As an Equal? by Rosie Cox Nicky Busch

Author:Rosie Cox,Nicky Busch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783605002
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)
Published: 2018-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

5 | AU PAIRS AND HOSTS IN CYBER SPACE

‘Wanted: one au pair. Result: 2,000 applications’. So ran the headline of an article in The Telegraph newspaper about a London-based mother who had advertised for an au pair on the website AuPairWorld (Murray-West 2012). The article drew attention not only to the volume of traffic flying around the cyber world of au pair–host matchmaking, but also to the extent to which prospective employers of au pairs in the UK were able to ‘name their price’ and pick and choose an au pair from a huge range of very able candidates (Murray-West 2012). Sites such as AuPairWorld and Au Pair.com, as well as Gumtree, host thousands of ads, with new listings added by the hour. People advertise for au pairs to live with them or work for them in the UK, au pairs advertise themselves to prospective UK families; au pairs and the families who host them covertly look for a ‘better match’ while they are already ‘engaged’, so to speak, and all these ads contain fascinating information about the terms and conditions common to au pair placements and about what families and au pairs are looking for.

In addition to the au pair–host ‘matchmaking’ service conducted online, au pairs also use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and other forms of social media to ‘find their feet’ in the UK, make new friends and arrange social outings (after we finished our research BAPAA launched a new app, ‘AuPairs UK’, to help au pairs link up). Au pairs we met also used forms of cyber communication to evaluate, compare and critique their own experiences and those of contemporaries by comparing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ families and swapping notes about what was ‘reasonable’ in terms of the pocket money on offer and the childcare and housekeeping duties expected of them (cf. Búriková 2015 on au pair gossip). Hosts of au pairs, meanwhile, used Facebook as well as websites such as Mumsnet and netmums, and more geographically specific sites such as the East Dulwich Forum, to discuss their experiences of hosting au pairs and to compare notes about subjects such as what kinds of household tasks au pairs could be asked to do, for how much pocket money, and how much and what quality of food hosts should be expected to provide for au pairs. In this way, the internet served as a kind of virtual ‘back fence’ that au pairs and hosts conversed over and which they used to assist them as they constructed the social and labour market fabric of au pairing, evaluated their own experiences and compared and contrasted these with those of others.

This chapter draws on interviews with au pairs, with hosts, with representatives from au pair agencies as well as time spent ‘hanging out’ in virtual au pair chat rooms, both eavesdropping on and contributing to conversations between au pairs about their understanding of what being an au pair should or does involve and about experiences in the UK. This material has been

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.