I've recently moved to Spain to work as an aupair, and as it's my first time I chose to only come for 3 months as part of my gap year to improve my spanish. The family are, for the most part, nice, and I'm enjoying some of my time here. I am not one to feel particularly home-sick and I enjoy the independence of being in a foreign country, so I don't think my feeling of frustration stems from this at all. I found my host family over au-pair world, and was given example routines of what was expected of me, telling me that they don't need the childcare so much as wanting me to teach English to the children. I am a genuinely hard working person, I hate to seem lazy and will always try my hardest to do what my host family would like. However, there are a couple of things which I am finding just a little jarring.
We did not have a signed/agreed contract, but after doing a fair bit of reading over the internet, I see that the expected aupair working hours are around 25 hours a week. I am sure I work more along the lines of 35. I don't have to work at all in the mornings, and until 1pm am free to do as I would like. I then collect the children from school, walk them back home where they stay for around 2 hours for lunch etc, and then back to school for another 2 hours until 5:30pm (this is more common in Spain I think, because I know British schools are rarely on this timetable.) I then collect the children, more often only the youngest, and we play in the park, go home, do some baking or something fun, then relax with a little television. The eldest tends to have after school clubs and comes home at around 8:20pm. They do not go to bed until 10pm, which is again more common in Spain.
My problem arises in that the youngest child tends to have behavioural issues, exacerbated by the fact that his parents never follow through on punishments. He has kicked me, screamed and pulled and tugged very hard on my clothes etc as well as completely monumental tantrums in the middle of the street. I find myself spending long periods of time with only him for company, which can be extremely tiresome as he does not follow instructions and tends to be completely deaf and unresponsive when the tv is on. The parents seem to be coming back later and later, going straight from work to tennis and other sports clubs, giving me instructions (in Spanish I might add) on what to do with the children. I also work the majority of the day on Saturday, which is the bane of my life as the ipads are allowed on weekends and the youngest (obviously) does not want to do anything other than binge-play on the ipad. He will cry and become infuriated if it's taken away from him, but again is completely unresponsive in it's presence. He is allowed to play on it during meal times, so I have been told to feed him while he watches cartoons or whatever. (This is the same on weekdays with the tv at every meal.) I am not able to eat my own food if he requires spoon feeding and his food cut into tiny pieces. This is not helped by the fact that the parents insist that every one eats enormous portions of meat and potato, and so feeding it all to him can be a very lengthly process. Vegetables seem to not exist.
The family has a cleaner to more or less do all of the housework, and I am not expected particularly to do anything. However, I do, since I feel that the family are asking a slightly unreasonable amount of work from their housekeeper, and personally I feel uncomfortable not pitching in since I live here. I tend to clear up after lunch, wash the plates and put leftovers away etc. while the parents are eating. My only issue here is that when I do any housework, I feel that the parents do not thank me, despite not doing anything themselves, and have almost started leaving their things on the side for me to clean. I am also expected to spend this time playing with the younger son, although he tends to watch tv and so I am left sitting awkwardly not knowing what to do with myself, but I feel unable to go somewhere else and look like I'm not working. I also find that the children tend to just leave their rubbish around the kitchen rather than putting it in the bin. I know this is probably quite normal but I feel with the older one it is because he knows that I'm clearing up and will therefore do it for him.
I've also been told that on Mondays I am to give an hour long English lesson to the older son. This would be okay, were it not for the fact that the child would quite blatantly prefer not to be doing it and repeatedly asks to finish early. I am not an english teacher.. but have to make up exercises in the form of the ones he works with in school and explain them to him. The mother told me this is better because this is how he will be tested, which is true, but I don't think particularly helpful in actually increasing his english level (He tells me they're too easy but struggles to put together simple sentences himself). I was not told that this would be expected of me before hand, and what with having to look after the five year old (speaking in Spanish with smatterings of English to increase his understanding but avoiding his rage if he doesn't understand something), giving an actual lesson, and then having to cook their dinner at 9:00pm and getting them ready for bed at 10pm, I'm feeling a little exhausted, not to mention hungry.
I am paid 60euros a week, and this amount doesn't change no matter the hours I work. I'm not saying I've got the worst deal of all, not by a mile, but I just wanted to see other people's opinions on whether this was a fairly typical situation or something that they would expect from an aupair themselves. If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated, even if it is to just tell me to suck it up and get over myself. I know I may just be having a bit of a moan, this is a very different parenting style to the one that I'm used to (my parents to me) and I'm finding it difficult to get on board with their strange nit-picky rules, constant hand washing and clothes changing.