You might think I’m talking to the au pairs when I write this, but I’m actually saying it to myself. After twenty+ years in the Nedsa industry, I thought I knew everything, had experienced everything, you name it and I know about it and am just one step ahead of everyone else. Oh no, I’ve just found out again why an au pair has to come home.

In the Netherlands, dogs are trained from the start and must always be “on a leash” when you go for a walk with them. Some restaurants allow dogs, but then they must be dogs that do not sit and beg and drool and bark, while you enjoy what is there to eat and drink. And believe me, there are dogs like that. You have probably also seen dogs riding on the train – as long as his owner buys him a ticket, he is allowed to ride along and from experience I have seen that Flaffie sometimes behaves better than his owner!

Furthermore, you may have also seen a notice here and there in someone’s garden: “Dogs do not poop here.” I always wondered if Dutch dogs can read, but no, it’s meant for you, the dog that takes you for a walk. Please take it to heart, and if it does happen, you have your bag at hand. Be prepared!

So: take your bag, or alternatively, a “poop scoop” and go for a nice walk with Flaffie and the peace is preserved. There is no such thing as refusing to do this.

We live in times where we blurt out everything on social media. When I was young, I had a diary and my biggest secrets were recorded in it, and woe to the one who dares to look for my diary and read it!… Today everything is openly and openly proclaimed on Face book for all to see. But it’s one thing to do it with your own life – post photos, share experiences etc., but you MAY NOT post photos of the family and their children on FB. You will first have to get permission from them for that and it may be that they will not give it and make peace with that. You are violating their right to privacy if you do it just for everyone on this side to see how cute “your children” are.

If you have a family with another child of about 2-3 years old, chances are very good that you will have to change another dirty diaper and wash bottoms. It’s a given!! Get ready for it. To say I didn’t know that is really stupid of you and you have no experience with a child of that age! Good preparation for one day when you are a mother yourself.

Don’t say you can cycle and then you can’t. Of course it’s easy to say you can do it, but once you get into the practice, the wheat is separated from the chaff!! If an au pair is honest during an interview and says I can’t cycle, but I’m going to train really hard before I leave for the Netherlands, we’ll let you go – you’ll just have to prove that you really can. Don’t say you’re a non-smoker and your FB is full of photos of you with a cigarette in your hand or smoking in the Netherlands! What else have you been lying about! If you can lie about cycling and smoking so easily, what else have you been lying about!

So: I thought these types of things couldn’t happen, and it didn’t and shouldn’t make you guilty of this!! Life could be so much fun and pleasure and be simple, if I didn’t always have to remember what I lied to and who I lied to!!