by KristinaJ

Created on: July 01, 2010   Last Updated: July 16, 2010

I took a gap year and exchanged one year of my university studies for nursery ones. My job? To be always positive, no swing moods, no visible signs of tiredness. Smile. Big smile. I am here for fun, therefore I should have constantly new ideas for activities as well as enthusiasm to dance, sing or draw. My name can be synonymous with ‘a living toy’. Whatever. That is why I am here.

Yes, I am an au-pair with a 2-year-old girl to look after. I share her world and in return, she respects my ‘NO’. I can say that I know her. However, her own parents not. They have difficulties to understand her pronunciation and struggle with their impatience while trying to entertain her. Seriously, how difficult it is to observe your own child and find a way to keep her content?

I keep seeing her falling, crying and being grumpy. They rather spend hours in front of the TV than reading a book for her. After playing with their offspring for two hours, they simply fall asleep.  Why should their bother if she hurts herself? Predicting situations in order to keep a child happy is not their strongest feature neither. And they call themselves parents…

That is something that I do not understand. Why do some people have children if they are not able to spend time with them? It is so painful for them when their parents are not even trying to pay attention. Not all the time – they have me for that. For 24 hours. A week.

It is worth mentioning 5-year-old boy of their family friend. He is not shy at all, but still considered as a baby by his mother. This little one is not allowed to do literally anything and if he is, his mom is watching him as if he is about to cause a catastrophe. Well, it is still better, but what is the result? This boy is permanently facing criticism of his mother, no praises, only falsely blaming. In fact, she is not even watching him.

I happened to be in the situation where above-mentioned boy kept looking at me to help him out. He was blamed again, for something he did not do and was totally unimportant. He knew that his mom would not listen to him, but she did not listen to me either. I did not even manage to finish the sentence and she merrily switched into her native language, so that I could not understand.

How come parents do not see their mistakes? It is so sad to watch these children being constantly ignored. There is no reason to have a child if you cannot really enjoy being a parent. There are not the toys, nor expectations of society. There are unheard now, but later it can be you who will be overlooked by your own child. So please, go and let them feel your love!

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