What It's Really Like to Be an Au Pair in Paris: Expectation vs. Reality

Expectation: You will become fluent in French within 6 months, by which point you will be able to casually be able to discuss the works of Sartre and de Beauvoir with your circle of sophisticated French friends.

Reality: You will pay an unfair price for French lessons, eventually stop going, and only hang out with other English-speaking expats who understand what you’re going through.

Expectation: You will seamlessly integrate into your new French “family.”  

Reality: You will sit silently through hundreds of hours stiflingly formal lunches and dinners with a family that is not yours. You will be “accidentally” locked out of the house on more than one occasion.

Expectation: The city of Paris will reveal her secrets to you. You will get to know secret hangout spots and charming locals.

Reality: You will spend more time on the train and in metro stations than you will above ground. You will be yelled at by cashiers, by city employees, by random old men on the metro, and random old men at the cinema.

Kid-friendly carnival game encourages children to throw ball at politicians’ heads :)

Expectation: You will hardly feel like you are working. You will take the sweet, cute children you take care of on picnics in the park, and they will definitely not try to push their sibling in front of a moving car.

Reality: You will take them on depressing outings to grim carnivals or to the cinema to watch obnoxious, poorly-dubbed kiddie films. You will take them on the metro and experience sheer panic as they run ahead of you into a train that is closing its doors. You will stare at the wall and question the meaning of life while you wait for them to come out of their piano lesson. You will scream at the top of your lungs at a seven-year-old boy who is rubbing his naked body on the leather sofa and wonder why you spent years studying for a degree in, what was it again? The economy, or something?