Falling for Expectations

I am constantly amazed at the extent of which people can affect your life. Within the last week I have grasped an awareness of how important it is to surround myself with the right kind of people. Since arriving in Italy, I have had my teeth clenched; bite marks in my tongue and sometimes a forced smile upon my face. I was enjoying my time, but not as much as what I had expected too. Essentially, all of what has happened in the last four weeks is based on my expectations. I don’t think I had a clear understanding of what au-pair work had in store for me. I somewhat knew it was going to be a difficult ride; I felt that it couldn’t throw at me anything I had not dealt with in my past like living with a family, dealing with someone else’s children and generally just adapting to new life.

I wasn’t surprised to find each of those things during the last four weeks; however I found many more situations that made for a difficult ride. I’m not here to name and blame, but quite forwardly I will admit that the family’s lifestyle was far different to my own, at first I considered it to be money and possession that allowed them to develop such a mind-set, however after further thought, it was that their attitude to money differed from mine. Again, admittedly, I don’t come from the dregs of society but neither do I rub in peoples’ faces what my family has in possession because to me, possession and money do not rule my life. I would say they are meaningless to me, but that would be a lie, they are not high on my Richter scale of importance. I am not suggesting that I dislike people that enjoy money and don’t think the same way as me; I am merely saying that I cannot adjust to having a housekeeper that works her butt off to tend to every need and an au pair who should read minds and be there at the click of a finger as and when she is needed.

Many things irritated me about living with them; at first I could hide the irritation and just accept differences. But as time wore on, I was becoming more unhappy about certain aspects. Not just physically (knowing where to be and when etc) but also emotionally, I was becoming more and more frustrated with not having independence and my own space. By living there, I no longer felt like a proud young professional, my life and personality was meaningless to them and I was merely there as a worker. You might be thinking ‘Yeah well Katy, go figure! Surely you thought about that before you went to Italy?’ which I did, but as my mum put it, I didn’t realise just how ‘upstairs, downstairs’ it was going to be. I think coming from a culture where we tend to treat people how we like to be treated, I struggled to place myself in such hierarchical orientated family.

I cannot say I regret those four weeks, it has lead me to a better understanding of a certain strand of Italian culture and I am now far more aware of the different people that are around me. On Sunday, I broke the news to the parents that I was unhappy. I will mention here, that the reasons I have stated above were not the only reasons for my decision. There were a few upsets between me and one of the parents, to which I kept trying to tell myself that it was a lack of communication. However, my patience wore thin and after another outburst stating that I was not living up to her expectations, I blew it. Call it what you want, but I live up to only one person’s expectations, and that is my own. I am happy for people to produce guidelines in order for me to develop, but I don’t appreciate being told what I can, can’t, should and should not do. Maybe I should put it down to the Montessori educator in me, with the belief that children should not be told, but merely guided in the right direction. You’re probably thinking, give her some space the poor woman has English as a second language, but I knew she didn’t have a problem with communicating in a decent manner.

I am out now. Appreciating the independence and serenity of my own life again, to the extent that I can when I am living in a friend’s house! Surrounded by Italians who care and want to help me, after four weeks I finally have a genuine smile on my face. Yesterday I took a train to Bergamo, an opportunity to rekindle my independent streak! I didn’t have much of a plan, but I had addresses of language schools and a dozen CV’s ready to hand out. After sitting in the tourist information building for half an hour, I set off with my new map which had been attacked with a pen, marking the addresses of my destinations. During the day, I met some fantastic people, from one school to another and also on the return train ride home. Greeted by English, Kiwi and Swedish people, each more than happy to share a snippet of their life story, being foreign and in Italy immediately implied similarities between us. My shoulders are no longer weighed down with stresses of au-pair life. Instead, puzzled as to what to do next and which road to take from here.