As some of you may know, I’ve been an Au Pair in the US for almost 2 years, I’m now in my travel month, just a week away from flying back home to Italy, and I’m working as a babysitter for a family other than the one I used to be Au Pair for. In these 4 weeks working for the new family, I couldn’t help noticing substantial differences between the 2 jobs. And the 2 families of course, but this is a different story.
- HOUSING:
First of all, as a babysitter you don’t have to live with the family you work for – like Au Pairs do – and this makes a huge difference in your relationship with your bosses and with your job itself, both in a good and a bad way.
Bad because you probably won’t have many chances to bound with your employers; good because you don’t live with them! And this is everything! You arrive and leave whenever you have to according to your schedule and you definitely don’t share the kitchen with your boss so you can behave – or misbehave – the way you want and like to do when you’re at home, like hanging around in your underwear.
One of the hardest things for me when I was Au Pair was to always feel uncomfortable and observed every minute of my day, even while off and technically able to do whatever I wanted, because I lived with my boss and there was never time off from that, especially since our relationship wasn’t great and I didn’t feel at home.
Now I live with my boyfriend, I get to work when mom 2 ( to distinguish her from mom 1, my ex host mom) needs me and I leave when she doesn’t need me anymore, I come back home and I leave the stress and all that happened there, there. During my free time I run my errands and do what I want to do, without feeling judged for the way I spend my time. Many can relate since, in 99% of jobs, work place and home are two separate places. But Au Pairs remain on the work place at the end of the day: they don’t have another home to go back to, they just hang out with their bosses and try to get the best out of it. Awkwaaaaaaaard!
- SALARY:
This is huge! Au Pairs are paid $195.75 per week, for tops 45 hours of work, which is about $4 per hour; as a babysitter in Connecticut I make $16 per hour – I have friends who get paid even $20/h -, I work as much or as little as I decide and in a week I can make as much as I was earning in two and a half weeks when I was Au Pair! But…
- LIVING COSTS:
…but when I was Au Pair I didn’t have to pay for groceries, phone and gas, for example. It was all paid as part of the contract (even if I can say a thing or two about the way my ex host mom was practicing these rules) and now it’s all up to me. Of course I don’t pay all by myself, because my boyfriend usually pays for both of us or we split. I don’t pay rent either thanks to the generosity of my bf and his 2 roommates – yup, it’s a crowded house – but I still have many more expenses than I had before. I see it like the price for freedom, and I pay it very gladly!
- RELATIONSHIPS:
Since I’m not living with this new family, their behavior and lifestyle don’t really bother me. I can’t get to know them well enough to have a deeper opinion of their personality and characters and this helps avoiding conflicts or simple antipathy because, at a shallow level, I think they’re wonderful people and I don’t wanna “ruin” the image I have of them. Does it make sense? My ex host family seemed very nice at first, but the more we all got to know each other, the more I could feel the dislike growing between us. We weren’t a good match at all and I also believe that our cultural differences were too strong, along with the fact that everyone agrees with my ex host mum being weird AF. Mom 2 is awesome and I know she’s a very good person, their ex Au Pair (and my best friend in the US) told me amazing things about her, but I can tell that on a long term relationship I would probably feel slightly annoyed by some of her “american” behaviors like the fact that she doesn’t pay attention to me because always on her phone, or the fact that she often interrupts me to talk to her kids when I’m already asking her for directions about my job.
AU PAIR BABYSITTER
HOUSING X
SALARY X
LIVING COSTS X
RELATIONSHIPS X
This is just my opinion and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it or your story if you had a similar experience!
Xx
Chiara “Cara”
alloverCara 