Claire's Review: Au Pair experience in France

Claire is sharing with us her one-year au pair experience in France. How happened her stay? This Scottish woman will tell us about her au pair life.

Former British au pair testimonial ✒️.

Before you left, what were you doing?

At the beginning of 2020, I was in my final semester of my History of Art degree. I was living in my hometown of Glasgow in Scotland, and I was getting closer and closer to the end of my University career. What would usually be an exciting and incredibly stressful time for any student, quickly became a very uncertain and unprecedented period for everyone. Watching the effects of Covid-19 spread throughout each nation, locking us in our homes, closing down cities, universities, travel and so much more, was all really quite devastating.

As I studied for my exams at home and wrote my final dissertation, I thought a lot about my future and how ambiguous it became to be. The image you have in your head of once you graduate is that you either find a graduate scheme, or an internship or you find a good job or even travel the world yet now none of those options were possible. The pandemic, like for most, made me feel as if there was nothing I could do or look forward to. I felt lost and all my expectations of a graduation disappeared.

Why did you decide to become an au pair in France?

After all of my exams and assessments were submitted, I successfully graduated (via e-mail) in June that summer, and very quickly began looking for whatever job I could. While I was job-hunting, I began to reflect a lot on my time at university and what I really wanted to do. Whilst I was at university, I had the chance to learn and experience so many things. It was there that my passion for learning French really grew. I studied French for the first two years while I was at university, and I developed a real interest in the language and the culture of France. I often fantasied about visiting the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay and wandering aimlessly through the streets of Paris, mesmerised by architecture of the city. Yet as we know all too well, my hopes for visiting the beauty of France in 2020 was so very suddenly taken away by the pandemic.

How did you discover Au Pair Butrfly?

So, I continued to apply to various jobs; supermarkets, care homes and call centres and I received no reply. By this point it was late June of 2020 and I had felt like I had exhausted all of my options. Until one day, I decided (like we’ve all done) to take a small break from life and go on YouTube. As I scrolled through videos, I came across a girl who was living in Paris and was talking about her experience as an Au Pair in Paris. I watched her video intrigued by the idea that I could be like her and just live my life in France while working with children. Personally, I had worked a lot with children in Scotland. I worked in primary schools as a teacher’s assistant, I’ve done babysitting on the weekends and even volunteered to be an assistant in a summer school.

My thought was: “I could be just like her”, and without hesitation and quickly clicked my way through Au Pair YouTube videos before stumbling onto the YouTube channel, ‘Au Pair Oh Paris’. Not too long after I found their channel, I then stumbled upon the link to the Au Pair agency, AU PAIR BUTRFLY. As I clicked on the link and viewed the website, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily being an au pair could be if I went through an au pair agency. The website was so well laid out that my intrigue turned into action. It was my dream to live in France and now that I was no longer tied to university I could do it. I truly had nothing to lose.

The process with Au Pair Butrfly

On a whim, I made a profile on AU PAIR BUTRFLY, not really expecting anything to happen right away, but I hoped that something good would come out of it. Less than a week after creating my profile with AU PAIR BUTRFLY, I had an online interview with Manuela, one of the owners of the agency. She talked to me about my motivations to be an au pair, why I wanted to do it, my experience with children, where I would like to stay in France and how long? After answering her questions and having a conversation of how being an au pair with an agency actually worked, I was sent the profile of a few families who were looking for an au pair. It all became so real and exciting, and I was so happy that my dream was coming true. I was happy to move anywhere in France and after speaking to a few families I wholeheartedly agreed to stay with a wonderful family in the beautiful Basque Country in the South-West of France!

Although it wasn’t easy moving to another country giving the nature of the pandemic and as well for me the complications of Brexit, I was so motivated to have a new experience that was outside of Academia. I wanted space to grow and experience a new culture and way of life.

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A short summary of your experience

I have exponentially improved my French and I have met so many lovely people and I have made wonderful friends, which I will also admit – was not easy, especially because of covid-19. But I did it. I made the move I always wanted to. I took a leap of faith and used the skills that I had already developed in Scotland and put them to use as an au pair. I honestly wouldn’t change anything about my experience, and I am more than happy to say that in the face of many challenges, I successfully moved from Scotland to France!