A little over a year ago now, I was not in a happy place, finished college, couldn’t find that ‘amazing’ job and had taken on whatever I could get. When that also turned out not to work for me, I decided it was time for a change of scenery. I was time for me to pack my bags and move away from the city I had grown to love and hate at the same time. I had always had a desire to travel but never had the funds to do it. I still didn’t have those funds so I looked for a way to travel cheap and hopefully make some money out of it. Somehow I discovered an agency that asked for au pairs in America. Looking over the options and the financial picture I decided this was what I wanted to do. Without questioning myself for too long, I signed up and the process began. In July 2008 it was finally time for me to get on a plane for the first time and fly to the United States of America, the promised land. My hopes were set high and I really thought this would be the perfect way to step out of my downward circle back at home.
Soon I arrived at my new family’s home and I was welcomed warmly. We had a good connection and communication was open. For about a week. Actually, I should have seen the signs when they had forgotten about my birthday, which in advance they had promised to celebrate with a big party. But within the first week, the mother had to travel for business and it was just the dad and me. And he made me work. If you have ever read the Nanny diary’s, I can confirm right here and now, that many thing mentioned in the book are not exaggerated. Some people really think they own a personal slave. Their house was immaculate and I was expected to keep it that way. Good luck, with a two year old toddler, who has an attention span of 3 miliseconds. I was constantly picking up after him and putting toys away.
But that was not by far the worst, these people, ambitious as they were, expected me to have their 2 year old ‘gifted’ son reading and writing within a few months. Now sure, I saw a possibility in getting him started on some activities, but the main factor in a two year old is motivation, something he lacked tremendously when it came to reading and writing games or creativity. He wanted to play with cars, and planes, and boats or the piano, nothing more. Besides these impossible demands there was another issue. How could I, being 25 years old, ever have thought that I was more than their house slave? How could I have ever thought that I had a right to some free time, my own friends, my own thoughts and my own room? No, I was put in my place pretty quickly. My bedroom was checked for neatness about everyday, I was to treat their property with respect and I could not leave my dirty laundry in the hamper for 3 days. I felt like a 2 year old myself. Everything I did had to be checked. I had to always tell them where I was going, with whom and what time I would be back, just like when I was 17 and living with my parents. Except these people weren’t my parents, they were my employers, who not just acted as my parents but as my slavedrivers.
On top of it all, the dad was seriously mentally ill and gladly took this out on me. Many times he would just burst out into yelling, out of nowhere and he was always trying to indoctrinate me with his crazy Ideas. He was anal retentive and extremely controlling. He would make me get up at 6.30 am to start work at 7.00 am, because he had to go to work early and then I would sit in the living room and wait for him to show up until usually 9.00 am. He would call me and say he would be home by 6.00 pm, and he would show up around 7.30 pm, and even then leaving me to take care of the child, even though my workday was long over. He would sneak into my room when I was gone and snoop around and when he had a chance he would read my text messages on my phone. And worse, when I confronted him with all of this, he lied about it, straight to my face. Needless to say I kept this up for 2 months after which I completely broke down. I had told them I wanted a new family and was supposed to stay with them for two more weeks. In this time he still tried to indoctrinate me and dominate me and manipulate me by telling me I would never find another family, because I was so impossible to live with etc. Two days after my decision I couldn’t take it anymore, and while the 2 year old was napping, I quickly packed my suitcases and called my counselor to pick me up around 5, when they would come home. When the dad came home and saw my suitcases by the door he exploded. I was sure he was going to physically attack me and I had heard rumors about a gun in the house. My counselor couldn’t have arrived at a better time, she literally saved my life that day.
Pretty soon she thought she had found me another family, but luck was not on my side as they did not have the finances to pay for an au pair. Darling as they were they did let me stay at their house until I found a new family and they were very supportive and sweet. I will always be grateful to them for being there for me when I needed some friends.
