Last summer, I au paired from June to August 2019 in Madrid, Spain. I lived with a host family, which included my host mom and dad and their two daughters, Eva and Ana. Eva is 9 years old, while Ana is 7 years old, but they both enjoy doing arts and crafts (or as the parents first said to me, “handy crafts”), watching TV, playing with their friends, swimming, singing and bugging the crap out of each other.
Ana (7) and Eva (9) enjoying our afternoon in the park with a surprise trip to the ice cream store afterwards.
Aren’t they just the cutest little things you’ve ever seen? (There is only one right answer here, people.)
However, I’d be lying if I said that some days were not a challenge with them. I had to watch, entertain and take care of them from 9am-4pm Monday-Friday each week, all while trying to keep the conversations in English. In the beginning of my time there, I had to get them ready for school (which was ALWAYS a process), drop them off and pick them up from school on the city bus (where I was always the focal point because I stuck out like a pale sore thumb). Not only was it tiring entertaining for 7-8 hours every day, but it was sometimes a challenge to keep them active on certain days when all they wanted to do was watch TV and not go outside. I also had to make sure we weren’t doing the same activities every day.
I don’t have any sisters, but this summer, I felt like I had two. We argued (usually over me asking them to watch TV in English instead of Spanish during TV-time or Ana trying to tell me that I “wasn’t the boss of her”), we implemented time-outs (these were not a hit), and we made compromises. I had to set rules, since I was responsible for them and was spending more time with them every day during the week than their parents were.
While we had our differences, I know we had a loving relationship. We WhatsApp video-called just a couple of weeks ago, and it was like nothing had changed.
This summer put my patience to the test every single day in many different ways, but I’m grateful for it.