Meet Jarryd Wentzel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jarryd Wentzel.

Hi Jarryd, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I graduated from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa in 2016 with a BCom IT Management degree. Upon graduating, I came to the realization that the whole ‘9-5 office life’ is not for me. I came across the idea of being an au pair as my cousin had been one a few years prior. All I knew was that it encompassed two things which I loved- a chance to explore America (which I have wanted to do since I was a young boy) and children (who I am naturally very good with probably because I had watched and was a part of my eight younger cousin’s upbringing).

I started with the au pair application process in January 2017 and my profile was live sometime in February that year. To try and make my profile more attractive to prospective host-families, I decided to volunteer at a children’s home where I could become ‘infant certified’ for children younger than the age of 2 years old. I spent 6 hours a day, five days a week for three months volunteering at the children’s home.

I received my first interview request four months into having my profile go live on the agency website. The first family was for one that lived in Rhode Island and they were moving to Hawaii as the husband was being stationed there. They had a 3-year-old girl. We spoke for about two weeks and I had about three calls with the family but they ended up matching with another au pair- a female au pair. Yes, it does make more sense but I was just left confused as to why they would speak to me for so long when they probably already knew that they wanted a female au pair to begin with. This did knock my confidence but I had heard that it is a lot more difficult for a male au pair to find a host-family because either families are unaware that males are available or that society has made it seem as though males can’t also be loving, caring and affectionate and that’s why some families don’t even bat an eye at male au pair profiles. Nevertheless, my search continued.

Months went by and I spoke to a few more families here and there. Some just didn’t feel right in my gut or there was just something in their profile which I didn’t like, maybe the number of kids or city they lived in. After about the third or fourth family that I said no to, my au pair agency reached out and basically wanted to know if I was serious about the program because for a guy, I was getting a lot of interview requests from families and I keep saying no to them. I told my agency that these families just didn’t feel right and if I’m going to be spending a year with these people in a foreign country then I need to be pretty sure of the people I match with. December of 2017 had come and I had spoken to about eight families at this point. Still unmatched, I said to myself that in the new year, I’m going to just give up and I’ll stay in South Africa.

The first week of January 2018, I received the interview request that would change it all. It was for a family in Austin, Texas. Single mother and twin 7-year-old boys. Weirdly enough Texas was one of my top states that I wanted to move to, the other being California (which is top of everyone’s list, haha). I read through the profile and thought that this family would be perfect because I would be able to relate well to the boys as my brother and I were raised by a single mother too. Short story even shorter, we matched within that week and the rest was kind of history. I landed in Austin Bergstrom Intl. on 22 February 2018. And so, my au pair adventure began.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As a male coming into a female-dominated industry where the males have been far and few between, it was never going to be easy. But also, moving halfway across the world to live with a family you’ve only seen on Skype a few times is not for the faint of heart either. And then there’s just the complete difference in everything with living in a brand-new country. Might I add, being an introvert who only makes friends when an extrovert randomly adopts them into their friend group was also going to be tough. Challenges? Nah, not really.

Let’s tackle them one by one. In all honesty, with regard to the first challenge, there wasn’t really a big deal made about it. Yes, before I left South Africa I’d tell some people what I was going to do and there were some raised eyebrows but it’s also because many people at the time had never even heard the term “au pair”. Then I would have to explain that I’m going to live with an American family and help take care of the children as part of a cultural exchange program. Even coming to America, I think people were more fascinated with my accent than me telling them the reason why I was there. Maybe they just didn’t understand me. But also, a good 90% of people had never even heard the term “au pair” there either. I guess we are more alike than we thought.

Now when it comes to living with a bunch of randos (random people, for my non-millennials) it is quite a tricky situation. It’s like a blind date, kind of. Ok, well not exactly because you’ve seen what these people look like but you catch my drift. The first month is very awkward because firstly you’re not sleeping- thanks jetlag. And secondly, you’re waking up to these new faces and accent and don’t get me started on the food products that are so alien to you they might as well be from outer space. Side note: I do believe in aliens, maybe that explains some of my wildly imaginative videos? I don’t know anyway back to the story. Having to get used to the routines of your new roommates does take some time and that’s literally the only thing that will help. Just giving it time. But then there is the aspect that you are living with your boss. Au pairing is one unique, for lack of a better word, shit-show. You’re looking after, well more like assisting to raise these children which aren’t your own and living with people who could be your parents but sometimes could just be an older brother or sister in terms of age gap. A very unique living dynamic that usually works itself out. Sometimes.

Now coming into this, I had no idea what to expect once I had landed. My first sign of that was arriving to ridiculously cold weather in my t-shirt and shorts. I guess it’s cold in America in the beginning of the year? Weird coz when I left South Africa, we could cook eggs on the bonnets of our cars in the beginning of the year. For any Americans, the bonnet is the hood of the car. Now once I had gathered my belongings, I was greeted outside by the current / soon to be previous au pair of the family who weirdly enough is also a South African male. I guess this family has a type? We set off on our journey to the house and I was very confused. I’m sitting on the side of the car where the steering wheel is supposed to be, we’re driving on the wrong side of the road. Not the right-hand side, the wrong side. And I am in this car and driving past many others like it which could easily be considered a bus in South Africa- a blacked-out Chevrolet Suburban. Think of a bus mixed with a tank. That’s pretty much what it felt like being in it. There were so many of these driving on the roads it was quite surprising to see. Everything really is bigger in Texas.

