Ever since the day our Au Pair, Anna, arrived from Poland she has gone above and beyond for our
children and our family. She provides a warm, fun, and nurturing environment with educational
activities tailored to each of our children’s interests; from finger painting with our two-year-old to
creating dinosaurs out of paper mache with our 6-year-old. Anna spends her free time planning
adventures and activities for our kids and reading about child development and age-specific challenges.
In addition, Anna loves to share her Polish culture with us and the kids. She teaches us all about
traditions for holidays in her native Poland (even preparing a traditional Christmas Eve dinner for our family) as well as from Switzerland where she had spent the preceding two years as an Au Pair before coming to stay with us. She asks how we celebrate various holidays in the US and inquiries about the relative importance of each holiday and observance.
One way that Anna loves to share her culture is through cooking.
When she first arrived, she took the time to sit with our kids (who are picky eaters) and learn their favorite ingredients and makes Polish dishes using those ingredients, plus a dash of hidden vegetables to boost the nutritional value. She is an amazing cook!
Anna is our second Au Pair. As every host parent can attest, the interview and match process is nerve-racking. There is no more important role than the person who cares for our children. The complexity of the Au Pair search is compounded by time constraints (making sure the handoff from one Au Pair to the next goes off without a hitch), emotional factors (saying goodbye to a part of your family, while in parallel welcoming a new member), schedule demands (parents and kids), and that ever-present concern of “what if it doesn’t work out.”
From the first time we spoke to Anna, we were genuinely excited about her passion for not only taking care of children but also her desire to help them develop and succeed. She had experience not only with taking care of children of similar age to our boys but also as being an Au Pair in a foreign country. At our second meeting, we knew we had to extend an offer, she was like no other Au Pair we had spoken to, so we did just that; telling her we would love for her to come and take care of our kids. We were very excited when Anna told us she would like to come to stay with us in the US, and after more than three months we have absolutely no regrets.
We feel incredibly blessed to have matched with Anna. Our boys see her as far more than a caregiver. She’s a friend they can laugh and play with, a teacher of new languages and cultures, a giver of tickles and hugs and part of our family! We couldn’t ask for a better more trusting and responsible Au Pair and friend.
