Tall and thin with shiny black hair, Tara Aktas, 19, recently graduated from high school in Hamburg, Germany, and wanted to see the world. She had been a competitive swimmer for 14 years and had taught many children to swim in addition to babysitting. So going abroad to take care of children as a live-in au pair was a natural transition for her.

“And I love to travel,” she said. “So this is great. I’m more like a bigger sister here, so that’s really good, the relationship between my host family and my host children and me.”

On a recent day, Aktas discussed her choice to become an au pair to a local family. She was joined by her host family’s mother, Caroline Telesco, and her two children Avi, 6, and Mia, 8, at the home of Cynthia Moody (no relation to the reporter). Moody is the community counselor for Au Pair in America, one of many au pair agencies in the U.S.

The term “au pair,” translated from French, means “at par” or “equal to.” This derives from the notion that an au pair will be treated as a member of the family.

These young au pairs — the program allows workers between the ages of 18 and 26 — are not allowed to work more than 45 hours a week, and they live in their own bedroom within a host family’s home for a year.

The au pair’s responsibilities include taking care of one or more children along with light meal preparation and light tidying related solely to the care of the child or children. In return, they get room, board and a stipend.

Telesco likes the relative closeness in age of Aktas and her children.

“I think Tara is like a big sister for the girls,” she said. “I think they’re going to be upset when she leaves.”

As the two women watched the au pair excitedly play a board game with the young girls, the closeness in age was an apparent plus.

“You can see it’s more like a family than, ‘This is my nanny,’” Moody said.

“With Tara, even if they don’t have assignment homework, she still practices with them,” Telesco said. “That way they really understand what they’re doing in school. And they like to play Barbie with her. She knows what to do with them.”

Historically, these childcare workers have been from Western Europe, although in recent years there has been a rise in requests for Chinese au pairs by forward-thinking parents who hope their children might pickup some Mandarin, the primary language of that rising country.

Au Pair in America advertises that its caregivers may come from one of 60 countries. Since Aktas is from Germany, as is Telesco, they share a cultural bond.

Learning about different cultures — for both the host family and the au pair — is intrinsic to the program. Host families are expected to embrace the cultural exchange component of the experience

To that point, Telesco said, with a laugh, “We want her to see some stuff, not just Tennessee!”

The Telescos took Aktas with them on a family trip to Tybee Island, near Savannah, Ga., and then Aktas went with some other au pairs on a trip to to Miami.

Telesco sought an au pair from Au Pair in America almost a year ago, when her husband’s job kept him away from home for long periods of time. She works in Nashville and was under the stress of trying to battle traffic each day in order to pick up her children from day care by 6 p.m.

“Sometimes the schedule was going to be tight,” she said. “It worked really well for us. It gives you more flexibility.”

The services of an au pair are typically less expensive than those of a professional nanny, which makes an au pair a midpoint between daycare and a nanny as a childcare option.

Moody said that the average cost for a family to hire an au pair in this area through Au Pair in America is about $356 a week, regardless of the number of children one has.

Moody is the local liaison for Au Pair in America and keeps in close communication with the host families and the au pairs. She hosts parties and safety classes for the au pairs and one-on-one discussions in addition to meetings with the families.

“I have an open door policy for them,” she said of her relationship with the au pairs. “I’m here for them and the families.”

All au pair organizations are government regulated. The oversight agency is the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the Department of State.

Until Aktas leaves the Telesco family in July, she still has some time to help the girls practice their swimming. Then she will do some more travel in the U.S. and plans on studying international management when she returns to Germany.

“You need many, many languages,” Aktas said of that course of study. “I know Italian, German, English and Turkish.”

Oh, and she has also studied Latin. If only every au pair were as talented as Aktas, there would be some American children learning competitive swimming and more than a few multilingual catchphrases.

To learn more about the prospect of hiring an au pair, visit the website at www.aupairinamerica .com.

(From The Leaf Chronicle)