Un Mois à Paris

A month abroad has gone by so fast. Funnily enough, au pairing is almost exactly what I expected it to be. I can’t fall asleep right now which really annoys me. The French like to stay up late (it is only around 9 but I get so tired everyday I need to sleep early). But what I mean by stay up late is the kids like to do that. M, the 6 year old, sleeps at 10 or 11 I think. A, her 10 year old brother, does the same thing. Worse of all, the goddamn baby, T, sleeps at around 9-11 also and never at a set time. Right now they are playing music upstairs and I can hear muffled singing. I’m not sure actually if it is coming from the upstairs living room or from J, whose room is opposite mine. J is the dad’s sister’s boyfriend who is randomly living with us right now until he finds a job in Paris or something.

Now I am starting to get really freaking annoyed. The music is so bloody loud. This better not be a frequent occurrence. The grandmother is also staying with us, and she is a scary woman. She can scold those kids like there’s no tomorrow, and she’s pretty domineering. I’m okay with that though. I did notice she used the ‘tu’ form towards me instead of the ‘vous’ form, which is kind of unusual since usually people I don’t know very well would use the more respectful ‘vous’ form. Maybe because she thinks I am an employee or younger than her she can talk to me more casually. It may seem stupid, but in France the ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ distinction is pretty important.

Went to Versailles today. The gardens were pretty, but the chateau itself was smaller than I expected. I thought Buckingham Palace was more impressive. Versailles was not nearly as pretty as I expected it to be. Then I went for a walk from the museum Carnavalet Histoire through the Marais district, all the way to the Madeleine metro. I could slap myself for stopping at a café on the way, ordering a small piece of cake and an iced chocolate and being charged 19 euros. And it wasn’t even a very fancy café. No more ordering at cafes from now on, I’m scared after that expensive experience. Or at least I probably should have checked the price first.

Au pairing has confirmed the fact that I hate kids with a passion. A, the 10 year old, is stubborn and sometimes inappropriate (eg begging me to buy him a 70 euro toy guitar when he is 10 and old enough to know better), but as long as I play dumb and go ‘je n’ai pas d’argents’, then it is fine. Anyhow, A is generally an okay kid. M the 6 year old girl can be a pain in the ass and a brat. For example she will cry and scream whenever she loses at any game, and god that girl is a little baby and can scream and throw temper tantrums at the slightest thing sometimes. Never at me, more at her parents for not letting her eat a certain food or something. But it is T the 14 month old I hate the most. Is it mean to say I hate a baby? It probably is. I don’t hate him, exactly. More can’t stand the bloody sight of him. He hates me and now sometimes cries as soon as he sees me. I think he does that for a number of reasons. He views me as the person who has to take him away from his mother, first of all. He is extremely attached to her, and he has learnt that I will take him away from her so that he won’t disturb her. Also, I admit part of it is my fault. I’m annoyed at myself for being lazy. I swore to myself before making this decision that despite hating kids, I would act as though I love kids. I haven’t been doing this. I go on my laptop, ipad or phone whenever I babysit the kid and he is quite social so he likes it more when someone is playing with him. But, as the mother admitted, it is not easy for a 17 year old to build lego towers with a baby for 3 hours straight. Heck, I can’t imagine it being easy for anyone, not even the mother. The money I get paid as an au pair is not exactly quite equating to that amount of effort involved. So basically sometimes I am on my phone reading a book, and he will hand me a piece of lego and if I can’t be bothered to play with him I will just give it back to him or put it on the floor and then he starts crying. Some babies can entertain themselves constantly, but this one can only do it 65% of the time. But it is my fault I guess. I am getting paid technically to babysit him and ‘play’ with him, not to watch Breaking Bad. So I guess I will have to try harder with him. I just effing hate it when he scrunches up his face and starts to cry. He is the loudest thing ever. And then the mother has to come running up. That’s what I hate. I have hinted to her that she should let him be, and teach him a lesson by letting him realise that just because he cries for his mother does not mean that she will always be able to come to him. This has gotten a bit better now that she trusts me more. Also, the baby was fine with the former au pair according to the mum, so I think it is 80% me that makes him cry. He hates having his clothes changed and that pisses me off to no end because he is just being a brat as there is nothing painful or bad about getting changed. That’s when I start to get annoyed. I don’t get pissed if he cries because he is sleepy or hungry or has good reason to. I think that’s what I hate about kids. The fact that they are too young to understand appropriate behaviour and reason that needs to be taught or acquired through maturity. And I used to think I was patient, but evidently I am not patient enough to teach kids appropriate behaviour or keep cooing to the baby when he is crying for no reason.