Matching did not go as well as I had hoped but just as I was about to give up, I met my current family. For the interview the mom and I went out for breakfast and we had a great time. We talked for ever and I had a great feeling about it. The first weekend of October, 3 months after my arrival, I moved in. The first months were great. The kids were fun, the parents were nice but yes, after a while this painting also started showing some cracks. An au pair is supposed to be taken in to the family as part of the family. She is supposed to be fed by the family and if that means she eats different things, these things should be bought by the family. None of this happened in this family. When they planned family dinners or events, they would not invite me until the last minute, by that time I would have plans of course. On Friday nights they all went out to dinner and yes, I joined them a few times, but they never asked me until they already had one foot out the door. When I wanted different food from what they usually bought, I had to pay for it myself, mind you off a salary of $176 dollars a week.
After Christmas things really started to change. The oldest child, an 11 year old girl, suddenly hit puberty and the hormones were flying around the house. She could be very rude, never listened to me and did things her own way. And there was no way for me to discipline her, because the parents never backed me up. I was lost in a horrible world of hormones and now even the kids were treating me as their own personal slaves. After about 2,5 months I broke and I told the mom, crying my eyes out, that I was losing control and couldn’t take it anymore. Instead of comforting me and being there for me, she blamed it on me. I was not involved enough with the children (look who’s talking), I was always relaxing when I should take care of them and so on and so on. This was quite a slap in the face to me and once again completely upset I called my counselor. What to do now? She came through for me again and kept me sane and gave me enough motivation to keep holding on and pushing through. I changed the way I worked with the kids and gave up on raising them. My new goal was to make it through the day without any fights and amazingly, this worked. For about 5 weeks everything seemed to be perfect. The mom was nice to me all the time, the kids kind of listened to me and I had started counting down the weeks until my leave back home.
Until one day the mom came home from a weekend in Denver on business. The dad had gotten the kids up in the morning for two days in a row and I had to go through the house cleaning up his tracks. On Tuesday I also had an assignment for school and because it ran a little late, I had no more time to run out for groceries so I planned to do those that evening. The laundry was halfway done and I was planning on finishing it while one kid was at school for a recital and the other was at tennis. However the mom came home earlier than normal and found my chores not done. She found it perfectly legitimate to start yelling and screaming at me in front of her youngest child, a 9 year old boy. She screamed at me that I didn’t do my work properly and I was irresponsible, especially for someone my age. I didn’t take good care of the kids, I never asked if it was ok to go places and I slacked off on the housework. I slept too long in my free time and she had never had an au pair who had disrespected her so much. And then she stormed out of the room. You can understand that I have just given you the short version, because the screaming went on for about 10-15 minutes without giving me a chance to say anything back. She forbade me to use the car for anything else than work things (I have classes on Saturday that I paid for myself). Then she stormed out it was up to me to comfort her 9 year old son because he was about to burst into tears. I told him it was ok, not to cry and went on with my work as I would have if she hadn’t exploded on me. About twenty minutes later she came down and apologized for screaming at me. She had had some long days and was not happy about what she found when she came home. She said she needed me to work differently and I said that I never had any idea that she was so dissatisfied. I told her that if she didn’t tell me what she wanted me to do differently, how was I supposed to know? And she said she understood. It as a busy time and she had to leave to a recital with the oldest and I was left with the youngest finishing up homework.
Later that night she apologized again and told me I could still take my classes and that she just needed more help with the household things. I wonder if she ever realized how much she broke inside me. I wonder if these people ever realize what it is like, living under someone else’s roof, after being on your own for 6 years, trying to adjust to a new culture, being on call 24/7, never feeling accepted in their house and feeling more alone anyone can ever feel while surrounded by people. Perhaps one day, years from now, I will be able to really tell her the truth, how much she disrespected me by the things she said and did, how uncomfortable I have always felt in their house, how badly I think she was raising her kids, maybe. But for now, I just decide to shut up, work even harder, and take the pain on the way. Because if this year has taught me one thing, it is that I am strong. I am a strong young woman, and although I have a lot to learn when it comes to speaking up for myself, no one will ever be able to say I gave up. Through all of the misery these people have given me (because this was just a glimpse, trust me), I have remained strong and hopeful for the future.
In August this year I am moving to another Family, in San Fransisco. My friend has been with this family for 9 months and she has never experienced anything like what has happened to me during the past year. Whether it is karma or just plain bad luck I don’t know. But I am hopeful that my six months with this family will prove all my newly developed ideas about American families completely wrong. I am just praying for the strength to make it through these last 9 weeks. Please pray with me…..
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