Ellen's blog: Au what a lovely pair

As I contemplate my return to work (yes, I’m still “looking for my next opportunity”) my husband and I have accepted that we will not be able to cover school-holiday childcare unless we employ a nanny or au pair. After much procrastination, I finally engaged in a conversation with my husband on the subject.

He wanted to share with me the results of his extensive research on the subject of au pairs. This comprised of a number of CVs of suitable young ladies who appeared to have had their profile photos taken by a 1970s soft-porn photographer. Many of them appear only to look after children in beach-front locations and therefore barely wear clothes at all. On the positive side, that means we will not need to provide much wardrobe space since the skimpy bikinis don’t take up a huge amount of room.

I accept that I am being inexcusably discriminatory by wanting to rule out some of these girls purely on the basis that sharing my house with them would likely cause permanent and irreversible damage to by my self-esteem, so I need to change my perspective. But they are SO YOUNG! I can barely remember being their age but I am fairly certain that when I was, I didn’t have the patience to deal with children. And I would certainly have given in very quickly to the demands that my 2-year-old resorts to, mid-tantrum, in situations such as not being allowed to have a third biscuit.

My father refers to his dentist (aged circa 35) as “the child dentist.” I am not quite there yet, but I also tend to view anyone younger than myself with extreme suspicion and I am reluctant to entrust them with anything as important as my teeth/kids.

I keep thinking back to Dolly’s blog about her au pair who even helped herself to beauty products belonging to the lady of the house. As I read that, I nearly choked on my nescafe latte (which comes from a packet in the back of the cupboard which ONLY I AM ALLOWED TO TOUCH).

It is almost inevitable that I will end up having to live with one of these gorgeous young creatures, so I am trying to be positive.  I mean, she wouldn’t use any of my cosmetics (you don’t really need the intensive-anti-ageing stuff at her age). She certainly wouldn't be tempted to borrow my clothes, due to the size-difference between us, and she cannot fail to be a better driver than me, so if we have to allow her to drive the kids around then the number of “prangs” to the car will go down, thereby offsetting the cost of her salary.

Oh yes, now I am in the right frame of mind to approach this au-pair recruitment process……..but she probably needs daily workouts to maintain her figure.  OMG, do we have to pay for her gym membership? I will ask husband to google “au pairs in the gym” (he’ll enjoy that).

Until recently Ellen worked for a well-known investment bank in the City. She began her career at KPMG, before moving on to Barclays, HSBC and Aviva before joining her most recent employer almost three years ago.  She has two children aged three and one.