Vulnerable

Few months ago I wrote an article about the positive things I learned thanks to being au-air. HERE

In today's article I'd like to write about how unsafe and dangerous that decision was, when you don't do your due diligence properly. I just went based on being recommended.

Me being au-pair I call it the best and the worst experience of my life

The sad realities I've learned about the world at 21, not knowing English and being Eastern European.

The Russian brides are real and 99% people assumed that I was one of them. I was very sad and sorry, that some women are forced to choose this path of being delivered to a men they don't know .. and mostly hope for the best that they could somehow learn how to live together.

It's easy to fall for a cult/sect or a strong religious path. I didn't know anyone, there was no one remotely close to my culture, I didn't speak the language, so when I met a couple ( he was Czech and she was Ukrainian they went there to study so they could start a church in Czech Republic) I was thrilled to meet someone. I was SO lonely. I went to few of Saturday masses and the potlucks after. I liked my new friends, but I didn't like the church group. However I was very tempted to fall into the fake warmth of a religious embrace. I wanted to belong somewhere. If I hadn't met them towards the end of my stay, there is a parallel timeline in which I am very religious and raising 5 children to someone. ( This is not true about every church and religion, however true for this particular one or at least my impression of it)

I happened to live among people who on paper were highly educated with money, but inside very poor. They laughed about my culture, my questions and assumed Slovakia doesn't have flushing toilets and soap in 2006. Never in my life before I was perceived as a plankton of a human existence.

There are many stories where some family welcomed an au-pair and "suddenly" the father of the family fell in love with aupair or vice versa or both.. basically they became a couple and the wife or a mother of the children became obsolete. When I came to the family I didn't know they had relationship problems. I quickly felt uneasy around the father. However nothing really to point out until one evening he came home with:

Hi honey I am home.

I said: Susan is not at home yet. (Susan being the mother of the children I took care of)

His reply: I know.

.. That reply gave me chills.

Luckily nothing unfortunate happened to me and I had no interest to pick up this glove thrown my way which was now laying on the floor in front of me. However it answered a lot of questions i had about, why Susan hated me. Se called a social worker on me (without my knowledge and luckily unsuccessfully, because I took good care of the children) and at the end Susan fired me, without a knowledge of the father obviously. I felt like I was in the middle of Kramer vs. Kramer .So she fired me, then she tried to hire me back, then as I left, Susan also left the father ... it was a whole movie, where I really escaped unscathed, just barely.( I am very brief here my whole 7 month stay could be a book on it's own).

I was poor, not speaking the language, inexperienced very naive and young. I hate saying: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's so easy to fall into very dangerous situations, when you don't have anyone to have your back or no one trusts you that the strange guy you live with is little bit too friendly.I have to say he was around 45 at the time.

Few years back someone from Britain asked me how did I like being au-pair in the UK and I frantically searched for a politically correct words.

Build community, build support system. Check everything, Educate yourself. I hope no one would be in similar situation in 2024, wherever you go, have a plan B and someone you can trust at least on the phone.

I know there are people who went to be au pair and didn't have it so dramatic. Many have good experiences and are in touch with the family they lived in. Good for them for sure. My take ? I would never recommend to have live in au-pair to anyone. Pay for qualified professionals and people you know very well, if you want your children to have good care.