Why Become an Au Pair?

Now, I can’t tell you to drop everything and become an au pair right here, right now, because that would be slightly mad.  And who knows if becoming an au pair is actually the right thing for you?  I certainly didn’t!  In fact, I originally considered au pairing after completing my studies at University because I wasn’t entirely sure what path to take career-wise.  

 

When I submitted my dissertation in May this year I felt utterly lost and aimless.  After working so hard and so consistently on a project for the best part of six months, when I came to pressing that scary ‘submit’ button I felt both accomplished and hopeless all at once.  Quite a strange and unique combination, I know.  University was such a huge part of my life and my personality that without it, I didn’t know who I was anymore.  I’d finally come to the end of my life in education, which was something completely foreign to me.  

 

After finishing my A-Levels during my time in Sixth Form, I ventured straight back into education, into my undergraduate degree, without making use of a gap year to round me off as a human.  Whilst University was definitely number one on my to-do list after Sixth Form, in retrospect I can’t help but feel saddened by the loss of an entire year in which I could have travelled freely (pre-Brexit) and saved up a huge wad of cash from working a crappy waitressing job.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing, eh?  Who’s to say that taking a gap year would’ve been the correct choice for me?  As I sit here now, processing my thoughts over a bowl of spicy lentil and tomato soup (thank you M&S), I realise that there’s no way of knowing whether or not a gap year would have made me more career driven and focused, or not, during my studies at University.  Honestly, who knows where I would be now had I taken that year out?  I could have easily cancelled all of my plans to study and been trekking through South-East Asia teaching yoga atop of a mountain by now!  Instead, I find myself here, in West London, writing my first blog post as an Au Pair. 

 

After graduating from University it seemed like every one of my peers had it all figured out.  I’m sure I’m not alone in saying this.  I bet you’ve felt left behind or lost at one point or another during your lifetime.  All of a sudden everyone else is heading for bigger and better things, they have plans, big dreams, and you feel like your competing in a race that you don’t even understand the rules of.  That pretty much sums up exactly how I was feeling four months ago.  I hadn’t a clue (and trust me, I still don’t) where I was heading in my life or what my end goal was.  Being 21 years old in the current career and societal climate is TOUGH.  Everyone is either a self-made millionaire, or heading there, or living with their parents working some dead-end job until they can save up enough money to even begin contemplating moving out.  Life is hard, and unexpected.  After moving out of my perfectly imperfect university house that I shared with four of my best friends for two years, facing the harsh reality that I was back to being cooped up with my family was a hard pill to swallow.  Now, I love my family, don’t get me wrong, but it feels like such a big step back in your life when you’re used to a completely different level of independence.  

Once I was settled back into life at home, I started working full-time at the restaurant I was working part-time at throughout my time at university.  This was fine for the time being as the money I was taking home was the perfect way to soften the fact that I was living back at my parents’ house and working as a waitress as a university graduate.  However, my strange and unhappy state of mind regarding my future wasn’t miraculously cured due to a couple of pretty fat paychecks.  I was scared to be a failure, scared that I would disappoint my family, scared that I’d never be happy with where I’d be in life.  These are pretty extreme emotions to be tackling considering the circumstances but I’m just explaining my personal experience.  

 

It was around June time that I’d started toying with the idea of becoming an au pair.  I’d briefly thought about this as an option for me earlier on in the year but I had never actually taken the thoughts further.  I began asking some of my friends if they knew anyone that had been an au pair, then I started watching YouTube and TikTok videos made by previous and current au pairs from all over the world.  This originally small idea of becoming an au pair grew, and grew inside my mind and I immediately created a profile on AuPair World, (www.aupairworld.com) a site recommended by my friend Sam and multiple youtubers.  It’s a free website with no joining fee where you can create a profile explaining who you are, where you’re at in life, and why you want to become an au pair.  There are opportunities to travel to loads of different countries and pair with a family who have similar expectations to your needs as an au pair.  You can choose the options that you want to display to potential host families, for example whether or not you’re a smoker, whether or not you want to live with pets, whether or not you’re willing to do housework (try and guess whether I said yes or no to heavy-duty cleaning).

 

Originally, I had intended on pairing with a French family residing in Paris, or somewhere in the Northern region of France with easy access to the capital.  I’ve come to the realisation that I am quite a homebody so having the Eurostar, as a direct line of access from London to Paris seemed ideal.  After all, I do get my hair cut and coloured by my family hairdresser every five weeks, and I would struggle without the ability to travel home for a weekend to refresh my lacklustre locks.  Ok, maybe I’m not simply just a homebody; I guess I’m pretty high-maintenance too.  Anyway, because of coronavirus rules around travel, it was quickly made apparent to me that almost zero French families wanted me.  This was mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding travel regulations between the UK and mainland France, but also partly due to my Au Pair World profile.  

 

I had originally thought that writing my profile in both English and French would impress potential host families.  However, after analysing the reasons for receiving so few messages on the website I figured out that writing a more detailed profile in my native tongue was a better strategy.  Lots of foreign families are searching for proficient English speakers to aid in their children’s English speaking and writing abilities.  Showing that you have a flair for languages and are competent in their native tongue is an asset, don’t get me wrong, but don’t make an, in part, Google-translated French ‘about me’ section the highlight of your profile.  Normally, the host family contact can speak very good English and you’ll find that out after you exchange a few messages.  Long story short, I switched my profile settings to search for host families in both France and the UK.  This simple switch caused me to get absolutely bombarded with messages from host families in London and from there the ball really started rolling.

 

The exchanging of messages between you and the host family is the first time you’ll feel a vibe for them but this vibe can only be truly understood via a video call.  I’m generally a confident person, but the concept of a face-to-face video chat with an entire French family felt so intimidating, almost akin to a professional job interview.  And in some ways, that’s true!  After all, this family is interviewing a potential employee, in the form of you, the au pair, who will be trusted to take care of their children.  It’s a very important job!  I was super lucky (maybe because of my Irish roots, luck of the Irish and all that) and found that the very first host family I connected with via Zoom were my perfect family.  We had a successful video call that lasted around forty minutes where I met both parents and their two children.  I’ll go more in depth about the importance of the matching process in another blog post.  The day after the video chat I received a message from Lionel, the father, informing me that I had the job!  Within the span of less than a month’s time, I was moving in!

 

I am writing now a month and a half into my first experience as a live-in au pair, and I can tell you I am so glad I decided to dive head first into this experience.  It’s been a huge learning curve as I’ve never worked in this kind of capacity with children before but the work is so rewarding and every day is interesting.  I’ve met so many interesting people on my journey so far and learnt so much about myself as a person in the process.  It has also been a time for me to focus on something completely different in order to take the pressure off of my own expectations regarding my own life.  Instead of engaging in self-deprecating behaviours, I’m helping the next generation to thrive and prosper whilst also having more free time to focus on myself.  I can freely work on honing my writing craft and take on new opportunities.  I’ve actually just received an email confirming my new part-time WFH position as a book summariser for Guide Education.  Without becoming an au pair I may not have seized these new opportunities and made these new connections and new friends!  So, if any one of you reading this is toying with the idea of a gap year, or, like me, is stuck at a weird limbo stage in your life, log on to your smartphone or laptop and just make a profile.  See what au pairing can do for you!

 

 

Written by Molly McKenna, 15.10.2021.