The Dream Family
However, there was really no time for disappointment, because the next match was already waiting for me in my account: The family lived in a suburb of Chicago called G.. The host father managed finances at a large trading company, and the mother was actually a qualified interior designer, but wasn’t currently working, instead taking care of the children: twins called Lily and Henry, aged six. My mother found it extremely strange that a woman who didn’t work and only had two children needed a nanny, but to me, it sounded like she was just looking for a helping hand. The working hours were correspondingly moderate. During the week I would work from 3 pm to 8 pm and on the weekend only a few hours in the evening from time to time.
The only thing I found a little frightening was the extensive list of character traits I had to bring with me. The nanny should be: Honest, reliable, patient, friendly, creative, intelligent, career-minded (?!), humorous, self-confident, respectful, level-headed, considerate, enthusiastic with children, organized as well as clean. But perhaps that sounded like more than was really expected – at least I hoped so. Above all, I lacked self-confidence. The good thing, on the other hand, was that I would be the family’s first nanny. This meant that the family would certainly make a lot of effort and I wouldn’t be constantly compared to my predecessors. However, I didn’t realize at the time that it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to ask anyone what the family was like.
Out of sheer curiosity, I immediately googled the address, and according to the internet, my host parents Andrew and Courtney had bought the house for a whopping 1.6 million dollars. G. was near Chicago and considered one of the wealthiest areas in America, with mansion after mansion interspersed with picturesque green parks. Well, that sounded wonderful, at least it promised to be something different from the village I came from, where one drab terraced house nestled next to another. The only park was a run-down playground where the village youths’ drug trade flourished.
Shortly afterwards, an email arrived from Courtney. She had actually intended to call me directly, but the phone connection had fallen victim to a storm at short notice. She would try again soon, however, and in the meantime, she would upload the host family’s complete application so that I could take a look at the photos. It was a picture-perfect family: host parents who, according to my grandma, looked more like movie stars – Andrew reminded her of George Clooney – and beautiful, dapper children, all beaming at the camera in expensive evening wear. The family seemed eager to fulfill every middle-class girl’s idea of the glamorous life of high society.
A small, aging dog completed their happiness. The family was extremely well-educated, liked sports and books. Courtney didn’t enjoy cooking, so they often went out to eat or picked up something from the delicatessen. That was fine with me. There were four bedrooms and three bathrooms on the second floor of the house, and a dining room, living room, family room, kitchen, pantry, and dressing room on the first floor. In the basement you could find the guest room, which was much larger than my current one, a private bathroom, a laundry room, two games rooms, a TV room, and a gym. The whole thing sounded like every nanny’s dream come true: nice parents, cute children, my own floor in a beautiful house all to myself, and then the icing on the cake: Chicago.
What others had predicted seemed to come true; the dream match was only found after several attempts. This time I really wanted the family to choose me, and I had to have several cups of Bach flower tea before the first phone call. Nothing should go wrong! I feverishly wrote a short novel of questions and keywords for the conversation, and nervously waited for the phone to ring. It rang punctually at four o’clock sharp German local time, exactly as Courtney had announced, as if there was no time change to worry about. My heart rate was approaching heart attack levels as I shakily reached for the receiver.
But the conversation went very well. Courtney sounded friendly and laughed often. She told me that there were many nannies in the neighborhood and that they had always wanted one, but initially thought it wouldn’t work because they couldn’t provide a car (they could only fit two in the garage, and in G. it wasn’t allowed to have one on the street). When they found out that a car wasn’t a requirement, they signed up right away and were delighted to have found me. We eventually moved on to small talk. I talked about my hobbies and my relatives in Canada until she had to hang up because Henry and Lily were demanding her attention. The conversation finally convinced me that I had found the perfect match. I had found my perfect family! Now they just had to want me…
Courtney and I continued to email extensively and regularly, nurturing my hope that she would choose me. My many questions were met with a positive response, Courtney was pleased with my interest and the effort I was making to find out everything I needed to know. Her application stated that she and Andrew went out of town two to three times a year to have some time to themselves. But Courtney assured me that they would never be away for more than two nights, and as nannies were only allowed to work ten hours at a time, an extra babysitter would come over in the evenings.
“You are welcome to go on family trips, as well as to church every Sunday, but of course, you are not obliged to go. It would just be great if you could motivate the children to do so. They often cry and don’t want to go. But otherwise, you have Sundays off.” According to her, it was particularly important that I had energy, respected the parents and the way they treated the children, and that I was patient, kind, creative, as well as motivated. Parties in the house were not welcome, but I was allowed to have a few friends over and watch DVDs with them in the basement. They would make sure that I could go to college and even drive me to the train if necessary. They would usually go out for dinner on Friday nights, otherwise there would be lots of sporting activities, or they would do things in the city with the children. With six playgrounds around the house, there was plenty of variety. As AP suggested that the nanny should be home ten hours before the start of working hours, she thought a curfew from midnight would be appropriate. “But if you let me know exactly who you’re meeting and where we can relax that again.”
