My blog is all about my life as an au pair, yet there are too little posts about that specific topic. Please indulge in a dry technical report that is more differentiated and critical than rose-colored and idyllic. 🙂
There are nice days and there are days less nice. There is success and there is failure. There are moments to rise up inside and there are moments to be happy.
As an au pair of 8 weeks I can’t talk about long-time experience, but I have learned some deal about rules and regularities of the matter.
The weeks are turning rapidly, by the way, thanks to the structure in life of the family.
Talking to other au pairs, you get a sense of whether your own situation is good or not. And my life with the family is good, that said beforehand.
In preparation I asked myself, how the balance of time working and spare time would look, as you are living with the family all around the clock.
My family has had a long history of au pairs and thus, there is a plan for everything. Every week and every day is planned out. My tasks I have in writing and they are well assorted to the 5 days of work.
Therefore my duty as an au pair is done when those chores are complete and the parents have returned home.
After that I don’t have to care about whether the kids listen to their parents or not. Now I am only the older brother, as my work day is over. But as an older I still try to transport an important lesson of my life: Listen to your parents, respect and honour them! Up to this day I got cross looks and an obvious lack of understanding, but one day they will understand what I mean by that. At latest when they have their own kids…
A great part of my everyday life are the meals. Punctuality and perfection are key here, as nobody wants to go hungry. There are fixed appointmets daily, like sports and other activites and everybody should be pleased with their meal. Now there are kids raised to eat everything and .there are those who weren’t at all. I am presented with the latter.
From gists and gusts of creativity you shall keep your distance and rather indulge in the certain wishes and pleas regarding ingredients and serving methods to avoid great calamity and the bawling.
When things are rough I tend to calm myself by the following:
– They are not your own children.
– You neither will change them, nor will you shake the pillars of their previous upbringing.
Of course I try to impart my personal values where I can, but in the end of the day I am still just an au pair. I help out the parents and take care of the kids. And thanks to the experience of my host parents following a detailed plan.
I am but a face of a short term of this family’s life. Afterwards I will only watch the children grow up from afar.
So the relationship with the host parents is more of a professional fashion in my case. On the other hand we have some more time ahead of each other… 🙂
The kids, however, don’t really grasp the concept of work and time off and look at me as their au pair for the whole day.
It is most interesting to see certain mannerism in the little ones. In the morning I spend an extended period of time with the boy and sometimes it is a challenge to keep him on track of his chores. For he is one of the sensitive children, he quickly snaps into tears and sulkiness. On one of those mornings I drove him due to the wintery rain to school and he proceeded to give me a goodbye hug in the car for the first time.
To say the least, I was aghast.
There are a number of times where, after strict rebukes, you get a hug out of nowhere and you get to hear how you get defended by your host kids against others.
As an au pair you get a try on being a mum or a dad, I once said. Indeed you do, but only inside the boundaries previously set by the actual parents. This helps you out of hopelessness in the hefty moments, as well as nice experiences make you anticipate your own kids.
In the end you might know more about nurture and family life than most freshman couples/ parents.
Bottom line: To be an au pair is a demanding process, employer- and subject-wise. But in the end, this certificate shall be recognised in full.
