Based in Hamburg, Granpreneur Michaela Hansen is the founder of Granny Aupair, which sends women aged 50+ abroad as au pairs, house sitters and companions. Granny Aupair enables women to travel and the families they stay with get really experienced childcare. The Grannies play, paint, bake or sing with the children. They provide love and comfort and are there for the children when their parents are busy.
Michaela Hansen founded Granny Aupair, which sends women aged 50+ abroad as au pairs and companions in 2010. Married at 19, first child at 20, the second at 21 – Michaela Hansen’s dream of spending time abroad went up in smoke. So she chose a different path. After completing an office clerk training she studied and got a degree in criminology and sociology and together with her husband she founded a PR agency. But she remained dreaming of the wide world!
The idea to place women over 50 with host families was born after Michaela watched a programme about young au pairs and realized there was no similar offer for older women. Today Michaela’s Granny Aupair initiative, with its website in four languages, enables women to travel and the families they stay with get really experienced childcare, with over 1,000 Grannies having been placed in over 50 countries since 2010. The Granny is treated as a family member, has free room and board. In return she cares for the children, as only a grandmother can (even if she is not related to them) and gets the chance to experience other countries and cultures in another way.
Both sides profit from the placement: The Granny Aupair helps look after the kids, for instance by taking and fetching them from nursery or school. Often the Granny cooks if the parents are busy and gives the children a hand with homework.
Families and Grannies can first register free of charge on the website and view the profiles of the Grannies looking for a family and vice versa. To get in touch with a Granny you become a member of the community and can thus send and receive contact requests and discuss all further details of a placement with the Grannies of your choice. Michaela also offers regular information sessions and workshops for potential Granny Aupairs to prepare them for their placement.
Gwendolyn
Contact Details:
0049 (0)40 / 87976140
info@granny-aupair.com
When I first became aware of the chance of not offering our guest room to a young girl but to a granny, this idea seemed a bit risky to me: to have my mother or mother-in-law permanently at home?
But long, in-depth discussions with our first candidate calmed my fears and presto our Gabi was there. I enjoyed her simple, quiet way of dealing with the kids, and was impressed with how quickly she settled in with us and how she could roll unrestrainedly on the carpet with the kids. She was also very adept at not meeting my elder’s stubbornness head-on, but achieving the desired result through cunning, love, and laughter.
She was really touched by getting hot meals served every day (I love to cook) and I was thrilled when I went down to the kitchen early and the dishwasher was magically empty and a bowl of peeled fruit to be found. It suddenly became apparent: a granny has been keeping her household for years and therefore has an eye for what needs to be done. So, of course, she contributes to it naturally and for her part, she appreciates not being responsible for everything.
We will soon welcome our 3rd Granny and look forward to the return of our 1st! Because that’s also a point, which I like about the Granny au pair system: the AuPair time is usually only a short step in their life for young people, which limits the possibility to have the same person several times, if one understands each other very well. With a Granny beautiful experiences can be repeated more often, so that the whole family is looking forward to the reunion. (Gwendolyn in Paris)