And the last challenge that I had to overcome, probably being my favourite. Was being an introvert in a brand-new city, let alone part of the world. I did have one thing going for me though. Chicks dig accents. But it would be a while before I had the uh nerve to speak to any girls. When it came to my free time, I had to force myself to venture out and even when I did, I wouldn’t really startup conversation with anyone because well, introvert over here. I used to force myself to go to a hookah bar on Friday or Saturday nights to try and see if I could make a friend because smoking hookah or as we call it, hubbly, is commonplace where I’m from. Long story short, eight months into my first year I meet this veteran at a hookah lounge who’s not much older and adopts me and becomes my best friend and future business partner when we open up a hookah lounge together one day. Jason, thank you my friend. Through him, I met his roommate, Memphis and then his friend Blake and that was great because they were pretty much the socialites of Austin. My life changed after that night.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Through au pairing, I created my brand the Bropair. Initially, I started a YouTube channel of the same name so that my friends and family back home could see everything that I was getting up to in America. But during my au pair application process, matching phase and so on I found that there was no information out there which was answering the questions which I had. It was then that I decided that I would make videos on the topics surrounding au pairing so that no other future au pair had to feel as confused, lonely or as scared as what I did. During my two years as an au pair, I created many videos on various topics such as what questions to ask during your Skype interview with a prospective family, how and what to pack before you set off, how to save money and so on. I also started an Instagram account under the same name and mainly used it to promote when I had uploaded a new video to my channel. Looking back, there was so much potential left on the table.

Once my time as an au pair was up and I came back to South Africa, I still felt this burning desire to create content for the program. I still had a very long list of video ideas and felt it was my duty to bring each video idea to fruition. In July 2020, I posted my first meme to my Instagram page because I felt as though there was a lot more which I could be doing on that platform. I started out slow to test the waters as none of my audience had seen memes posted on the page before. I seemed to get quite good engagement so I continued. Somewhere during my time of being back in South Africa, it dawned on me that I have something with amazing potential right here. The Bropair can be a massive brand and it will be. It was then where I said to myself that I will be the face of au paring and the worldwide authority on it. Fast forward to today where I post an original piece of content every single day. I alternate between a meme and a Reel (video) each day. I’ve gone from a stagnant 2000 followers to 8000 as of today with some of my Reels reaching hundreds of thousands and even some millions of views which is absolutely wild!

I’m currently building my website for The Bropair (I guess I’ve got to put that IT degree to work, right?) and have partnered with a few companies so far. Since being back, I’ve been on a couple of podcasts and have been interviewed a few times too, I even recently was asked to come on a radio station here in South Africa which is quite unbelievable. I even had an au pair friend of mine recently send me a message saying that in one of her classes, the lecturer or whoever was leading the class said on the zoom call “have you guys seen The Bropair on Instagram?’. I’m waiting on her to send me the clip from that class because that is amazing. You never really know in what circles or rooms your name is being mentioned and it definitely has motivated me to keep grinding.

So what is it that I currently do? I’m a video producer and content creator where I make content for my personal brand which is comedy videos which I post to TikTok and Instagram under @jay_chama and produce videos for other individuals or companies who require video editing, content creation or content promotion. I am also building The Bropair brand because I will one day have my own agency and quite honestly, I see myself taking over the au pair industry in America. What sets me apart from everyone else in the au pair industry is the four values which are the core of The Bropair: honest, informative, relatable and entertaining content. Whether you’re an au pair or host family, I can make content that will cater to both. But what truly makes me different is the passion and just a genuine love for the program. This program changed my life and I have no idea where I would be today if I never took the leap and started my adventure in America. I would’ve never found my passion for creating content and I definitely wouldn’t be as confident in myself and my abilities. But what I’m most thankful for is for those two little boys, who aren’t so little anymore as they will be turning 12 at the end of this year, who changed my life. I have so much love for them and being their au pair was the greatest honour, we had such amazing experiences together and even traveled some of the world together. I decided a long time ago that I want to be in their lives forever, they will be at my wedding one day and meet my kids and I hope to also be at their weddings and meet their children somewhere down the line. Saying goodbye to them on my last day was easily the hardest day of my life thus far. Funny thing is that they still call me almost every weekend without fail to this day and it’s been almost two years that I’ve been gone. I guess I must’ve done something right? Ultimately, I’m most proud of the young men that they are becoming and I’m also honoured for being afforded the opportunity to being the catalyst for their change.

I am also currently trying to get my student visa to come and study childcare development at Austin Community College. I feel as though this will only benefit me once I have the agency one day. I am planning to attend Fall 2022 semester.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Peter McKinnon on YouTube taught me everything I know about photo and video editing and I owe my skills to him.

Rob Dial’s The Mindset Mentor podcast helps me to be the best version of myself. I believe he also lives in Austin, TX which is cool. Hopefully, I meet him one day. He has a cool story too, you should interview him at some point. Tell him Jarryd sent you (he has no idea who I am, haha).

Supernatural with Ashley Flowers is a podcast that helps me to step into the unknown with supernatural encounters, conspiracy theories and unexplained stories. I get to step out of the real world and let my imagination run wild. They did stop on their 100th episode a few weeks ago and that made me sad.

Contact Info:

• Email: info@theBropair.com
• Website: https://www.theBropair.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theBropair
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theBropair
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/theBropair
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/theBropair
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@theBropair