Anyhow, overall I am okay with everything. Nothing is wrong, thank God, and other than slightly irritating but generally unimportant differences that are the fault of both myself and the family, I can say that I am satisfied with the family and I can definitely stick it out for the next month, although if I were to be here for a year I would have to reconsider.

Pros of this host family:

-Generally okay kids.

-Nice room.

-Parents try to be fair and by no means are exploiting me.

-I get enough privacy. Kids don’t disturb me often at all, and with the exception of J, who is out most of the time anyway, I get practically the whole bottom floor of the house to myself.

-Close enough to Paris for me, about 15 minutes by train.

Complaints:

-Having to share what was originally solely my bathroom with J, the dad’s sister’s boyfriend. When I was promised my own bathroom. This is not that much of an issue and I am aware that I sound like an entitled brat for complaining about lack of my own bathroom (I don’t even have my own bathroom at home), but I don’t like it when people don’t stick to their word because they could easily ask him to use another bathroom. God knows they have like 12 bathrooms or something. Actually let me see…precisely 8 I think. At least the mum had the decency to ‘ask’ me first if he could use it from now on because she didn’t want him going upstairs in the morning. Although I could hardly say no, it was good of her to at least ask me. And again I don’t mind, but when ‘own bathroom’ would supposedly be part of an au pair contract, it’s not good to offer a different reality of sharing with random guy. Anyway, the point I am making is not the fact that I can’t handle sharing a bathroom, I could share with 5 people if that was necessary. The main point is, I was promised something that is no longer true, and this is an irritating situation to be in because today it could be a bathroom, but tomorrow it could be asking permission to share a bedroom, or working extra hours, or something. A contract is a contract, and it shouldn’t be broken regardless of how insignificant the details are because it could slowly turn into something bigger.

-The baby can be a pain in the ass, and the mum sometimes encourages it by coddling him when he cries for no reason which doesn’t make my job easier because it teaches him that every time he wants his mother when I am there instead of her, all he needs to do is cry and she will come to him. But this can be put down to differing viewpoints between us I guess, so I don’t hold this against her. Annoying part of having a stay at home mum.

-Disorganised – REALLY disorganised. My work times change every week, but at least the mum tries to make sure things are fair.

-Shitty food. I have noticed that awkwardly enough, the mum always tries to subtly give me less food than she gives J and the kids. At first I thought this was a weird cultural difference but the dad is not like this at all and really generous with food. The mum once even asked me if I could switch places at the table because I had sat in front of a plate that had a slighter bigger piece of fish on it that she intended to be for A! I thought this was mega awkward and unnecessary, because the fish was legitimately 3 cm bigger than the other ones on the table and I did not even intend to choose the biggest, or even notice for that matter. They have lots of money. They need to stop being so cheap with food. Or the mum I guess needs to, not the dad. Can she really not bear to see the au pair have a slightly bigger piece of fish than her son? Really?? If you really are that cheap about FOOD of all things when you own like 4 properties near Paris, then it would have been better to offer a lower salary to begin with to factor in extra costs for food, rather than make things awkward by trying to skimp on serving sizes for the au pair. Not to mention the food is boring and repetitive, and the servings are tiny. Which is really irritating even when the food is shit I would never usually eat, like raw egg, mostly raw beef patties, smelly roquefort goat's cheese or pâté. I don't mind the type of food though, because that is actually a cultural difference I can't blame on the family and besides, there are good things too. The fruit is amazing especially the citrus fruits from Spain, everything is 'bio' (organic), there is unlimited bottled water, as well as generally good bread, ham and cheese. 

 French people really don’t eat much at all. And the fact that dinner gets served at 8:30 drives me mad. I get so hungry by then.

-Keep promising bonuses that they keep putting off getting for me. For example, my own SIM card and French study books. They aren’t a big deal to me though because I wasn’t promised them initially before making my decision on this particular family, but if you don’t intend to or don’t have time to get someone something, then you need to shut up and stop keeping on promising it. Legitimately, these books and that card have been mentioned like 3 times but I still don’t have them a month into being an au pair.