The Job: Girls by Rotation

It all began before World War II, when teen-age daughters from different lands swapped places and parents, took on household and child-care chores in return for bed, board and the chance to learn a new language. The system was called au pair (on a par) because, it was hoped, the new member of the family would be treated as if she be longed there.

Today, au pair has become the poor girl’s junior year abroad -a way to spend time in another country while Mother rests easy, secure in the knowledge that her daughter is not alone in a strange land. Girls from 15 to 30, usually listed as students and therefore technically not workers, slip comfort ably past immigration roadblocks and working restrictions even in countries that jealously repel foreigners who might take jobs away from natives.

Some countries have gone so far as to set up agencies specializing in au pairs. These act as a kind of clearing house, matching girls and families in a far more orderly way than the old family-writing-to-family system. In London, best known are Universal Aunts and Hunt-Regina. Applicants at Paris’ Accueil Familial des Jeunes Etrangers pay a $5 registration fee, must agree to stay with the family selected for at least six months. In ex change for room and board and pocket money (up to $10), the family gets a built-in baby sitter and mother’s help er, generally of comparable social standing and education. The girl gets time off for classes and homework, some free nights, and one full day a week for herself. For guidance, she can turn to subsidiary facilities -clubs where au pairs can go to compare notes, counseling service to use if she is discontent. Meanwhile the experience of moving into an adopted family permits her insights into another civilization that no tourist can hope for.

A Scattered Business. Nowadays, like rotating crops, English girls head for Rome, French girls for London, Germans, Italians and Scandinavians for Paris. Scattered among them are a small but increasing number of American girls. Last year there were as many as 20,000 au pairs in Britain, 3,000 registered in France.

But as migration swelled, so did the problems. What was once a cozy private affair, supervised to the last detail by supercautious parents, became en masse a complicated business. Where, for instance, should au pairs eat their meals? With the family, as a half daughter, or in the kitchen, as a half maid? May they entertain friends at home once their work is finished, or see them only on days off? Since municipal and government agencies had no jurisdiction over such volunteer workers, perplexed housewives fell back on their own instincts, often with disastrous results.

The Last Word. Too strict a regime, and au pairs like 21-year-old Penelope Fitzgerald, out of Ireland and now in Rome, rebel: “No one wants to be ordered around while Signora does her nails.” Too lax a hand, and a goodly proportion end up more literally in the family way than the family had in mind. It was, in fact, the regular, annual arrival of 150 or so au pairs upon the doorstep of Britain’s National Council for Unmarried Mothers that recently got the Home Office to issue a free pamphlet offering concisely stated advice in seven different languages. Now the generally accepted last word on the subject, a sort of Dr. Spock for au pair parents and charges, the text decreed that a girl should be given a separate bedroom and a place at the family table, that she should work, in exchange, no fewer than five hours a day.

There are still problems of nationality and temperament. German girls are judged good workers but eat too much to suit the French, while the French, claim the English, tend to leave rings around the tub. Italians are meticulous ironers but recalcitrant dishwashers, the Swiss overly concerned with dust but not too quick about doing something about it. The Americans? Said one experienced au pair hand last week: “They’ll have to learn to get along with one bath a week without shrieks of complaint, mend their own clothes and not throw them away; la vie, after all, n’est pas si facile.”