Red flag - upâs and downâs, doâs and dontâs
During these first two months I spent a lot of time with my brother. The first night I met him I was invited to dinner at his host family. It was such a lovely evening, even though I couldn't stay long I saw enough to realize what great people they are! I just appreciate it, how good they are treating my brother, how much effort they are putting into talking to him and how great it is to become part of a family that you might not have been born into, but still manages to treat you like one of their own. I immediately felt welcome. It also made me realize that the relationship between them and my brother was different from the one I had with my host family. While they were actually interested in him and tried to share as much with him (even though they donât seem like they have a lot of money), my hostmom was barely home and when she was, she did not even bother talking to me except when I had to do something for the child. (Later I found out that this wasnât about me at all, thatâs just how she is - even when she is at home, she does not talk to her kid, rather gives her a new toy or candy and then goes to her room to be on her phone instead of interacting with her child). I felt I was treated more like an employee rather than part of the family. In addition to not having any Chinese language classes until February, which was a breach of the contract that I had with the agency, the host family didnât carry out their duties either which included:
(1) actively helping the au pair (aka me) to learn Chinese and Chinese culture in her daily life
(2) providing the au pair with three meals a day as well as
(3) respecting and understanding each other, keeping positive and good communications.
As mentioned before, the host mom put no effort into teaching me anything about the language or culture. (1) When we were having dinner, the only meal that I was provided with by the way, I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast and lunch every day for weeks or had to buy my own food with my money (2), everyone talked to each other in Chinese and did not even attempt to include me in the conversation, except for the times when I should teach her or her daughter English words like spoon or plate. I felt left out all the time and even my efforts, like asking what they were talking about, were ignored, even when my counselor was there. She talked to the host family more than she talked to me. And thatâs pretty discouraging, especially because I was very motivated and eager to learn. I just think that they were not enlightened about the program or just didnât read the paragraph about this being an international cultural exchange program if they couldnât tell from the companies name already (LOHO International Cultural Exchange Center). The part about respecting each other (3) was not respected by her daughter at all. Before I came to China they already told me that she was naughty. But I did not expect it to be this difficult. I tried to give her a lot of time because I know beginnings are hard sometimes and she would have to get used to having me around first and put some extra effort in making it fun and interesting to play and interact with me. But it was hard to compete against her iPad, iPhone and the TV, who have been her best friends for many years of loneliness. So while we had good days, where she liked playing with me, whether it was card games like UNO, the board game Pachisi, Barbie (she even made me wear a princess dress one time), when we went to the zoo or to some fancy parties, the bad days outweighed.
We had issues with the simplest things. I could not help her get ready in the morning, because she would just yell, get grumpy and push me out of the room. She yelled when I wanted to bring her to school (which was just a 2 minutes walk away), so the ayi brought her to school alone and told me to stay home. Every morning I would get super early just to sit at the table because the kid would not let me do anything. And nobody did anything about it - the ayi just let her and the mother wasnât exactly helpful either, because she was never at home and would not see how difficult her child was. Instead of talking to me about these issues, she contacted my counselor and told her I was not doing my job.... so much for keeping good communications (3). IÂ wrote her a message explaining my situation:
âRose told me you contacted her. Would you like to talk in person about this? Because I understand that you think that I am not doing my job. But I am actually trying really hard and Shero makes it difficult for me to know what to do. In the morning I tell her good morning, go to her room and want to be with her when she gets ready, but she is always grumpy, does not want me to talk to her and kicks me out of her room. What do you want me to do about this? I usually go sit on the table and wait for her to come eat breakfast because I don't want to make her more angry by staying with her for example when she brushes her teeth.
Even playing time after school is like that. I know you think I am being too serious and not fun enough but that's not what happened. Every time I talk to her, want to be with her and suggest things like drawing, playing cards, playing chess, whatever she wants to do things in interesting ways, she goes sit in front of the TV. When I go there and talk to her she is ignoring me and telling me to leave her alone. If I stay with her anyway and try to show her other things we can do together she gets even more angry. So I can be as fun and interesting as I want, she refuses. As I see it, I didn't do something wrong to not make her like me, in fact I did everything and tried my best and she still behaves like that.
I hope that will change by spending more time alone with her outside so she learns to follow me and that being with me without distractions (like TV) can be fun. If she followes me, likes me and want to be around me, it will probably get easier.â
Her response was:Â âItâs okay, it takes time to build a relationship. Let me know if you need any help!â
Didnât I just tell her that I needed help? Whatever...
I could not even talk to her about one incident when Shero was trying to art craft a cube for school, where she declined my help (she is super inpatient) and yelled and even threw the big kitchen scissors through the living room. After that there was a hole in in the living room table which could have been my head. Not to mention the times she would hit me when I talked to her. When I told my counselor that the kid was hitting me, she said âYesterday host mom talked to me about last weekend you and Shero fighting.â and all she said was âCan you be gentle? If you are too strict, she will not follow you.â First I thought she was kidding, but she actually thought I was the problem. That I was behaving like a teacher and not a sister even though this was not the case. I mean what was I supposed to do? Just let her do whatever she wants? She did not know what was right or wrong. When the ayi put food on her plate that she didnât want, she picked it up with her hands and threw it on the table. And the adults didnât say anything, didnât correct her wrong behavior, nothing.
