Thinking about leaving my host family

[Johan2019]

My name is Johan. I live in France as an au pair.
I want to start saying I was an au pair for another family before and had an amazing time with them and we are in good contact today still.

I am having issues with my host parents and considering of leaving them . I have been with them for about 3 months now and its just not clicking between us. The parents are never home for their kids and don't seem to want to do anything with them.
I start my day by waking up at 7:30 and tidy the kids room. I drive the kids to school at 8:15 and Im back to the house at 8:30. Then I have a language course at 10.AM. I drive to the train station and take the train to the city which takes 15 minutes. (I pay for my language course and all my train tickets). I am off from 8:30 to 16:00 when I have to go and get the kids. I make dinner in the evening 5 times a week. I often asked to peel the fruits for the mother for her dinner, she uses a thermo mixer to make soup and that the only thing the parents have eaten for 3 months. The only thing they prepare for me is mashed potatoes with the thermo mixer! I feel like I don’t eat a lot.

The kids had two weeks of vacation and I stayed with the kids from 8:00 to 20:00 for 2 weeks(which is illegal). My first incident I had with the host parents occurred on a Thursday evening when I had been with the kids since 8:00. The grand mother came for a visit and was playing with the kids. I asked at 17:30 if I could go to the gym with a friend and it was no problem. When I arrived back the host mother started saying "You are only here to help us and take care of the kids, You are not here to do sports.) That she doesn't know if Im doing a good enough job for her. I was very upset and I let it slip and never opened the conversation again. She was very ironic to me.

Next incident.

Saturday when I was OFF. I woke up and went to the gym (on their car). I get back and Im outside sitting by the pool talking to my brother. She asks if she can have a word with me. I come inside to talk to her and she starts screaming at me. Telling me that Im not good enough for them and that I am lazy. She said that she owns me for a half a day on Saturdays but in the contract it says that if needed they can ask me to babysit in the evenings, that was the deal. She continues to yell and threatens to find another au pair. She is very frustrated and yelling a lot at me. Saying I did not want to help them with the laundry in the weekends (folding her laundry and underpants!) I was very disappointed and wanted to leave. I said if Im not doing enough for you I want to leave. When I used what she said previously to me she never remembers what she says. Said I was a lier.
I regret not doing anything about this situation but it has been 3-4 weeks since.

My relationship with the host parents is very weird. They don't seem to care a lot about me. They don´t show me their beautiful city nor do anything with their children in the weekends. I am usually not home in the weekends and rather go exploring their country. I was invited by my former host family to their vacation home and I accepted. I asked for the days of and I got them but it was a lot of problem covering the days. The mother said it was my problem to find somebody, which I thought was very weird because I am allowed to have vacation also. I got no help getting any where near to the airport. I walked to the train station with my luggage for 40 minutes. Took the train 3 times. Same for the way back home. Did not receive one message from the family in one week. When I arrived back it took me 4 hours to get home. 3 trains and a bus for one hour. They were off and only asked me when I would be arriving and when I arrived I got one question from the mother if I saw one particular city and I said yes, she say's its a very ugly city and that was the end of my conversation about my vacation. P.S (They thought it was a vacation with my family not my former host family). The mother and the father are very much not in love and I don’t kind off understand their situation but everything is quite negative here and its sucks my happy energy away. The mother is either happy or grumpy and always grumpy.

Today Im sick at home and told the mother that and she said "aahh okay" and nothing more. I feel like nobody cares about me here and they look at me like an object not a 22 year old adult. They don’t seem very interested knowing anything about my country or nearly want to talk to me unless they are asking for something. I really want to leave but Im thinking about how a good exit route is for me. I spoke to my former host family and I am welcomed back until sort things out for me.

My tasks are.

• Tidying their bedrooms
• Drive the kids to and from school
• change the sheets of the beds
• Sometimes asks me to clean their bedrooms on my weekend off

Make dinner 5 times a week and often for the parents and grand parents too Do the kids home work with them even though I don’t understand the language The kids are only allowed screen activity on the weekends. They have 5 IPads, 3 computers, tv’s and phones lying around. The parents say every morning that they are going to hide these objects but never do and when they arrive home they are very pissed about the kids playing in the ipads. The kids don’t want to do anything but watching these screens all day.

• Drive to the grocery store to get the groceries she bought online.

I pay for
My language course ( I heard that the host family has to do it)
Train tickets
My trip to the family

Im just really exhausted being an object and cooking a lot and nobody seems to want to do anything for me to make me feel good.

