Why every mum needs a male au-pair: No skimpy clothes. No flirting with your husband and they'll even fix the leaky taps 

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Whether it was her pert bottom, only partially covered by an indecently short nightie, or the fact she was putting on make-up at the breakfast table, ignoring the chaos around her, I don’t recall, but it was during the morning that I finally snapped.

Like many mothers struggling to get through the long summer holidays with children at home while trying to keep up some semblance of work, I thought the answer was to hire an au pair to share the domestic chores and help with my brood.

This was the ninth girl we’d hired in 11 years, but what on earth had possessed me to invite this nubile numpty into my home and swan around the kitchen half-naked and do little else? Isn’t marriage hard enough without putting daily temptation like this in the way?

Like many mothers struggling to get through the long summer holidays with children at home while trying to keep up some semblance of work, I thought the answer was to hire an au pair to share the domestic chores and help with my brood, says Shona Sibary - pictured her with her children and au-pair Fabien

The 19-year-old from Poland was so wrapped up in herself she barely noticed the children, and had precious little authority over them. They were becoming increasingly feral as each day in her care went by.

Then there was the matter of her repeatedly shaving in my bath and leaving the evidence for me to clean up afterwards.

Quite simply, she had to go.

You may be wondering what my next move was, once I’d plonked the girl back on the coach to Krakow?

Did I finally give up work and surrender myself to the domestic shackles of being a full-time mother? Don’t be ridiculous.

Instead, I had an epiphany — a masterstroke of absolute genius.

Our first male nanny, six years ago, was Fabien — a 22-year-old French engineering graduate who needed, for his degree, to spend a three-month summer stint in another country

I got straight on the phone to the au pair and nanny agency and employed a man, which was why I couldn’t help a snort of utter disbelief when I heard Conservative minister Andrea Leadsom had strongly advised mothers against doing such a thing.

‘Let’s face it, most of us don’t employ men as nannies,’ said the sadly deluded mother-of-three this month. ‘You can call that sexist; I call that cautious and very sensible.’

Well, I beg to differ. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s those who employ women to look after their children who are short-sighted and incredibly naive.

Leadsom, who has recently been made environment secretary, should stick to advising the nation on flood levels and farming because, clearly, she’s no expert in childcare.

In the past six years I have had four male nannies — or ‘mannies’ as they’ve been dubbed — and I haven’t once regretted it.

Gone are the days of female au pairs with their PMT and skimpy clothes.

Gone is the whinging about British weather; the incessant demands in summer to ‘pleez put up the heating’ — to which my usual response was: ‘Put on a jumper and move around a bit.’ (Ideally towards the dishwasher, which needs emptying.)

Quite honestly, I couldn’t feel more smug for swapping the moaning minnies I always seemed to end up with for my long and trustworthy line of testosterone-driven help.

And I’m not alone, either. A few summers ago, Elle Macpherson set tongues wagging when she was photographed happily sunbathing on a Sydney beach while a tanned, athletic companion played in the surf with her two sons.

But it came as no surprise to me whatsoever to learn that this man was not her latest love interest, but, instead, the hired help.

One glance at his washboard abdominals and there can surely be no question as to why Elle appeared so content with her childcare arrangements. But he will have been so much more efficient and fun for the children to be with, too.

And she’s not the only one. Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Britney Spears have employed mannies in the past while actress Keeley Hawes joined the bandwagon a few years ago and entrusted her children to a male nanny.

For me, it wasn’t always so. In the first 11 years of attempting to keep my career as a journalist afloat while simultaneously popping out babies, it never occurred to me that childcare came in any other form but female.

Perhaps the fact I have three daughters and just one son makes that understandable.

There was bathtime to consider, cupcakes to bake and hordes of Barbie dolls with extensive wardrobes crying out for fashion advice. Surely I can be forgiven for assuming all these skills would fall more naturally to a young woman than a man?

More fool me, because my assumption led to a long, disastrous line of female au pairs, ranging from the utterly useless to a 6ft tall, ex-pole dancer from Amsterdam (who was actually quite good).

With Fabien there were no hysterics, bouts of homesickness or swinging moods. OK, so he constantly left the loo seat up and managed to shrink my favourite cashmere top in the tumble drier, but at least I didn’t have to navigate my way around his monthly cycle

My children have been fed Hungarian sausages for breakfast and Brazilian feijoada for lunch.

They can say ‘hello’ in ten languages and our booze cabinet boasts a proud array of obscure Eastern European liqueurs, brought as welcome gifts. But, the one thing my children had never experienced was a manny.

Our first, six years ago, was Fabien — a 22-year-old French engineering graduate who needed, for his degree, to spend a three-month summer stint in another country.

I had envisioned an athletic type who wouldn’t mind getting dirty, building dens in the woods and dams in the river; somebody who would appreciate the great outdoors and keep my unruly children there, come rain or shine, until bedtime.

All was not quite as imagined when Fabien arrived on a balmy June evening, handbag slung over his shoulder in that nonchalant continental way.

