Looking for Mary Poppins

By Jill Smolowe

The glossy brochure advertising "the best live-in child care in the world!" had featured energetic European lasses with megawatt smiles. So Cathy and Thomas Lynch of Wilton, Connecticut, were perplexed in November 1990 when their Dutch au pair arrived fearful and miserable. On Day One, Saskia, 21, wept uncontrollably, but lacked enough English to explain why she was upset. On Day Two, Saskia expressed shock that she was expected to provide sole care for the Lynches' two daughters, ages two and four, while the Lynches were at work; she thought she had come to America primarily to travel and learn English. On Day Three, Saskia announced that she wanted to go home -- then stopped speaking English altogether. Baffled, Cathy found an interpreter, who translated: Saskia said she couldn't be left alone with the Lynch children.

When Cathy phoned the sponsoring agency, EF Au Pair of Cambridge, Massachussetts, she was stunned by their refusal to help. "They literally told us we could put her out on the street, and that she could now find her own way home," Cathy recalls. (An agency spokesman says that she is unfamiliar with the case, but that the standard response is to "do what we can" to help an au pair return home.) Instead the Lynches helped Saskia make her travel arrangements. Then, not wanting to squander their nonrefundable program fee of roughly $2,700, they demanded a replacement. This time, they got a 19-year-old Swede who was all the agency had promised: an English- speaking au pair who provided 12 months of flexible, dependable child care in exchange for room, board, a $100 weekly salary, a $300 educational stipend and a round-trip ticket.

Heartened by their second au pair experience but now leery of EF Au Pair, the Lynches then signed with the Connecticut-based Au Pair in America, another of the eight private agencies designated by the U.S. Information Agency to match American families with European au pairs who are between the ages of 18 and 25. Melanie, 19, promptly erected a vast photo shrine of the child she had cared for back home in England, then cried and cried. Three days later, an agency counselor visited and suggested that Melanie leave within 24 hours. Exit Melanie, enter Katja, a 22-year-old German who failed to watch the Lynch girls when they swam at the beach. Katja also couldn't drive, though her application stated otherwise. Worn out, Cathy dismissed Katja within three weeks, quit her nursing job and became a full-time mom. Her conclusion: "Scrap the whole au pair program. It's just plain bad."

The Lynches' experience is not one of those sensational au-pair-from-hell stories that make for splashy headlines and breathless movies-of-the-week. Yet it is typical enough in the annals of live-in babysitters to give pause to any family seeking an au pair. A number of the eight agencies that have placed 40,094 au pairs in American homes since 1986 say between 20% and 30% of their placements don't work out. Unhappy au pairs complain that they are lonely and treated like slaves. Discontented parents speak of au pairs who are immature, irresponsible or mentally unstable. Both sides fault the agencies for sloppy screening procedures and poor follow-through when troubles arise.

The most common problem, though, is a mismatch of expectations. The au pairs, nearly all of whom are female, think they're embarking on a cultural adventure; the hosts, who are mostly two-income couples, think they're getting cheap, legal, full-time help. "It's sold abroad as a great way to experience American culture, and here as a great way to get inexpensive child care," says Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "You're bound to have problems."

Leahy turned his attention to the au pair program in 1993 after one of his former staffers discovered that her then four-year-old son had been photographed in the nude by Stefan Kahl, 26, a German au pair. Kahl was subsequently convicted of child molestation and deported. Leahy suspected that such abuse was not unique and began investigating. Then last August, Dutch au pair Anna-Corina Peeze, 19, whose case goes before a grand jury next month, was charged with involuntary manslaughter after her charge, eight-week-old Brenton Devonshire of Ashburn, Virginia, was shaken to death. A week later, the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a series that documented some 300 cases of trouble in au pair placement. Leahy seized on the publicity to introduce legislation requiring the USIA to actively regulate au pair programs.

A draft of these new regulations, obtained by TIME, indicates that the USIA intends to clamp down on screening, training and work requirements for au pairs. Under the new guidelines, scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, all families must submit to a background check, including employment and personal references. The au pairs must be English-speaking high school graduates who have passed both a physical examination and a criminal-record check. Their training, which in most cases consists of a single agency-sponsored orientation day, will be boosted to 40 hours. To better enforce the rule that restricts the au pair work week to 45 hours, families will have to sign a contract that specifies days and hours, and agency representatives will be required to contact the au pairs weekly. Au pair salaries will be boosted to $155 a week.

The USIA draft also restricts au pairs to homes where the children are at least two years old -- but that is likely to change. In the wake of agency < complaints that the rule would cut their business almost by half, the USIA is considering a three-month-old age limit, but with the proviso that only au pairs over age 21 can work with children younger than two. Three agencies contacted by TIME also questioned the extended hours of child-care and safety training, arguing that this will drive up the program's costs and price out many middle-income families.

All this can't help taxing the patience of the USIA, which never intended to get into the baby-sitting business in the first place. When two entrepreneurial au pair agencies approached the USIA in 1986 and asked that their programs be designated as a "cultural exchange" -- thus simplifying the au pair visa process -- the USIA agreed only to a two-year trial. That pilot convinced the USIA that the program was too work-oriented to be a true cultural exchange. But its repeated efforts to fob the program off on the Labor Department or have it killed outright have met with failure. While the USIA has no investigative or disciplinary authority to enforce its new rules, the eight agencies have great incentive to cooperate: the program comes up for congressional reauthorization in September. "We have a big club hanging over their heads," says USIA director Joseph Duffey. "Congress could close it down."