Thanks in advance ! I look forward hearing from you and hoping it was not too long :)

Forgot to add I do their laundry sometimes and In the beginning hang up the parents laundry.

Gosh.
They sound awful.
I would certainly find another position.
I’d hate it if my 22yr old child was int his situation.

Yep, they are exploiting you.

Definitely go, find a family that treat you well.

My goodness! There must be plenty of families willing to employ you and treat you how you deserve.
You seem down to hearth, honest and hard working.
Don't let them.

You poor thing. Make an exit plan and leave.

Yes, leave!

You need to leave. What company hired you? Contact them. Contact your previous employers and ask them for help. Maybe they know someone else who needs an au pair.

It's through a site called Aupairworld.com. There is no agency to contact, you find a family and start talking and voila. I send them a mail, the response I got was if I decide to leave they would like to know and for what reasons.

Im just thinking if I should leave and leave a note or give them the two weeks like it say's in the contract.
Im not saying its terrible here always but Im quite alone here and feel unappreciated.

Sounds terrible there....

Leave, it shouldn't be like that. They are looking for far too much time and responsibility from you. Do you have somewhere that you can go while you're looking for another au pair job?

Give them two weeks notice if you want to, but be prepared for them to get really angry and throw you out. They don't sound like very reasonable people. So have a back up plan of somewhere to go to and keep you bags packed and ready to go.

Leave immediately! Get on au pair world and get a new job!

I was an au pair long ago and while they were nice enough to me in person I worked slave hours. I’ve since had au pairs and they worked 18-25 hours, were not my main childcare, did not do housework (apart from general contributions like helping clear dinner table - but I cooked for them!) plus one night babysitting.

You are being totally taken advantage of here, plus they’re horrible to you to boot.

These people sound dreadful. They are totally taking advantage. You need to leave as soon as you can.

Thank you for your story ! Yes... its quite bad.

You need to leave ASAP. They sound awful, I wouldn't give the two weeks notice they will make your life hell for for those 2 weeks.

I think you should leave too. When I was 19 (quite a few years ago now!), I au paired for three months. Conditions were similar to yours and I was miserable - I felt isolated and unsure of myself. When I look back now, it's clear to me I was being exploited. To this day, I still regret not leaving sooner.

Good luck.

OstrichRunning

Thank you for your input ! Did you leave your family right away or did you give them 2 weeks notice ?

I think you should leave right away without notice, because they have broken the contract. When is your next weekend off? Maybe go to your old host family, and email them saying you will not be returning as they have broken the contract by asking you to work 12 hour shifts, not paying for language study and not providing adequate food and rest for you.

I think I gave notice but that was because it was so long ago it was practically pre-internet and I had to be brought to travel agent by the mother to change my flight! She was mad with me and the last couple of weeks were particularly hard. Why did you feel bad about just leaving? I think you should just leave if there won't be an issue with payment. You've nothing to feel bad about, they're the ones in the wrong.

Some days of the things you’ve mentioned are normal au pair tasks eg. Bedrooms, cooking for kids, homework. Cooking for the family on occasion is normal too - but they should also be cooking fur you as well. They should never be shouting at you.

Paying for your own language course is normal too in France. There also is no paid minimum for holidays, but this should be covered in your contract.

The rules surrounding au pairs in France are here
www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F13348

They have breeched your max working time during school holidays.

It sounds like they want hired help, rather than a “part of the family” au pair. I’d just give your 2 weeks notice and move on. If they are at all abusive during your notice period, just walk out.

With respect, you're 22. You could cook your own meals - they don't need to cook for you! And you can go explore the city in your spare time. You're not there first and foremost to be looked after, you're in a job at the end of the day.

Secondly, It seems there's a misunderstanding of duties, and they are crossing boundaries with the holiday and the way they talk to you. However, feeling part of a family is not always the role of an au pair. Some au pairs are mostly independent and more like an employee. Not all are expected to be part of a family, it's just nice when that happens! I can't help but notice this whole post is about you - not once did you mention your relationship with the children. Which proves you haven't really bonded with them either.

Money should be discussed before you start, and in your contract. It's an agreement not an expectation.

So simply, if you're not happy in your position - then leave.

Life's too short, give notice and move on.

It doesn’t sound very nice, and you should definitely leave.

But I do think you’ve ended up lumping everything into one long complaint, whereas some of these things are actually normal expectations of an adult in employment.

When you’ve left and have got some emotional distance between you and this situation, I think it would do you some good to think about what were normal duties and expectations, because you don’t want to end up becoming overly sensitised to this and with unrealistic expectations in the future.

The holiday hours are illegal. I would leave