up. I usually check the registration for a week afterwards and I can send you the replay, even if it's way after.
I just want You to really consider this because it has been life changing for us and I want you to have that life changing experience as well, right? So share this episode with another physician mom who is considering an au pair or who is like hell no I'm not getting an au pair. Send this to her and let me know if you have any questions.
Shoot me a text in the box below and on your listening app. Remember, I cannot see your number, your name, anything. So if you actually want me to know who you are, leave your name, leave your contact, or just email me at hello at drtoyacoaching. com, don't forget to leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts, leave a five star rating everywhere else, and , follow and share with a friend, and I will see you on the next episode of Stethoscopes and Strollers.
