Header: Every year, about 10,000 young people come to the United States for 12 months to provide full-time, live-in child care. The recent conviction of British au pair Louise Woodward for the death of an 8-month-old boy in her care has focused attention on the au pair program.
Article text: The conviction of Louise Woodward in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen raises serious questions about the merits and regulation of an international exchange program that put a 18-year-old British girl in sole charge of an infant boy. As its name suggests, the au pair program stems from a European tradition of mother's helpers, who come to the United States expecting to take courses and learn about a foreign culture as well as to care for young children. An increasing number of American host families, however, seem to look upon au pairs as a source of a year's affordable full-time babysitting. And the United States Information Agency (USIA), which oversees the program as part of its educational and cultural exchange activities, is in no position to regulate what has become a booming child-care business.
When the program was founded in 1986, some 300 au pairs came to the United States. In the 10 years since, there has been a total of about 60,000, mostly from Western Europe. The au pairs come here on J-visas, which were established in 1961 under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act for non-immigrant "bonafide" students to study in America, in order to "increase mutual understanding between countries." J-visas are typically given to teachers, medical students, research scholars or even airplane pilots in training, and holders do not require certification from the Labor Department in order to work full-time. The au pairs, who must be between the ages of 18 and 25 and stay for 12 months, are expected to sign up for a course of study.
Eight major "sponsor" agencies are certified by USIA to organize individual visits. Prospective au pairs are screened by one of these private agencies, which match up a candidate overseas with a family in the United States. The host family pays the sponsor agency about $4,000, and gives the au pair a stipend of about $140 per week, in addition to providing room and board, for no more than 10 hours work a day or 45 hours per week. The arrangement is cheaper and more convenient than having a live-in nanny: Families do not have to pay Social Security taxes or fill out IRS W-2 employment forms for visiting au pairs.
The sponsor agencies, which advertise widely in this country for host families, certainly emphasize the arrangement's convenience rather than its educational component. The largest of these agencies, Au Pair in America, tells families that the au pair's responsibilities include "driving children to and from school, appointments, outings or errands if required by family . . . preparing meals for the children, looking after their belongings, making the children's beds, doing their laundry and straightening out their rooms."
Many of the sponsoring agencies' newspaper and magazine ads state that the "nanny" (they often choose that term over "au pair") can be left in "sole charge" of children, and claim that they are "qualified." (Only last month did the USIA require that au pairs who look after children younger than two years old have 200 hours of child-care experience.) In one of its ads, EF Au Pair of Cambridge, Mass., - the agency through which Louise Woodward came to the United States - told prospective clients that an au pair "costs you less than day care and gives your family a culturally enriching experience of hosting a well-educated, English-speaking European." Despite the visa requirements, in very few of the agencies' ads is the word "study" ever mentioned.
And some au pairs never do take courses. The USIA has no satisfactory means of addressing the problem. Its general counsel's office has repeatedly argued that the au pair program exceeds the agency's mandate of handling cultural, educational and international visitor exchanges. In a 1993 interview, former USIA general Counsel Alberto Mora pointed out that "it is not the function of the USIA to monitor whether the au pair attends classes, and the agency has no specified method for doing so.
Au pairs have commented wryly on their educational experience. Marie Pechilga of France wrote in a letter to her sponsoring agency: "I learned special things about Americans. They eat with their arm under the table, cut sometimes with the right hand and sometimes with the left, they eat potatoes with the skin." Last month, as the result of the Woodward case, the USIA tightened its regulations. Not only did it increase the hours of experience but it made it a requirement that au pairs attend an "accredited institution" of higher learning to earn six hours of credits during their stay in the United States. The USIA admits, however, that it has no enforcement mechanism to monitor the program.
Inevitably, some matchups between au pairs and families don't work out, usually either because they simply don't hit it off, or because the au pair feels overworked, especially when both parents come home late at night. That leaves the au pair looking after "some very needy children," as Anne Dotson, a coordinator for Au Pair Homestay puts it. And, once in a while, these situations have dissolved into highly publicized tragedies: In 1993, a German au pair was convicted in Massachusetts of child abuse and deported. And in 1994 in Loudoun County, a 19-year-old Dutch au pair was charged with shaking to death an infant in her care and was returned to the Netherlands on a plea bargain.
The people who benefit most from this arrangement are the sponsoring groups. Although these agencies are technically structured to qualify for tax-exempt status, most have opted to be for-profit. Not surprisingly, they have repeatedly fought tighter regulations, as they did three years ago when USIA suggested raising the age limits from 18 to 21 for au pairs who care for infants. The current setup also pleases families -- and some members of Congress -- who have come to rely more and more on this form of child care.
Despite the fact that USIA officials have revealed their inability to oversee the program properly, Congress appears happy with the status quo. And because USIA programs are restricted to applicants from overseas, the American public understands very little about how the organization works. If the Labor Department were involved in regulating the au pair program -- which it should because 45 hours a week is a full-time job -- the department would be in a position to enforce regulations. If the program were moved to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department, regulators would also surely modify it.
In 1988, when the USIA complained to Congress that it was administering a program of "live-in domestics," it was told to continue the program as it was and not to make any changes unless Congress specified otherwise. Congress also rejected the USIA's request to cut back the au pair workweek to 30 hours. Au pair families flooded the USIA and Congress with letters, faxes and phone calls supporting the au pair program as it stood. "All hell broke loose," recalled USIA's general counsel Normand Poirier. A former general counsel of the USIA told me that executives of the au pair agencies claimed that anything less than 45 hours a week would be "commercially unmarketable."
Then, in 1990, Congress mandated that the USIA continue administering the au pair program "without change" until such time as the program is transferred to another federal agency. But the USIA, which tells America's story abroad through the Voice of America, Worldnet television -- and especially through the professional foreign service officers assigned to U.S. embassies -- shouldn't be saddled with bogus educational and cultural programs like this one. But it seems that it will continue to be.
Last month, President Clinton, who has the authority to conduct the government's foreign cultural exchange activities, signed a bill placing the au pair program permanently under the aegis of USIA, where Congress is happy to leave it. It's time to hold both the president and Congress accountable through public congressional hearings.
That's not because the au pair program is without merit: It provides low-cost child care to American families and it offers a rewarding experience for thousands of au pairs, parents and their children. It is because the au pair program is a work program -- and it should be regulated as such. The USIA is in no position to do that.
(Note: In this Washington Post article by Alvin Snyder, the following box was inserted to explain the differences between "au pairs" and "nannies."
THEY'RE NOT NANNIES
The terms "au pair" and "nanny" are not interchangeable. Key differences:
The tradition of au pairs, or mother's helpers, has its roots in England and France, where young girls would spend time with mostly upper-class families on a student-exchange basis; the girls had no formal child-care or first-aid training and were generally unpaid.
Nanny schools date back to 1893; many colleges in Britain offer nanny courses with several degrees and different levels of credentials. Nannies usually remain with families longer than au pairs. National Association of Nannies members average five years' experience.
In the United States, there is a coalition of 14 schools under the aegis of the American Council of Nanny Schools (ACNS). Nanny training can take from six months to two years. There is no federal regulation or licensing for nannies. Training at the English Nanny and Governess School in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, includes courses and lectures in child behavior and development, gross motor development, how to diffuse a temper tantrum, appropriate toilet training, defensive driving, first aid and CPR for children and adults.
Au pairs receive a stipend of about $140 per week; nanny salaries range from $375 to $700 per week.
Alvin Snyder is a former director of worldwide television for the United States Information Agency.
Copyright, The Washington Post, November 9, 1997
(Sunday "Outlook" Section)