The latest au pair craze: granny nannies
July 14, 2011
In Germany, many older women are starting to travel the globe to serve as au pairs. The Agence France-Presse reports that many families who place ads for au pairs are beginning to request older women instead of young students.
"Older women (aged between 50 and 70) are often better than young ones because they have more life experience," Michaela Hansen, the founder of the Granny Au Pair agency that puts families in touch with older nannies, told the AFP.
Granny Au Pair offers older women the opportunity to travel the world to learn about other cultures and improve their foreign language skills, which would be difficult to accomplish on a vacation, and much not to mention much more expensive. Au pairs of any age can use international phone cards to stay in touch with their loved ones while they are abroad.
One of the "grannies," 61-year-old Anke Vendt, told the news source that she was nervous about the prospect of flying to Spain to care for another family's children, but after she returned she was happy to do it. Vendt still returns often to care for the children when their parents are away for business.