If the program is to survive, veteran au pairs and host families say, agencies must tighten up procedures all around. Although the brochures claim that applicants are carefully screened, au pairs commonly state that their references were never checked; some even boast about having had relatives write fake recommendations. Other common deceptions include hiding a smoking habit, lying about a driver's license or misrepresenting mastery of English. Kathy Farno, whose short-lived Swiss au pair arrived in Maryland with just 10 words of English, says the girl initially hid her language deficit "by having her sister do the writing" on the application.

Those applications, which showcase a candidate's strengths, don't hint at the problems she may be fleeing. LeAnn and Michael Kerr of Charlotte, North Carolina, initially thought they had found a dream companion for their two young daughters in Merete, 18. But after Merete settled in, she began to speak of family problems back home in Denmark that included emotional abuse. Over time, LeAnn noticed that Merete would grow very agitated and develop stomachaches after phoning home. In March 1993, nine months into her stay, Merete tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills. After Merete spent a week in the hospital, the Kerrs helped her return home. Last August they received a letter from Merete's mother. "It said, 'I'm sorry to inform you Merete is dead,' " says LeAnn. "It went on to say she walked in front of a train. I can't describe what I felt."

At the time of Merete's suicide attempt, the Kerrs ran into another common dilemma: the failure of agencies to step in when problems arise. LeAnn says the local counselor who was supposed to check in with Merete on a weekly basis "never called" and "never went to see her," even after the girl was hospitalized. Furious, LeAnn phoned the San Francisco headquarters of Merete's sponsoring agency, AuPairCare. "They gave her no support," LeAnn says. "They just wanted her to go home, and the problem would be done." Diane DuToit, the agency's program manager, counters that Merete "seemed very happy" until her departure time neared, and that the agency's local coordinator did pay a hospital visit.

At least Merete went home. Because it "isn't profitable" to send girls home, says a disgruntled former agency counselor, "it's always, 'Well, find them another home.' " Becky and T.J. McManamy of Charlotte, who went through seven au pairs in four years -- two good, five bad -- say they let go of Lindsey, an aloof Briton, after she told them, "Your children are not safe with me." When the McManamys tried to pass that disturbing remark on to AuPairCare -- first by phone, then by certified letter -- the agency didn't respond. DuToit now says the McManamys misinterpreted Lindsey's remark.

Subsequently Lindsey was posted to a family that was in the process of adopting a second child. According to two people familiar with that case, Lindsey's refusal to submit to a background check by the adoption agency cost the couple their new infant. When the couple later reapplied to the adoption agency, they had to provide a letter from AuPairCare stating that Lindsey would not be in the home.

The view from the au pair side of the equation is not much prettier. Au pair means "on a par," and is intended to remind the hosts that their young guests should be treated as family members, not employees. The rules are clear: au pairs are to get a private room, meals, two weeks' vacation and a full weekend off every fourth week. They are not supposed to work more than 45 hours a week and are not expected to do general housework or meal preparation for the family.

Tell that to Rachel, 19, an Irish au pair who felt like a slave while working for a family in Manhattan. Rachel found herself cleaning out the refrigerator, washing Venetian blinds, even scrubbing old stains from the living room rug. Those specialty services were layered on top of her daily responsibilities: minding the family's three children, washing the dishes, vacuuming. Moreover, Rachel says because there was never enough to eat in the house, she shelled out about $35 each week to keep herself and the children adequately fed. Rachel hung on eight months, then bolted. "I finally realized I'm not a Cinderella," she says. "This is not something I have to do." Instead of taking up her agency's offer to place her in another home, Rachel found a family herself. That choice cost her the $500 "good-faith" deposit required of all au pairs, since she did not finish out her full 12 months.

While Rachel had the gumption to quit, other young women feel trapped -- and that can lead to grave consequences. "In many cases, the girls are already disturbed and running away from something," says Joyce Egginton, author of Circle of Fire, a new book that disputes the 1992 acquittal of Olivia Riner, a Swiss au pair who was charged with setting the fire that killed her three- month-old charge. "If the girl is feeling desperately cut off, depressed and alone, the babies are at great risk."

And just as troubled au pairs are recycled, so are problem families. The McManamys provided temporary shelter to two AuPairCare hires, both in flight from the same couple. The first au pair complained of a domineering husband and a jealous wife. Her successor charged that the husband had made sexual advances and the wife had refused to speak to her. Becky, who helped the first go home and the second find a better job, says the agency failed to assist in either case. More common, an agency will attribute the problem to "incompatibility," and try to rematch both sides of the equation.

While agencies don't deny that problems arise, they stress that happy endings are far more common than horror stories. And that, no doubt, is true. Thos and Lisa Paine of Belle Mead, New Jersey, for instance, have had mostly happy outcomes with their nine au pairs. "We worked with them to try to accommodate their schedule," says Thos. "We always invited them to spend holidays with us and got them presents." The Paines also never forgot that they were dealing with kids, not mature nannies. Like many couples, they have suffered their share of fender benders, missed curfews and boyfriend woes. "You come down and find people groping on the couch," Thos laughs. "If you can't handle the hormones, don't get into the program."

The Paines and other satisfied host families caution that everyone needs to be more clear-eyed. They urge families to interview applicants by phone, check out references and bear in mind that families will get from the experience what they put into it. Despite their own checkered history, the McManamys say when it works well, the program can serve both the au pairs who want an affordable adventure abroad and the families who need affordable child care. "When you have a good au pair, it's a benefit to the household," says T.J. And, Becky adds, "It's a sad day when a good one leaves."

Ann Blackman/Washington, Sophfronia Scott Gregory/Charlotte, Jenifer Mattos/New York, and bureau reports