the au pair life

What's it really like? Essentially, I'm a dream daughter/sister except I get paid. My general schedule is as follows (when not in a global pandemic).

Wake up: 7:25

Wake girl up: 7:30

"Make" breakfast (it's a packaged crepe and hot chocolate)

Child eats breakfast

Child gets ready: 8:00

Leave: 8:30 (when it's cold we drive, also so we can listen to music)

School opens: 8:50

School starts: 9:00

Madi's free time! 9:00-4:30

Pick up girl: 4:30

Homework: 5:00

Play: 6:00-7:00

Girl shower: 7:00

Cook dinner: 7:00

Eat dinner: 7:30

Madi free time!

I look after two kids: a 9 year-old girl and a 14 year-old boy. The boy is on a block schedule and relatively self-sufficient, so I mainly look after the girl.

Looking after kids in this close of a capacity leads to a lot of boundary issues. The job itself is not hard in the slightest and living with a family has prevented any crippling homesickness. However, I live with them! It's hard to really have any privacy or escape as my room is right next to the kitchen and living room. Babysitting before this was always easy because I knew at the end of my shift that it was over! I could go home! Here, I can go into my room and close the door, but that doesn't stop anyone from knocking. The kids are kids. They fight. Especially with that age gap, it's hard to find things they both enjoy/want to do together. We watch a lot of movies, though!

Living an hour away from Paris has proven to be a bit difficult. At first, I thought I was going to be living 15 minutes away, but it's more like an hour and 20 by public transports. I have to drive 20 minutes to the train station and then take an hour long train into the city. It honestly goes by pretty quickly when listening to music or reading a book. The distance has made it difficult to make friends and to go out at night. I've never left the house on a weeknight due to the distance. But, me and my one friend (shoutout Andrea), a fellow au pair, have mastered going out in Paris. For us, we have two options. Either stay out until 5 am when the trains open back up or uber 20 minutes back to her house. We usually end up taking an uber because we're tired and our feet hurt, but maybe one day we'll last until dawn.