Cultural Care Au Pair / International Care review: Australian Au Pair Side Of The Story. 4

After reading many of the complaints here made by host families, I just had to correct some of the generalizations.

I am currently an Au Pair in my second year. I’m from Australia so I speak perfect English, can’t really comment on the language barrier problem. However there is so much I can comment on.

I was completely upfront in my application. I was a 19 year old, with a driver’s license who had just finished her Diploma in Children’s Services (the Australian equivalent to a preschool teacher.)I had my fist aid certificate, I had worked part time at a local child care centre and ran a music program for baby’s and tot’s at the local library. My teachers, work colleges and local Libran all wrote references for me and were contacted by Cultural Care.

I was contacted almost everyday by the Sydney Cultural Care office to see if I needed any help with my application or visa process. I was asked to proved ‘a working with children cheek’(a background cheek, specific to child related incidents), a copy of my license, passport and school certificates. I also had to tally up by child care hours and have this signed by the guardian or the program director of the centre. I was happy that they were so thorough because I assumed it meant that the families would undergo a similar screening process.

It was a very expenses process and in the end I paid about $5000.

After speaking with my host mum only once over the phone we were matched. We emailed back and forth a few times in the 4 months before I left for the states and they seemed like a perfect fit. Four children 2 boys and twin baby girls, the seemed very excited to have me coming and it made me far less nervous.

When the day finally arrived to leave I was completely ready, I had been given the name of another Australian girl who would be flying over at the same time as me and we meet at the airport.

After a very long flight (23 hours to LA and then 6 hours to NY) we were both tired, we collected our bags and made our way out to meet the person that was supposed to be holding a sign with our names. It was around 1am at JFK airport and there was no-one there to meet us, nothing was open and the only people were creepy taxi drivers. We thought we would give whoever it was time, maybe they were running late, by 2.30am we found a payphone and called the emergency line we had been given. The women on the other end, informed us someone would be there to get us when the other girls arrived from China as it is an hour trip to the school and it would be silly for there bus driver to make two trips, quickly checking the arrivals board we discovered that the next flight to arrive from China was at 4am.

So after a 29 hour flight and sitting in an airport for 3 hours we finally arrive at the Au Pair training school. Lets just say it is what I have been told is the normal collage experience for people who live in the dormitories. No doors on the showers, uncomfortable beds, and horrible inedible food. I had been told to expect this so was not really fazed. However I was highly disappointed with the waste of time that the classes turned out to be. I understand that for most of the Au Pairs English is a second language, however for myself I found it torturous. It was basically 3 days of being told not to shake babies and don’t sleep with your host dad.

On the last day of training school a trip into NYC was offered for an extra $40. All the Au Pair’s went excited to finally see some of America. The tour was so fast we barley had time to see anything and as we were getting of the bus at the Time square the guide was hurrying us so much that I was pushed from behind and myself and 3 other girls feel out of the bus onto the dirty sidewalk. I knew right away that I was really injured. I couldn’t straighten my knee and informed the chaperons (Two collage aged girls, I’m assuming they got extra credit for doing this.) that I couldn’t get up. The bus driver and one of the male Au Pair’s helped me back onto the bus, which is where I sat for the rest of the tour. The bus driver looked t my leg and told the chaperons that I should go to the ER. The both said ‘no’ and that I could see the nurse when we got back to the school. The nurse who gave me some ice wrapped in toilet tissue and said it should be fine in the morning. (I spent the first 3 months limping after my LCC took me to the emergency room and we found out that it had been dislocated.)

When I finally arrived in Massachusetts, we were greeted by an LCC (Not my LCC) and the Host Family’s, however my host family was no where to be found, they called and called my host mum but she didn’t pick up, in the end the LCC drove me the 40min to the town I would be living in and dropped me at my new house (notice here I say house not home) my host mum’s babysitter answered the door, informing us that my host mum was out for the day. I went to bed that night. In the basement with no window and no heat.

I didn’t want to let this bad start affect my out look but things only got worse. My host mum would only talk to me if she was giving me orders, and I would work 13 hours a day every day, even taking the babies with me on my day off, because if I didn’t have them they would be left in the play pen all day. My host mum would often come home in a bad mood and take it out on me and the kids. When I told my LCC how bad it was she told me it was just an adjustment period and I would soon settle in.

By then I was in love with the kids and just didn’t bother complaining anymore. Because even if I did complain it seemed to fall on def ears. Cultural Care was impossible to contact the same for my LCC. I lived in a small town with only two other Au Pairs close by, and was very lonely, my host mum wouldn’t talk to me and the only human contact I had all day was with babies. I feel I became a totally different person, and not for the better. I become very introverted and shy and would never stick up for myself and I never felt at home there.

I lasted out a year (only because I loved those kids) and my host mum had the nerve to ask if I would consider extending with them for another year. I spoke to my LCC and she informed me that my host mum had never had a complaint about me and said she loved having me as part of the family. I had never felt part of the family except maybe as the equivalent to the family dog. I chose to extend but wanted a different family, this was the hardest decision of my life because I loved those kids so much and I really think they loved me too, when I told them that I wasn’t going to be there nanny anymore the eldest boy through himself at me and beg me not to go. I was very torn up, but I felt like I couldn’t keep living like this.

After telling my host mum that I wasn’t staying she became very mean, she would make nasty comments about me, in front of me to her friends and told people she had fired me because I was terrible with her children. So when I received a match for a new family I was very excited.

I was matched with a family just outside of NYC and as I was living close we arranged to meet. I have never been so shocked in my life. The family picked me up from the train station, it was a very cold day and the children had no coats on and no shoes, on the ride to there house the children didn’t wear seatbelts and were throwing toys around the car, while the mother and father agued in the front.

When we arrived at the house I started looking for the cameras because I was sure I had to be on one of those ‘practical joke shows’. There were no drapes on the windows, just towels tacked up, the Au Pair slept on the fold out couch in the living room (which is against the rule, Au Pair must have there own room) and the whole place smelled like cigarettes. After getting back home that night I could have almost hugged my mean host mum.

I was finally matched with an amazing family in NYC and feel very much apart of the family. They have asked me to stay on for another year, but not as part of the Cultural Care Program. If anyone ever asked me to recommend Cultural Care I would laugh in there faces. Do not let your children leave home to become slaves. Cultural Care will not look after them!

I understand that some host families have had bad experiences with Au Pairs but we are not all bad, just like all host families are not all bad. I think it comes down to the fact that Cultural Care just wants there money (from both the host families and Au Paris) so they don’t screen correctly and once you are in the program they have there money they no longer care.