Shero would get bad tantrums every time she wanted (or didnât want) something. She was so used to getting it her way that she did not accept anything else. When I asked her to do her English homework, she yelled, took her school bag or her books and would hide them. Even when I tried to make it fun and drew a story and pictures next to the text that she was supposed to read to make it more interesting for her because she would understand what she was reading about, she did not do it.Â
I had to tell her mother, because I knew I would be the one who would get in trouble if she had no English homework the next day, but she just suggested to buy her candy so she would like me...
Since I wanted her to prevent from watching too much TV, my counselor and I suggested taking her outside more if the weather allowed that. So the host mom said âtomorrow you can go to the libraryâ - so I got ready to go the next day and told the kid to dress up - but she said no and kept watching TV. The ayi also tried to convince her to go to the library, but because the kid didnât want to, we didnât go. I always thought adults make the plans and the kid follows and not the other way around...Â
So I just tried to be more patient, even though I was really frustrated with the result. One time Shero did not do her homework for Disney English and decided she did not want to go. Instead of sending her anyway without homework, we stayed at home. I am not sure what kind of parenting this is. She missed a review class for a test the next week, so she failed the test. The instructor at Disney English wanted to talk to me about this (because her mom, of course, wasnât there) and I explained to her that I was trying my best to help Shero but that she only wanted to draw pictures instead of practising how to write, that she never reads out loud and even has issues answering questions like âHow old are you?â and âWhat are your hobbies?â in full sentences and not just writing down â7âł and drawing a picture of a piano... She told me to review the stuff they did so she could take the test again. Because I knew what the test was about, I asked the Chinese homework teacher to explain to the kid that she had to review the test questions. Even though she only answered them one time, I got positive feedback from the instructor.
Slowly I could accept that it wasnât my fault she wasnât improving and that every other au pair would have to face the same problems in this family. After a month I got to know her dad and he was the complete opposite: very caring, also showing affection through cuddling with her and she actually behaved during his presence, maybe because she knew it would actually have consequenses if she didnât? That was the only time we could finish her English homework without much complaining. He even took us out to a German restaurant and the post office, so I could sent some post cards home :-)
His new girlfriend spoke English so when we slept over at their place, I could explain my issues to them. The dad talked to his daughter and was interested in fixing those, which was surprising to me. But of course he does not have a lot of influence when we'd only see him once a week and nothing changed. I was getting tired of trying, so I focused on my interests. When the kid was watching TV, I would just do stuff on my laptop or phone, I got to sleep in and did not get up to send the kid to school, I just met up with my brother or came home later (I was supposed to be home at 10PM...even on my free days) and saw that nobody cared or wasnât even there to notice that I was late or not there during actual âworking timeâ. I could have just stayed in this family and content myself with that, because I had a lot more free time, went to fancy dinners or parties, but I was asking myself: Whats the point? I can also stay home all day in Germany, I did not come to China to sit on my hands and do nothing. I wasnât learning the language, I didnât get to experience much culture (besides the âparentingâ of rich Chinese parents which I got to compare to my own childhood and the one of the 7 year old kid in the first host family during my stay in the USA), so this family was holding me back instead of encouraging me.
Even after I told my counselor that I would not stay in this family, the communication was awful. I was supposed to pick up Shero from school, so I had to go home earlier when meeting my brother, but the kid was not even there. After waiting more than half an hour I asked why nobody was at school. I did not get a reply from the ayi, so I went home just to see her sitting on the sofa. I asked where the kid was but she did not understand. So I asked the mother and she just responded that the kid had extra class or something until 4. Why is it so hard to just tell me? I was super angry because I communicated everything correctly while they didnât even bother to tell me that I donât have to be back by 2 oâclock. I also had to try to understand their Chinglish (Chinese-English) and make sense of it.... it is not that hard to make sure that the translator spits out something that other people would actually understand. But maybe thatâs just me.Â
So I had to try to get out of the contract with the agency and the family. While they wanted to find a new Chinese family for me, but only had one family in Shanghai with a 2 year old kid, which meant I either had to take care of a toddler or move to Beijing, I already had other plans. I still had my profile up on greataupair.com and got a message there only a few weeks prior, from a German-Italian family that lived in Shanghai and were looking for a new au pair. First, I declined, explaining that I was already in Shanghai but lived in a Chinese family, but then messaged the mom again 6 days later, whether they were still looking for someone to take care of their two children (a girl, 9, and a boy, 6). We exchanged messages, I went to their house to get to meet them in person, which is actually quite a funny story, because I got lost finding their house while my phone was dead and was lucky to find a Chinese girl waiting at the bus stop to help me find the adress. She accompanied me and made sure that I would arrive there safely (thatâs how you make friends in China). Usually when you ask Chinese people for the way, you should not expect to end up in the right place (or maybe half an hour later) because they will tell you the way even though they have absolutely no clue where the place is that you want to go to.Â
But the new family is a new chapter :-)
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