Under Pressure

What I learnt:

• Always check how many hours you are doing for the family and how much they are offering as pocket money.

• Never accept a placement if you feel pressured into it. Make sure you have thought it through!

• You are worthy of respect.

• Do your best to speak to or meet the kids first.

• Do your best to get money from the parents first for food or activities as they may forget to pay you back.

• Get your family to agree to the placement terms on paper!

This story is from when I was an au pair in the UK in 2014. I had found the perfect family through Gumtree! It was a placement with a single mother, let's call her Jo, who had two little boys of 2 and 3 years old. At the time, I didn't realise there was any limit on the amount of hours an au pair should work so I was working around 8-9 hours a day, 5 days a week. To be honest though, I didn't really feel overworked, especially because my only responsibility was the children and I never had to do housework. Jo was really nice to me, she always asked if I wanted anything special from the supermarket and always bought me sweet treats. We watched TV in the evenings together and I really felt like part of the family. Unfortunately, this came to an end when Jo quit her job...

Of course, she didn't need an au pair anymore! :( So, I started looking for a new family. She was completely understanding and told me that I had a place to stay until I found somewhere. However at the time, I didn't feel like I had the right to stay there so I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I found a family a lot further out of London and got in touch with them. It seemed like a nice position, it was in the home of a single father, we shall call him George, and two kids. The position was described as a shared role position as there would be two au pairs (because the father worked a lot), with minimal housework, just duties related to childcare. Jo drove me to meet with the family. The neighbourhood should have been my first indication that something wasn't right but I wasn't the type to judge a book by it's cover. My second indication was that the job seemed too easy for how much was being offered. The third was that there was no second au pair-she apparently was going to be hired soon... and the final thing was that George seemed very eager to get me to start. Having put myself under pressure, I swept all of my doubts to the back of my mind and agreed to start in just a few days.

The first day, as I feel with all au pair jobs, was great. The kids were acting sweet and I had quite a lot of spare time to explore around the area (in which there was not much). I even started to look into how to get a day job to earn some extra money! From the second day however, the children turned into absolute nightmares. It was clear they hadn't been shown real stability in their lives and has probably been through too many caregivers to know how to handle the situation. Then, about 3 days in, I was babysitting as George was on a night shift, and there was basically no food in the house except for some frozen meals.So I settled for that but then the oven wouldn't start. I texted George and he said not to worry, to order some takeaway food and he would pay me back. Well as you may have guessed he never paid me back as well as never bought more groceries or fixed the oven. About a week later, George presented me with a long, ridiculous list of chores to be done everyday. I was shocked! I asked him why he told me that there would be no chores at the beginning when there are chores now. He responded by saying he didn't realise I would have so much free time and he should get his money's worth out of me. I asked him when he was going to hire the second au pair and he said he changed his mind and is no longer going to do that.

Well.

Yeah.

You can imagine.

The next day I packed my bags and really considered leaving without letting him know. However, I still had my integrity so I told him I would finish the week and then leave. He got angry. He said no, if you're ready to leave then just go. So I obliged and told him how much he owed me for the week so far. He said no way do you deserve that, and then paid me half of what I was owed. I considered holding my ground but at this point, the children were watching the whole ordeal, and I no longer felt in a safe situation. So, I left.

It was not a great experience for me however I will admit through these bad experiences, you learn a lot about your own resilience, your ability to bounce back, and who you are. I consider myself fortunate as I had family I could stay with after all of this happened and I made sure I didn't put myself under pressure like that again. Au pairs-always trust your gut!!!

-Anonymous.

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