After spending three months of my summer in France as an au pair for six children I can confidently say that I lived my worst nightmare.
The father of my host family had recently passed away in January and so it was myself and the mother of the children who looked after them as a sort of team effort, however, I was the one who took on most of the work.
Bearing in mind that in an ordinary au pair situation the maximum number of children is three and generally there’s none under the age of three according to the guidelines on the website AuPairWorld, I had six children all under the age of 11 with the youngest aged just 15 months when I arrived.
Upon my arrival on the 22nd of May the children were still going to school until mid-July so when the youngest wasn’t at creche (which she went to three mornings a week) I was minding her a lot while the mum went off to the gym or have coffee or lunch with her friends. However, I was thankful not to have all six to myself who generally came home after school at about 5 pm which was when I helped them all with their homework, gave them all baths and dressed them for bed.
We’d then all have dinner which was usually a salad or something that didn’t quite satisfy your appetite before I’d read a story, help brush their teeth and put them all to bed.
As you can probably imagine it was quite the task to put six children to bed but fortunately the mother was there to help me on that front.
Now, I wouldn’t have minded all this work if the children had been pleasant but from the moment I arrived, they were difficult to me, particularly the middle child who was eight.
I should mention at this point that my mother is French so I’ve already got quite a good level and could understand everything that was said and asked of me.
The behavior from the children got progressively worse once they got their summer holidays in July and we spent every day together.
I never got a day off and I was being paid €80 a week which is practically slave labour.
I heard every insult and bad word from the mouths of these kids. They would call me fat, stupid, hairy, said I had a big nose or their particular favourite was pointing out any blemishes that appeared on my face, which really didn’t help boost my confidence levels.
Apart from this, which I dealt with by killing them with kindness at best and trying to explain how hurtful words are (sometimes by shouting) at worst, they would fight. A lot.
They were vicious towards one another, particularly the three girls in the middle, aged five, eight and ten. They would punch, kick, slap, pinch, scratch and even bite. I got pinched once which was one thing I just couldn’t accept. I told the mother and she dealt with it and it didn’t happen again.
My advice to anyone thinking of becoming an au pair over the summer would be to definitely sign a contract agreeing days off beforehand (which you should have at least two a week) and knowing what’s expected of you while you’re there.
You should only be working three or four hours a week whereas I was working solid 14-hour days, sometimes the baby even slept in my room so if she woke in the middle of the night I had to look after her. I basically worked around the clock.
Make sure to know what you’re getting into before you go because nobody should be subjected to what I had to go through last summer.
Photo by Tom Eversley on Unsplash