The federal government manages an au pair program that provides visas (J-1) and dictates the wage and the work rules for people who use the visa. So service X always does cost price Y, if service X is the federal au pair program and you're not breaking the rules of the program. https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/au-pair
Do you want to fight me? You did the research, so it's here in black and white. But @fba34 is saying that child care and housekeeping should cost Y. He is clueless about the Au Pair program as evidenced in his posts.
Yeah it is. Don't white (American) people only love their kids around until their 18th birthday? Good way to make sure they leave the house ASAP.
That I cannot dispute. 300,000 people a year enroll in federally-licensed au pair programs and come to do housekeeping/childcare/"cultural exchange" for the $195.75/week plus room and board. So @fba34 is probably mistaken that people won't want to do it.
@JuanValdez its not that people dont want to do it, never was my point. In fact I pointed out that alot of poor people in poor countries have to depend on sending out their wives and mothers to send home money to feed their families. For these families, lets be honest, there's no cultural exchange that they would like to experience for a few extra money they could send home. All of these women I've met and talked to hope to save enough money to start up a small shop or cafe back home so they could be back with their families and sustain themselves. @Xerobull I dont know, I apologize if I come off confrontational but I've seen a lot of these cases and the abuse is always on their end, and for very little money, respect and a lot of hard work. Who wants to take care of their own kids and have to pick up after ourselves if we can get away with 200usd per week? And even worse in countries that are no better off that theirs. That au-pair program requires the applicant to be in school as a credit program anyway, I doubt any self-respecting US-college-going Filipina family who could afford to send their daughters to an international college would want them working as a maid when they probably have 2-3 maids at home themselves. What you want is a house maid who looks in on your kids periodically or a nanny who'll pick up after the kids mess when the kids are asleep. Your wife knows how tiring it is being a stay at home parent. Pay for a proper employee and forget about using the volunteer and cultural experience excuse to pay such poor wages.
i had a foreign live in nanny as an infant/toddler and i turned out crazy af...who knows if it was from that but makes u think, thanks J.
You're mostly talking to @Xerobull about his third world au pair, so that's fine and your point may be fair. (Not so much about wives and mothers on au pair programs; host families try to avoid ones that already have boyfriends or girlfriends because of homesickness worries -- how much more would be the discrimination against someone with a spouse or child back home.) Speaking only of my experience was European au pairs, I think the cultural exchange element of the J1 is legitimate. My au pairs saw a lot of Houston, saw some of the United States, learned a lot of English, made some good friends foreign and American. I've heard the bad au pair stories, some straight from au pairs about their own family assignments (though apparently they did get out of the house long enough to talk to me). Au pairs that are in it for the money will break the rules too, to work extra hours under the table. It probably doesn't help any that families are doing some racial profiling -- Euros won't do housekeeping, but Southeast Asian girls will bust their ass for you, that sort of thing -- so that people selecting au pairs from Third World nations are already predisposed toward downplaying cultural exchange and maximizing how much work you can extract from someone. Just saying it doesn't have to be that way.
That has nothing to do with claiming that a group of people stop loving their kids around the time they turn 18. It has about as much validity as the nonsense I have heard claiming that Hispanics don’t love their kids as much because they have larger families or that Hispanic men hit their wives or all Hispanic men are drunks or that Hispanic women are easy. They all are offensive stereotypes.
you don't seem to be familiar with Juan, class A type of a person, your judgement seems off. I have been to Philippines, the moment I stepped out of a hotel in Makkati, I was stormed by local who were asking if I was interested in women ,Drugs or boys! seen teens by dozens shipped to Japan,Korea etc; for prostitution grade II gicha/geishas . I had to carfully watch where I would step on at night cuz childrens slept on cardboard on open streets ., If one of those given a chance to work with au pair.... they're given a chance of their lifetime... considering the lack of alternatives
I dont disagree with @JuanValdez and I think my posts seem to reflect that. Please point out where you thought I made a character judgement against him and I'll apologize. I agree whole-heartedly about your experience in Makati. There are poor women desperate to get out of their situation they are willing to jump into any situation and risk it. Are we better people realizing their desperation and taking advantage? Should we traffic these humans and pay them the absolute minimum because we can get away with it in jobs dressed up with terms like volunteer and cultural experience? What they're looking for is to work as maids, caretakers, cleaners but that would cost their employers more and run into different restrictions.
I do value your opinion . I think demands and supplies may applied to this as well even if it feel a bit sketchy.. I'm not sure about the US, but in Canada it's usually the 1st step of becoming a citizen, after a year or so they can make 3-4k monthly since jobs like cleaning is in high demand (50$ per hour). In 2009-2010 , I had an observership opportunity with an average of 240 hours per month in a hospital for 1500$ , which is way under minimum wages just to have my paperwork, recommendations ready, I had other options but this opportunity had the best outcome at the end.. we all take what we are given hoping to make the best out of it
