Do you ever get a feeling in your gut that something isn’t right, yet you can’t tell if you’re just dramatising, or if something is indeed wrong? That’s what’s been happening to me, therefore I feel I need an outsider’s point of view about my issue.
Basically, I’m 18, and I’ve been an Au Pair in Europe for a bit more than 3 months already. The first few weeks were lovely, since everything was new and thus exciting to me. I’m living in Poland, but I didn’t go anywhere during my first 2 months. My host family is always extremely busy and doesn’t go anywhere except the office they work in at Warsaw. They have a 15-month old, who I’m taking care of. You can imagine that 6 hours with a one-year old is pretty exhausting as it requires very intensive care. I’m lucky I’m a pretty patient person, but no one has unlimited patience.
There are a few things that have been bothering me more and more each day, yet I’m not sure if I have the right to “complain” about these. Here’s the thing: the family sees me only as a “house worker” instead of another member of the family, which makes me uncomfortable since we both agreed this experience would be to share cultures and be an “older sister” of the baby, but they’re treating me like a nanny more than an actual Au Pair (and there’s a difference between both!). Whenever I try to interact more with the family and be more personal with them they’re polite, yet the cold/distanced/bare-minimum type of polite. The father actually seems annoyed, he doesn’t even try to hide it anymore, when I try to speak with him. I normally don’t see them much because they’re always working, and on weekends when they do have both days off I’m required to work Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes I feel they don’t really care or want to spend time with their baby, they go to a separate room and shut themselves in there (I’ve seen them just watching movies or listening to music) while I work in the days I’m supposed to have off. Also, I’m required to give Spanish classes for an hour, 5 time a week to the mother’s parents. This wouldn’t bother me, if they actually paid me for it...! Because I’m getting paid what any other Au Pair gets paid just for taking care of children, yet on top of that I need to give Spanish classes to the parents, so I’m basically doing that for free. And when I do go out to meet friends in Warsaw, which doesn’t happen a lot, my host family set me a curfew of 9pm, which irritates me a bit since I normally don’t go out anyway, and it takes me an hour to go and return to/from Warsaw from where I live. I feel I spend more time at home than outside (I would rather have a balance or at least more time to explore the country), and it makes me uncomfortable that I came 8,000+ km from my country just to spend it in another house for most part of the day. When I asked if I could register for Polish classes the mother didn’t encourage me to learn the language, and when I told her I found a nice place where I could learn Polish she seemed disappointed when I wanted to join them. At night, which is the only time when I can talk to my family since they live in the other side of the world, the family shuts off the WiFi. So I have to pay my own money to be able to talk to my family in the only time I get.
These things have been getting worse each time and I feel the family doesn’t care about my well-being at all, they just want me to be healthy to be able to take care of their son. Or more like, raise their son, as I’m pretty sure the mother has not changed a single diaper since I started working here. Each day I feel less motivated to stay here, yet I’ve no idea what to do, or if my problems are actually valid. My family often tells me that “it’s just how life is” when I tell them I’m getting a bit tired and that I need some days off. I’m thinking of switching host families, but for now I’d just like insightful feedback on the situation?