The helping hand of a ’granny’ au pair

Au pairs don’t have to be young — as the success of a ‘granny’ agency shows.

I DID a three-month stint as an au pair in Milan in my 20s. The best bit was gathering with other au pairs in the mornings after we’d dropped our young charges to school and exchanging horror stories: families’ expectations that we would clean the whole house, dads with roving eyes, out-of-control kids — one boy rang an alarm clock in his au pair’s ear whenever she was on the phone.

We were young and wanted to live life to the full in a vibrant European city but when it came to children, we had little experience and even less patience.