Au-Pairing or Exploitation?

If you’ve ever wanted to work in the sun, learn a language & culture by living with natives while making a lot of new friends, then au-pairing is definitely the job for you. Along with those 3 wishes, you’ll also be granted a few children, a strong chance of sunburn and a definite chance of getting lost, both navigation-wise and translation-wise.Finding a “host family” is simple; finding a good host family is another thing. For me, a friend had au-paired for my host family’s relatives, so badda-bing badda-boom, job sorted; it was easier than finding someone to have pre-drinks with on a Thursday night! Others go through agencies like Au-Pair World, which would be the most popular: these service is like window shopping - enter your country, the country you want to work in, and how long you want to work in said-country. You’re matched with families whose criteria matches yours and the rest is magic! One friend I made in Madrid said he picked the family that suited him the most - which had one well-behaved adolescent boy, above average pay, free Spanish lessons, his own bedroom and living room. Who said beggars can’t be choosers?The kids are the real challenge. I was lucky enough to get the craziest, most welcoming family in Spain; the kids were so helpful and enthusiastic when it came to my Spanish, and just as enthusiastic about FIFA and fighting. As scary as it seems, you need to show them who’s boss. After a full-on fight on my second day of work, and showing them how angry I can get, there was a lot less fighting. Don't be afraid to draw the line - ban the PlayStation, turn off any tablets & TVs, make them go outside, force the dreaded English lessons on them; be firm, get angry, but know when to be angry. The correlation between anger frequency and effect are negative.Living with a family that you have never met before, and spending nearly every day with them is more intense than the partying during Freshers Week. Adjusting my meal times to those of my Spanish family was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, with breakfast at 10am, lunch at 3pm and dinner at 10:30pm. No snacks! In Ireland, I am the snack queen: I snack between snacks, so for me this was an absolute killer, so make sure to buy yourself a packet of biscuits, some rice cakes, chocolate and have them stored in a place in your room for emergencies - you will thank yourself for it later.Pay & working conditions can be an interesting affair; AuPairWorld.com have recommended that au-pairs work for a recommended 30 hours a week, for a minimum of €70 a week. From my personal experience this summer in Spain, this is far from what actually happens. My hours were supposed to be from 9am until 3:30pm, 5 days a week, for €60 a week. Okay, sounds decent; now throw in a couple of days (a week!) where texts were coming in at 3pm saying that someone wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours, with 10 & 12 year old boys who physically fought each other at home, oh, and a language barrier as well. No matter how many hours you work, the income stayed at €60, even when you were paid late (as happened more often than not). The most any of my circle of 10 au-pair friends in Madrid were paid was €120 a week, something nobody had ever heard of an au-pair getting paid before. Ever. The average for an au-pair was €80 for, let’s say, a 40 hour week. That works out at around 50c an hour. You would have had to have worked 12 hours to get into Havanas, your daily Starbucks will cost you 6 hours; puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?Chances are your host family will be going on holidays, which means a free/paid travelling experience. You are completely immersed in your host country's culture, and get to see how natives spend their holidays. In my case I got all of this, plus 9 kids between myself and another UCC au-pair, for nearly all of the waking hours in a full week, in the lovely blistering humidity of Huelva, in the south of Spain. Throw in a few tantrums, parents who were MIA and a case of heatstroke (gifted to yours truly) and you have the recipe for an unforgettable week. Think of a Leaving Cert holiday, just for 40 year old parents. Bar those hiccups it was truly an unforgettable week, and probably the best way to learn about the Spanish culture. And all while getting a tan!Make the most of every second of your time off. Get out of the house as often as you can and make friends, and Facebook usually will have a page dedicated to Au-Pair meetups in your area: ait like Tinder, but less romantic. Dedicate your weekends to travelling, like I and so many other au-pairs have done; transport in Europe is a lot more efficient than it can be here in Ireland, so take advantage of that and go for it!Madrid is without a doubt one of the best, if not the best, city I’ve ever travelled to: the atmosphere is electric. Nightlife doesn’t kick off until midnight, and doesn't stop until the metros restart at 6am, if the parties end. Madrid is architecturally breath-taking: for me, watching the sunset by the Royal Palace of Madrid (Palacio de Real) made all the cons of Au-Pairing so worth it. Rowing in Retiro Park’s lake is a must, as well as with shopping on Gran Vía, visiting the turtles in Atocha Train station & Plaza España (and its hidden Chinatown) and so much more. Live the double life of au-pair and romancer, and have the ultimate Lizzie McGuire adventure.Au-pairing is an experience that I would only recommend if you have the personality to match a pair of DocMartins: sturdy, stubborn and strong. You must also really have the desire to be thrown into a culture and something completely outside of your comfort zone. It changes you for the better, makes you into a well-rounded and confident person. And when your host-Dad is running around the beach drunk in a tutu, and your host-Mum is sunbathing in the nip, just remember: you’ll be back in the Boole before you know it.