Family life

Environment



I lived in New York state, around 2h30 from NYC by train. It was in a little village in the Hudson Valley: in nowhere!


However, it was such a nice area, with nature, rivers, mountains… but also so boring and quite. Everything was far away. 30 minutes driving to go to a bar and 30 to 45 minutes to go to a club. It was always a long drive to have fun!


I took care of 2 girls, 4 and 6 years old, Abigail and Halliday. The father, illustrator - 36 years old and the mother, designer and owner of french products’ little shop - 40 years old, were very nice.

Lake near Woodstock Bianca, Evita & Leonie in Hudson Valley Forest in Caatskill montains


Relationship with the kids
My job was doing breakfast (cereal and fruits), getting the girls dressed, the teeth and hair brushed, making lunch boxes and driving Abigail to school.

Girls time : dress up moment After picking up Abigail and Halliday at school, I looked after them and entertained them until the parents got home from work. Most of the days, we were staying at home doing the same puzzles over and over, the same games, doing cakes (in fact, I was watching them doing it cause they wanted to do it by themselves, except cleaning of course !), drawing, painting, getting dressed up…doing laundry, straitening up their room and cleaning their toys. It’s difficult to entertain them because everything you propose, they won’t do it or they wanna change activities every 20 minutes. Sometimes, we organized play dates with other au pairs to make time going faster!
And of course: they were not allowed to watch TV (except when the parents were looking after them) and to eat sweet food (but peanut butter with carrots or almonds and nuts no problem!).

I worked everyday before and after school, and the Sundays’ afternoon, never (or almost) during the night, the Saturday was my day off. I must say that this job was very boring and not interesting at all.

HallidayAbout kids’ education, children can do anything they want, they are spoilt. You must always give them choices. As a result, they are decided which make respect and relations difficult cause sometimes you can’t say anything!

To punish them, they got a time out or they lose their privileges which is something sweet like a piece (just one !) of chocolate or a candy. Americans are very weird about food, they have no notion about healthy food.

AbigailIn the beginning, everything went well even if Halliday tested me a lot. Generally, they obeyed me. Between the 2 of them, they got along quite well even if Halliday annoyed and manipulated her sister all the time! Abigail was a very nice girl even if she asked for her mom and phoned her 3 times a day at work (yes 4 years old!).

Generally, our relationship was correct. With Abbie, that was great. It was essentially Halliday who made troubles, which made me uncomfortable with the parents.


Relationship with the parents

When I arrived in September, that was great. Everybody was very cool. Everything was going well. We ate together every night, we talked about everything. I was free to go, free to do whatever I wanted, free to invite whoever I wanted, free to use the car, free to use internet or phone (in USA), no curfew…they also supported me when I didn’t feel good. I found the perfect family.

My family and me during Halloween The 6 first months i spent were great, but from February, I started to have some problems (especially the mother). It was probably our fault, both of us, but the atmosphere wasn’t the same. It was oppressive. I stopped being comfortable which spoilt the rest of my year. When the mother was smiling, I felt her fake. I felt they were judging me. I also felt that the parents were nice because they had no choice. So I didn’t want to eat or stay in the house anymore when they were around.

I was the first and… the last au pair. According to them, it was too expensive for them to have an au pair and a new childcare program was planed after school the next year (weird, isn’t it?). The situation was very paradoxical. Before I left for California, the mother cried cause she was gonna miss me. But when I came back (they didn’t really want me to come back), they said to me good bye as if I was leaving for vacation, they didn’t ask me when my flight was or how I was gonna get to the airport (it’s not their responsibility when you stay for your 13th month). I had to cope with 70kg of luggage and 4 bags!

It was really weird : sometimes I thought they were sincere and sometimes not. However, they brought me with them to the restaurant all along my year, to Niagara falls, to NYC and to New Jersey beach in summer. My relationship with the parents wasn’t bad but the oppressive atmosphere gave me a negative view and made me uncomfortable. I’ve never known what they were thinking about me, maybe that was the worst.



The problems :

It’s quite difficult to explain in few lines the main problems or criticism I had to manage but I am gonna try.

Au pairs & their kids1.It was during a play date with my friend. The kids were playing together while I was on the computer printing an important file. Everything was going well until Halliday told her mom that one of the boys put his hand in her underwear while I was busy with the computer.The mom was so angry at me, that was awful! So I asked Halliday why she didn’t tell me anything at that point! she blamed me to be on the computer in order to watch the girls each seconds (which means sit and watch them playing until the end of the day) and to blame her daughter instead of supporting her! I must say that Halliday is the first one to show her underwear and to put the pans of the other kids down ! Moreover, my friend ask the boys about it and they denied everything. Who knows…

2.In the beginning, they wanted me to drive with 2 hands on the stir wheel. But I never did it! One day, in February, the parents got that I hadn’t driven like I should have (according to the mother, I was driving with one finger!). Then I wasn’t allowed to drive the girls anymore. They told me to improve my driving and because it’s a habit it is not going to be easy or we will rematch!. So I had to drive with 2 hands and be controlled during 2 weeks driving with the parents.

Abbie & me at the Hudson river3.3 days before the end of my year, I drove the girls to the shop. As usual, they were fighting and screaming. I might have been in a bad mood but I braked and asked them nastily to stop. Right after, they did it again! I really wanted them to understand that I meant it, so I braked very hard but my wheel blocked and I slid a little bit. At that point, I knew that Halliday was gonna call her mom and tell her. The dad came to bring the girls to a play date cause I wasn’t allowed to drive them anymore. But nicely he told me to come down and get some rest. According to Halliday, her mom said I lost my job ! but I was so upset and angry that everything ended up quite well.

4.For me, they didn’t have lot of hygiene. They didn’t wash their hands before eating or cooking and they pet the dog at the same time. Once, the mushrooms fell down and the mother picked them up to put them in the pan without washing them. An other time, the dog made the eggs crash down on the floor and she picked them up with her hands and fried them!
So, once I was waiting for her to move from the sink to wash the fruits. It was too long so I started to cut the fruits for the girls, who used to help themselves without washing anything. And she blamed me and told me : “don’t you wash the fruits in France ??” I must say I was a little upset !

5.They had a dog, awful!! That dog was crazy, destroyed everything, jumped everywhere and peed everywhere (who was cleaning?), jumped on the table… And the mom blamed me not to be careful with all the stuff. The kids weren’t happy that sometimes I was tough with that dog. But for them, we couldn’t do anything, it was too late, we had to change our behavior for the dog. It made me crazy!

The mother & Abbie6.My friends and I decided to snowboard a Saturday. The mother told me 3 days before that I had to work that day. I told her that I couldn’t cause I had plans and she should have told me that before. She was upset and told me that now I should ask every time if I can have off. Actually, that was the last time she asked me to work a Saturday at the last minute.

7.I lived in a old house that made noise each time you made a step. One night, I came back with my friend and the mother told me that I woke Halliday up the previous night (I came home at 6am) who woke her up right after. And she was fed up that I made noise each time I came home, so either I get a curfew either I sleep somewhere else!

8.The mother is very picky about laundry: the white with the white, the color with the color and the dark with the dark. Once I put a yellow-white pans with the color and she opened the dryer…(imagine!). An other time I put a bright blue tee shirt with the color. WRONG! I should have put it with the dark of course!! So I asked her twice how she separates the laundry to be sure and she said to me : “but it’s not that difficult!!”