Care is at the centre of what we have described in the past three chapters: it is what parents expect nannies and au pairs to do when they hire them, and it is what nannies and au pairs see as the core part of their responsibility in the family. It is also what children expect of nannies and au pairs – that they should take care of them. However, at the same time, care is far from simple to put down in words; as DeVault (1991: 4) says, it is an activity that we ‘know from experience but cannot easily label’, an ‘activity without a name, activity traditionally assigned to women, often carried out in family groups’, although, in this case, the women are not ‘really’ part of the family group, nor are they completely outside.

Despite the intangible character of care, this chapter sets out to zoom in on it specifically. Drawing on and bringing together the narratives from the previous chapters, in the following, we will identify some key features in the care situation that children, nannies and au pairs find themselves in when doing care. We will also discuss how this situation corresponds with and diverges from the expectations of this care situation, formulated in ideals of the practice as an ‘easy job’. This, then, finally, brings us to a discussion of invisibility: of what is obscured in the gap that emerges between the experience of an actual practice and the expectations of this practice. While all care doings can be argued to entail invisible doings, the care doings of nannies and au pairs are invisible in specific ways, and on many levels, simultaneously. Understanding this is crucial for understanding the particular precarity of this practice.

“It's the children who spend time with the nanny;the parents just employ her so they can be at work”: the care situation according to children

In the preceding quote, 12-year-old Karl is pointing out the obvious: nannies and au pairs are hired to care for children, so they naturally spend time together. When Karl chooses to put emphasis on this in his interview, he is arguing for his right as a child to give his opinion and to talk about his experience of having nannies and au pairs: children, not parents, spend time with nannies and au pairs; thus, children are experts on this subject, in Karl's mind.