The household roles around education are the least understood in the family staff market, partly because the words are old and partly because families use them loosely. A quick definition of each, with what it costs and which family needs it, saves a year of misunderstanding.
The au pair
A young person, usually a student between eighteen and twenty-six, from another country, who lives with the family for six to twelve months, helps with the children for up to thirty hours a week and receives pocket money of 300 to 500 euros a month, board, lodging and a language course. It is a cultural exchange programme regulated in most countries, not employment, and an au pair is not staff: she cannot be left in sole charge of a baby for a working week, should not be doing the housekeeping and is not a nanny at a tenth of the price. Families who understand this get a delightful older sister for the children and a second language at the dinner table. Families who do not get a resentful teenager and, in some countries, a visit from the authorities.
The tutor
A qualified teacher or graduate who teaches subjects, by the hour, the term or, in the residential version, by the month. Hourly tutors cost 60 to 400 euros an hour depending on the subject and the reputation; residential tutors who live and travel with the family cost 6,000 to 15,000 euros a month plus expenses, and suit families who move between countries, children who have fallen behind, and the year before a big examination. A tutor teaches; a tutor does not do bath time. Our article on finding a tutor worth the fee has the red flags.
The governess
The governess is the role families of means rediscovered in the last twenty years, and it is a genuine profession again. A governess is a qualified teacher or an experienced nanny with a degree who takes charge of the children's education outside school: languages, music, reading, manners, homework, museums, the wider world. She travels with the family, often between homes and countries, is usually bilingual or trilingual, and may teach the school curriculum during long absences. She is neither a nanny nor a tutor and she costs more than both: 60,000 to 100,000 pounds in London, 100,000 to 150,000 francs in Switzerland, 15,000 to 25,000 dirhams a month in Dubai. Families who need one know it: they travel too much for a school to work alone, they want the children fluent in three languages, or they have a child who needs a serious adult beside a serious school.
Which one
- Two schoolchildren, a parent at home, one language to practise: an au pair.
- A child behind in maths, an exam in June: a tutor, by the hour.
- A family in three countries, four children, a mother who wants the manners and the languages done properly: a governess.
- A gap year of travel with a fourteen-year-old and the IB two years away: a residential tutor.
What they have in common
A written agreement, proper pay through payroll where it is employment, references that were telephoned, a trial period, a room of their own and a family that knows the difference between the three roles. The Household Staff Budget has the salary ranges for the governess and the residential tutor; the au pair is a fixed sum set by the programme, and the tutor is priced by the hour.
