I am an au pair in Europe and I know a lot of people who have experienced much worse than what I went through during this process. I want to do something to help because agencies don't help anything other than taking money from host families. I wanna talk about my own experience. I graduated from university last year and while researching “cultural exchange” programs, I found an au pair. In this program you live with a host family, you have your own room and your own bathroom, you look after your host children 30 hours a week (legal limits are different everywhere) and they give you pocket money(in my country max 340euros), and they pay your food expenses. So you can have a gap year abroad without spending any money, sounds great! Especially if you are in a third world country or somewhere the economy is bad, it is your dream to go to Europe and stay because you cannot live your youth in your own country, you wanna explore naturally. There are also many au pairs who send money to their families. This situation makes you dependent on host families. “We saved you from living in that country” So now we can exploit you with peace of mind.
So I found a family and moved abroad. They were constantly texting me to come as soon as possible and they said they had a very urgent need. My duties sounded a little too much, but they told me we would do everything together because we are a family. I arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. I was so nervous it felt awkward moving to a new home. We met that day and had dinner together. They asked me to start work at 7 am the next morning. I remember not being able to rest properly and feeling very tired but couldn’t say anything because just imagine you’re a young girl who just moved abroad to the home of completely strangers. Such nervous situation. The first months I had a shock and I don't know what to do.
Let’s see what are my tasks. Taking the kids to school in the morning and picking them up at the end (totally okay), looking after them until they go to bed (8-9pm), cooking for everyone, removing all the dishes and cleaning the table (sometimes they did a little help), vacuuming the living room and the sofa every day (there is a dog in the house), walking with the dog in the morning and evening, doing everyone's laundry every day (even though I do laundry every day, my host mom said, “Unkululeko can you do more laundry on weekdays? On weekends, I prefer to go out with my family instead of doing the laundry.”
Not finished yet. They asked me to babysitting almost every Friday or Saturday night and they didn't pay.
I remember that they said “how well we get along on the weekend. one day we go out and one day you, that’s a great deal.”
Those who call me stupid for accepting this can fuck themselves.
I was suffering from depression because of this situation and at the same time trying to improve myself and make this experience better. I was taking English lessons online every day, was exhausting. My mental health was deteriorating. In my sixth month, I decided to talk to them. I know this very late but think about it, I really wanted to stay in country and I'm a bit of an optimistic person. I didn't want to think about the bad. Then I said that to them“I don't think what you're doing is right. I don't understand why I do all the work in the house. I'm just an au pair and it's not supposed to be like this. What do you think about this? You know, we were going to do everything by sharing?”
We canceled some of my duties (I won't be vacuuming every day, the laundry will be for the kids only, we'll clean the dishes together after the meals) and I said I'm going to do everything minimal from now on, I'm exhausted and I know better what’s the au pair program rules.
I thought a lot about rematching and looked for new families. But it seemed psychologically impossible because my host family was always saying, “We paid thousands of euros to bring you and for your visa. You're with us until the end of the year or we'll have to pay again to bring in a new one, and if you rematch it's disloyal.
nothing changed and they left me alone with the kids for days and went on vacation, didn’t pay and which is illegal. I said you should pay or give me my time so they gave me day free but never money.
But I feel stuck. I wanna quit and feel like there is no exist. Soon we’ll have a conversation and I’ll give 2 weeks notice before quit. And I’m not sure how to talk them because they always say we’re family and being manipulative. Any recommendations appreciated.