Reply to "Slave" poster - who are you??

Forum Index » Au Pair Discussion

Reply to ""Slave" poster - who are you??"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]"And if you're the PP who au paired for multiple crappy families, then you're rather masochistic.

Really... don't apply to be an au pair and accept your contract/match, THEN start whining that it's too little money. "

She wasn't the poster with the 5 HF, I am. I don't think I am masochistic, I don't put ALL HFs in the same bag just because some happen to want to bend the rules.
I overall had great experiences (with it's up and down as you can tell) but I genuinely loved my host kids and created a special bond with them that still last now.

I wanted to shed light on the fact that, given the opportunity, many host families will try and get as much of their Au Pair as possible from their Au Pair knowing full well that she is dependant on them.
Not that many 18yo have the guts to stand up against her host parents when she knows full well that it could get her, not only fired, but also homeless. The American Program offer some sort of support
from AuPairs but that's not the case in the rest of the world, making some young women very vulnerable.

I have met Au Pairs who had to escape abuse or sexual harassment from their host dad and were made to leave either in a rush or kicked out by the host family (often host mother) the second they spoke up about it
with no where to go.

I definitely don't do Au Pairing for the money, in Europe, you earn less than half what Au Pairs in America earn with a cost of life that's almost twice as high as the cost of life in the US. 
I Au Pair because I genuinely love children and love learning about different cultures and living the local life through living with a local family as it's an experience I can't have travelling other ways (and I do travel extensively).
My complaint regarding money is that many family set a contract with their Au Pair that they end up breaking which mean that what may have appeared as a correct deal initially end up being a total rip-off.

If I accept to work for let's say 300$ month for 30hours a week, it's peanuts but it's the average deal in europe. If I accept that, it is normal that I expect to be working "ONLY" 30hours a week. 
Now if my family suddenly start doubling my weekly hours, meaning that I find myself in a position where I cannot even enjoy the cultural experience (main reason why Au Pairs aren't paid the minimum wage rates)
and where I end up doing 50/55 hours for the same amount of money, it is normal that I find it grossly unfair.
It's not uncommon for me to have seen host families (on other Host Family forums) discussing leaving their Au Pair at home with the kids for an entire week while they holiday, either for free or for a ridiculously low amount of money as '' half the kids will be at school most of the day anyway, and they will all be sleeping at night so it won't be that much different from a normal week''.

I think if your boss contracted you for a project for a certain price and then you discovered that the project was actually doubled what you initially discussed but are yet expected to work for the exact same price, you would be furious? Now what if your boss was also your landlord, your roommate and had, on top of his ability to make you lose your job and visa, the ability to make you lose the place you live in and that is "home" in a foreign country. Wouldn't you be less likely to rock the boat as easily and would probably take into account the consequences of actually speaking up for yourself? Especially if you had dreamed for that experience all your life? You may say no now but a lot of 18 definitely don't have this strength.

I am not traumatized by my Au Pair experience but I do wish to see more put in place to protect Au Pairs from bad host families and see more horrible host families getting kicked out of the programs instead of being given chances after chances to redeem themselves, ruining the experience of many Au Pairs who entered the program from the right reasons and could have made fantastic Au Pairs for great families.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics