"Au Pair" means "on par" meaning living as part of the family. As such, au pairs get house and board and a small amount of pocket money, but no salary as such. They also don't have clear-cut work duties, they help around a house, as a member of the family would be expected to do, cooking, cleaning, washing etc. As a parent, you're generally not supposed to leave the au pair in sole charge of the children for more than brief periods of time (as you would a babysitter). That's the general theory, of course, individual arrangements range widely.

A nanny is a professional employee of the family, generally has training and certification, has clear duties and makes an actual salary. An "au pair nanny" is an oxymoron, that would be a "live in nanny" and, yes, definitely rich people stuff. Au pairs are definitely possibilities for the middle class.

Again UK-specific: They only _need_ qualifications to register with OFSTED, and as a parent, it's up to you whether you require your childcare to be registered. If you leave your kids with a friend, for example, your friend doesn't need any kind of qualifications. However, you can only get Government subsidies (like child tax credits and childcare vouchers) for a registered childcare provider.

Technically, the requirements are a little stricter: "You must register with Ofsted or a childminder agency if you want to be paid to look after children under 8 for more than 2 hours a day in England"[1]

In the example of leaving your children with a friend, the exemption is for a maximum of 3 hours (per day), if the friend is being paid. Any longer and the friend is obliged to register with Ofsted (with a penalty of an unlimited fine and/or jail for not being registered).

I doubt many people would think to check the legal requirements though.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/register-childminder-childcare-provider/o...

Blimey - I didn't realise that, and I will continue to completely ignore it as it's ridiculous.

Here in Spain I know a family that hired a young girl "au pair" (in their case a Polish girl who wanted to learn Spanish). The father told me they paid her about 400 euros/month + food and accommodation, so it's not something prohibitively expensive.

Given that is half of the salary of many people in the peninsula and above the Portuguese minimum wage, it looks expensive to me.

I mean, that only medium level and upper classes can afford it.

To use your numbers, a person would have to make less than $11,000 a year for that salary to be half their income. I doubt there are many people reading this discussion in that income bracket.

There are many things in life that aren't feasible if you are at the poverty line: Apple laptops, electric vehicles, extended vacations, etc. I would argue that the only difference here is that many people are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of paying someone to take care of their children in the home.

I am living abroad, and I will let countrymen/women correct me, but in Portugal you can hardly aspire to earn more than 1500 euros before taxes, in the best companies.

Most of them pay less than that.

So a university degree will land you around 1000 euros, a bit more if you are doing lots of overtime.

Renting a flat will always be above 300 euros, or 500 in the biggest cities.

So unless one if living with a significant other, and reserve one salary for such expenses, they aren't possible at all.

In Spain the salary level on average is around 25% more than on Portugal, but given the actual situation the real numbers on the bank account aren't that much different.

And I am writing about people with degrees, let alone those that only learned their profession hands on the job.

you are correct.

> To use your numbers, a person would have to make less than $11,000 a year for that salary to be half their income.

400 euro a month plus food and accommodations is a lot more than $5,500/yr.

I think you ignored the "plus food and accommodations" part.