Ode to a summer breeze: au pair

Summer. The very word strikes dread into the hearts of working parents. All those camps and enrichment activities to sift through and cobble together just to find a way to occupy your footloose kids.

And don’t even mention the cash you’ll be shelling out so your culturally deprived children can have the summer of their lives instead of you going off to Hawaii.

Well, don’t cancel the reservations just yet. Now, for a fraction of the price of all those classes and day camps, you can hire a capable young foreigner to live with you this summer to entertain those fidgety kids. In other words, a summer au pair.

Launched this year, the summer au pair program works just like the year-round version that is also run under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. In exchange for a weekly stipend and the priceless opportunity to savor American family life for up to 3 1/2 months, au pairs -- most are from Europe but some come from other parts of the world -- provide child care and light housekeeping and, ideally, a little language instruction.

“Nanny programs here, you’re paying a lot more than $275 a week,� says Danette Christine, who manages au pairs in Los Angeles for Cultural Care Au Pair, a Boston-based agency that is among the 11 sanctioned by the Department of State and one of several private agencies involved in the summer program.

With its fabled beaches and movie star allure, what could be more appealing to a young, adventurous person from another country than a summer exploring L.A.? Even if it does mean schlepping around a few kids on the city’s infamous freeways.

Indeed, says Jennifer Rosky, a professional recruiter now on her fourth au pair: “Who would have ever thought that a 3-year-old could pick up a language her parents don’t even speak?�

The Roskys, who live in the Miracle Mile North neighborhood, have three daughters under the age of 14. On a recent Saturday afternoon, you can hear the unmistakable din of domestic chaos over the telephone. Rosky’s parents have just dropped in, and now her 9-year-old is thrusting a drawing at her. “Isn’t that an amazing picture?� Rosky tells her. Then, returning to the phone, “She’s going to be an amazing artist.�

Like many professional families, the Roskys started out with a nanny who came in five days a week. But the lack of predictability and her kids’ crazy schedules made the busy working mother nervous. “The idea of having someone come first thing in the morning and never knowing if they were going to show up ... ,� she says, sighing.

The family then hired a Polish woman visiting on a student visa. The experience of employing someone young and bright -- who also happened to be endlessly available -- was a revelation. “I realized having someone from a foreign country in your household brought a richness of cuisine and ideas,� Rosky says. “So there was an added value to not just having child care and a housekeeper, but they enlarged the children’s awareness.�

State Department guidelines require that child-care services be limited to no more than 10 hours per day and 45 hours a week. Whether it’s for the year-round or summer program, the au pairs must all pass a rigid screening process that includes a criminal background check, a physical and a psychological exam. They have to have previous child-care experience and speak and write English. They also pen an essay about themselves and write a letter to their potential host family.

Finally, there’s a long-distance phone interview. Before they talk, Rosky e-mails her potential au pair a list of 20 questions. What, for instance, would the au pair do if she had all three children to take care of -- at once? What if the 2-year-old began to cry or hit because she didn’t understand you? How would she help the two older girls when they argue?

“I was surprised when I got all these questions,� recalls Dana Hennij, a 19-year-old student from Leipzig, Germany, who has spent the last nine months in L.A. living with the Roskys. “They weren’t easy to answer because I had to think about it, then I had to translate everything in my head. I was so nervous. By the end of this conversation, my parents and my sister and brother said, ‘You were so red!’ �

“You’re looking for signs of curiosity and enthusiasm,� Rosky says. “Why have they come to the United States? These are the questions I ask. I’m looking for their thinking skills.�

As Christine says of the process: “It’s all about a fit.�

Christine and her Austrian-born husband, Gerhard Brugger, who run a music licensing company out of their Eagle Rock hillside home, have a 22-year-old au pair from Germany. As local child-care coordinators for Cultural Care, they also help au pairs in L.A. get settled and mediate misunderstandings between nannies and host families.

On that matter, Rosky has developed some hard-and-fast rules when screening au pairs. No tattoos. No body piercings. And no major cleavage.

The latter requirement arose after her experience with an au pair she calls “the Romanian.� The cleavage issue was far from the worst offense, though perhaps the most noticeable. “She fooled me that she could speak English,� says Rosky, who sent the woman packing after three weeks. “I should have guessed. There were some grammatical errors in her handwritten essay and I overlooked them.�

Angela Gyetvan, a divorced single parent and president of a start-up company called Stratus Rewards, has also learned a lot about having an au pair. She’s now on her third, a 28-year-old graduate student from Prague who’s working on a degree in cultural anthropology. (The cultural exchange, as Gyetvan wryly observes, is mutually satisfying; her current au pair, Alice Spacova, is mad for American television, especially reruns of “Sex and the City.�)

Gyetvan now lives in Larchmont, a leafy neighborhood of bungalows, cafes and boutiques. But four years ago she’d just relocated from the Bay Area to the beach town of Carlsbad. She not only didn’t know a soul, she also frequently traveled on business. Her daughter was then 5.

“The au pair thing really interested me because you have somebody who’s available if you need to be away,� she says, “but also because I loved the idea of cultural exposure.�

Like other parents, Gyetvan’s main concern was an agency with an impeccable record. When she first looked into Cultural Care Au Pair, she was satisfied until she discovered something a bit jarring. Formerly called EF Au Pair, Cultural Care was the same agency that had placed Louise Woodward, the British nanny who was convicted in the 1998 death of baby Matthew Eappen in Cambridge, Mass. After a little more digging, she was reassured. “The net effect was, they were forced to turn around and view how they did things,� Gyetvan says. “They lobbied to change the regulations that govern the au pair program in the U.S.�

(To search for a State department-approved agency, go to its website at www.state.gov and search for keyword “au pair.�)

Christine says that of the 20,000 au pairs who apply to Cultural Care, only 30% are accepted. When au pairs reach the U.S., they spend a few days in New York taking a crash course in U.S. laws and customs, child development and infant care. They are also required to take a college course during their stay.

To smooth the transition, the agency gives host families a daily communication log, a datebook in which they can jot down everything for the au pair, from doctors’ appointments to kids’ game schedules to school holidays.

Sometimes there are just unforeseen calamities. Gyetvan’s first au pair arrived on Sept. 8, 2001, three days, of course, before terrorists struck the East Coast. Although she seemed to be coping, a few months later she announced she wanted to leave. “There was a little bit of a meltdown,� Gyetvan recalls.

After a few heart-to-heart talks with her local child-care manager and some covert conversations with other local au pairs, she decided to stay.

Fortunately, au pairs appear to be quite skilled at one facet of life in L.A., a must for summer. “They are much better drivers than we are,� Rosky says. “They drive 120 mph on the Autobahn. I trust my children in the car with them, no question.�

For well-traveled parents like Gyetvan, the best thing about having an au pair is the bond her daughter now has with three remarkable young Europeans. “She feels she has these people who are big sisters to her.