The Rocky Journey with My Host Family... Part 1/2

What was my host family like?

I looked after 2 children, a 10 year-old girl and a 6 year-old boy. The mum was pretty talkative and friendly whereas I never really talked much with the dad, except when he was giving me instructions about what to do with the kids. The little girl was outgoing, but the boy was quite shy and had tantrums often and I found it quite difficult to look after him.

Lies 

In regards to the tantrums and difficulties I had, I later found out that the family had failed to tell me that the little boy had special needs. This became a problem as I had specified on my profile when applying for jobs that I do not have experience in looking after children with special needs and this really impacted my stay in Spain. This was also unfair for him as I didn't have the knowledge to properly care for him. I felt cheated and had no idea why they would have hid that from me. 

Tense family home

The mum was mostly lovely when she spoke to me, however, as I lived with her, I ended up seeing a different side to her. She was pretty impatient with the kids and would often shout at them so much to the point that I had no idea what to do and wouldn't come out of my room for hours to avoid her because she would say some really mean things. I felt bad for the kids sometimes because there were much better ways to handle some of the situations. 

As the weeks went by, there wasn't just tension between the mum and the kids, but tension started to develop between myself and the parents. This was due to them breaching my (unfortunately) unwritten contract by: trying to get me to work more hours, take my free weekends away from me and force me to stay at home after work when I wanted to spend time with my best friend. 

Taking away my freedom

During the application process for the au pairing job, the family promised me free time after work (roughly 4pm) and on weekends to do whatever I pleased. On the first weekend, they took me up to their caravan camp site up in in the Sierra de Guadarrama, where they spend most weekends. It was very nice and peaceful there in the middle of a mountain with so much nature to see and the trip was enjoyable as their family friends were there too.

However, I did wish that they had told me that there would be no WiFi or service (which I guess is pretty self explanatory now that I think about it) but I hadn't told my parents that I wouldn't be able to text them and that I was safe. 

After work pretty much every day, I would head into the city centre to spend the rest of the day with my best friend, until we had to catch the last train of the night. I had an amazing time doing this as it was like having a 2-month-long holiday. 

One day, I received a text from them when they were in work saying how they wanted me to stay home and not go out with my friend anymore as I was 'spending too much time away from home'. This is despite saying that I could do as I pleased in my free time. I decided not to argue against it and stay home a few days a week to spend more time with the family. I told them what days I would stay home so that they would know that I would be staying home for dinner and could plan around that. 

However, when the days that I said I would stay at home arrived, the kids were sent to their grandparent's house and the parents wouldn't come back till late at night. I was annoyed that I stayed at home all day after work waiting to spend time with the family for them to leave me in an empty house with nothing to do, all whilst still making me feel guilty for going out and actually doing something.  

Not only did they try to limit me from doing things that I actually wanted to do in my free time during the week, they also started forcing me to go to the camp site EVERY weekend. I argued against this as, whilst it was enjoyable the first time, it was insanely boring as I would have nothing to do because the family tended to disappear without me anyways, so, what was the point of me even being there? I couldn't exactly go and explore the nature by myself because I had no map, no service and had no idea where I would be going or how to get back. The only thing I could do was sit outside the caravan on a chair or find the one spot in the whole mountain range that had one bar of service. I saw it as a waste of a weekend as I didn't have one ounce of fun.