I took in his designer jacket (white), trendy trainers (white) and floppy hair coiffured just so — and in that moment my dreams of den- and dam-building vanished faster than a Paris-bound Eurostar train.

‘Is he gay?’ Flo, my eldest, then 12, whispered incredulously when, later, he politely asked if there was a hairdryer in the house.

He wasn’t. Just very well turned out, with effeminate French style, and, as it happened, madly in love with a fiancée back in Toulouse.

Part of his motive for coming was to prove to her he could hone his domestic skills in preparation for their future life together. Bless.

Fabien may have been lacking muscles and a macho bent but the second day saw his mettle well and truly tested when Monty, then a mischievous eight-year-old, discovered, to his glee, that he was able to perfectly aim his pee into a water pistol.

He then proceeded to squirt the contents all over Fabien and his carefully ironed wardrobe — something he would never have dared do to a woman. Our poor manny spent the rest of the evening locked in the bedroom, sobbing on Skype about ‘l’enfant catastrophique’.

To his credit, though, he came downstairs the next morning as if nothing had happened.

For that, I could have kissed him. I’ve had female nannies storm out of the house less than 24 hours after arrival for lesser crimes than the water pistol.

But one bonus with a male au pair is their ability to take it on the chin.

With Fabien there were no hysterics, bouts of homesickness or swinging moods. OK, so he constantly left the loo seat up and managed to shrink my favourite cashmere top in the tumble drier, but at least I didn’t have to navigate my way around his monthly cycle.

And since Fabien, there’s been no going back, as I’ve increasingly discovered male nannies are far easier to get along with.

For my husband, Keith, it took some convincing.

He had always balked at the idea of employing male childcare — not, as it happens, because he was concerned about flirtation on my part, but because, and I quote: ‘I don’t like the thought of our children bonding with another man while I’m at work.’

This is quite possibly the most hypocritical, maddening sentence I’ve ever heard my husband utter, and one that had him banished to the far side of our bed for a week.

I have no idea how he thinks I’ve felt for the past decade as, needs must, I’ve invited one young woman after another to live in our home and unselfishly willed them to bond with our children.

Not to mention the amount of times I’ve had to turn a blind eye to them flirting with Keith — or vice versa. Now if that’s not a double standard, I don’t know what is.

Our next male au pair was Daniel, a 22-year-old electrician from the Czech Republic.

I placed an advert on AuPair World, the popular global recruitment site, in May 2011 and was inundated with more than 200 responses from young, European men keen for work in the UK due to employment shortages in their own countries.

Some were trained doctors, dentists and teachers — embarrassingly overqualified for the menial job I was offering them, but then who was I to complain?

And that’s something else I’ve discovered about the male nanny.

Not only do they feel grateful and lucky to be given the opportunity to be an au pair, because they know they’re in the minority, they almost never turn their nose up at doing anything. Even picking dog poo off the lawn doesn’t faze them.

I once had a female au pair tell me: ‘I’ve got a degree from Bratislava university. I’m not doing that.’

All my mannies have ever said is: ‘Where’s the spade?’ Some of you probably agree with Andrea Leadsom’s point that men should not be hired for childcare on safety grounds (in other words, in case they seduce your daughters or, worse, are paedophiles in disguise).

But this is not something that has ever given me sleepless nights. My oldest, Flo, is now 17 and I have to confess I’ve been more worried about her leaping into bed with the manny than the other way around.

In fact, I make a deliberate point now of employing men who are older than 24 because, to her, that’s ancient and she wouldn’t be remotely interested in flirting with or accepting advances from a man that age.

My other three children are old enough to tell me if anything untoward happens, and anyhow, as any sensible mother will agree, you just have to do your background research.

I always insist on a police or CRB check from their country, plus references from university and any current employer. Also (and this is just a personal thing) I choose young men who come from large families, with younger siblings.

Of course, when you’re inviting a total stranger into your house there is always a risk.

But I’ve heard of countless female au pairs running off with the husband and I’ve never once heard of a male au pair turning out to be a paedophile.

While there has been a steady rise in the number of families employing a manny — a survey by nanny agency Tinies found 94 per cent of new parents would consider hiring a man — I am still the only mother at the school gates who has taken the plunge.

When my most recent manny, Aron, a 24-year-old agricultural engineering graduate from Hungary, arrived last year to our sheltered corner of North Devon, it caused quite a ripple of curiosity in the playground.

‘Do you let him see you in your dressing gown?’ one friend asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Does he wash your smalls?’ asked another.

All, however, were in firm agreement that a manny had infinite advantages over employing an attractive twentysomething woman to look after the children.

And when I told them that Aron also changed light bulbs, on the first request, not to mention the oil in the car, and that he had fixed a leaky tap in the bathroom (something I’d been asking my husband to do for weeks to no avail), they went practically green with envy.

And so here I find myself recruiting again for the summer holiday and musing over whether I’m going to choose the burly Antipodean or the sporty German.

Naturally, Keith’s not keen on either, and who can blame him?

But if he wants me to work — and he does — then this is a non-negotiable deal.

Because I’m never having a female au pair in my house again.