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I know someone working in France as an au-pair. If you can stand the kids, it actually sounds pretty cool. They did shit like bought her an automatic car because she can't drive a manual and it sounds like a great knowledge exchange / experience to be fair. I'm sure like any jobs there's exploitation and shit bosses all over the place but that's life. People suck.
hippy
The au-pairs I used to know (au-pairs for friends of my daughter when she was at nursery) loved it.
Sure some of the parents were twats, as were most of the kids, and on paper they earned shit money but they got to live in a nice house, got fed for free, and usually got at least another £500/mo in cash in hand babysitting money from the parents. Many had use of a car, and often a travelcard so they could take Portia and Ptolemy to the V&A whenever they demanded.
Most of the au-pairs were students at nearby universities/colleges so being paid some money with free accommodation/food was a huge money saver for them.
I'm sure that plenty of au-pairs are exploited though, there's huge scope for that in a mostly unregulated system.