She also described the suburb of G., which was on Lake Michigan and therefore had a beach, as well as coffee shops, restaurants, banks, a grocery store, and a women’s shoe store with brands like Prada and Armani. So it was good to know that I didn’t have to miss out on my favorite designers. Around G. there were even more restaurants, malls, and the Botanic Gardens. As the third-largest city in the USA, Chicago itself offered many cultural opportunities.
In return, I was also asked a few questions. Whether I drank alcohol and if so, what types and how much, whether I had a boyfriend, how long I usually went out with friends, as there was not much going on in G. in the evenings, what I liked to eat, what I liked to cook, whether I saw myself as clean and tidy, whether I liked the kitchen tidy, what I would do with the children on a rainy day, what character traits I considered important in my friends, how my friends would describe me, what I usually did during the first two days of a trip, what college courses I would like to take and how I would deal with the children arguing with each other. I had never thought about most of these questions before. How did my friends describe me?
I took a lot of time to answer their questions in detail, but with my oral A-level exams coming up soon, this was unfortunately limited. Courtney was very understanding and wrote that she didn’t want to stop me from studying. But I did everything I could to keep in touch. I found out that Andrew had just been in Cologne on a business trip and thought the architecture was beautiful and the schnitzel delicious. Henry liked listening to the Beatles, reading Harry Potter, and wished he could watch Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters. Lily liked High School Musical, fairies, and cupcakes. It would be wonderful if I could bake and create desserts with her. Lily also loved listening to Bob Dylan and The Cure. Not bad for a girl of just six. Andrew preferred indie music, and she listened to Phoenix, Depeche Mode, New Order, and The Smiths. Her favorite book was be The Help, and she also liked the movie “Little Miss Sunshine”.
Margaret, a friend of hers, was having a very good experience with her first nanny from Germany, but many other women had to deal with party girls who drank all night and slept with numerous men, something that made her very nervous. If she could have witnessed my non-existent success with the opposite sex for just one day, she would probably have laughed at herself.
So far, they had only been to Minneapolis, Boston, Massachusetts, and Phoenix with the children, which is why she really missed traveling. She herself had lived with a host family in Italy for a while and loved Europe, as well as California. Andrew liked New York, and they were all going on vacation to Disney World in Orlando in June. She had studied German for four years in high school, but due to the teacher’s low expectations and her low level of proficiency, she was unfortunately still at the language level of a three-year-old, which she was very sorry about.
She wrote nicely and in detail throughout, with an impressively high smiley density, which made her emails seem friendly and surprisingly youthful. Did I mention that this was my absolute dream family?
After many bytes of information and questions sent back and forth, another step towards realizing my dream finally followed. She had the impression that I would fit in very well with her family, and it would be nice if we spoke on the phone again. My euphoria could not have been any greater. However, a new email from AP, which arrived on the day of my oral A-level exam in History of all days, burst the happy balloon with a loud crash. The cheerfully flashing icon above my account informed me that I had received a new match offer. Which in turn meant that Andrew and Courtney must have rejected me after all. I was blindsided, as all the signs had been so good!
Completely perplexed, I opened the new match, and my mood plummeted with every line I read. The new host mother was a professor at a university and had already written several books on feminism and security studies. She was from Germany, which is why I was supposed to speak German with the two girls (two and five, which was not at all the age range I wanted). So much for improving my English and the American way of life. The man was a high school teacher and came from Liberia. I would have to work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., but there was no TV in the house because television would be harmful, as would too many toys and anything that could distract the children! The eldest went to a Waldorf school and the teachings from there would also be strictly implemented at home. So what would be most important would be my ingenuity, I should do handicrafts, make music, and generally be extremely creative in order to have a good influence on the children. Would it suit me if they called briefly on the weekend? Unfortunately, I was anything but an expert in Waldorf education, but in my imagination, I could already see myself singing and dancing around the house of an extremely strict university professor. No, that wasn’t at all what I was looking for.
Disappointed, I wrote Courtney an email saying that I very much regretted their decision and why they had decided to keep looking. As if that wasn’t enough, I had to turn off the computer and head to my exam. I wasn’t exactly in the best mood to lecture on the wars and revolutions, as I already felt as if the guillotine was hovering over me. Somehow, however, I managed to get through the whole thing and had a second positive surprise in addition to passing with top marks. On my return, an email from Courtney was waiting for me. AP had made a mistake: they hadn’t wanted to take me out, but on the contrary, had wanted to hire me! They had actually chosen me as a nanny. Courtney apologized several times for the confusion and promised to call the program director immediately to reverse the mistake and make their decision official. Everyone would be very excited to meet me. I had made it.
Write an application? Checked off.
Find a dream match? Checked off.
Be chosen by my dream family? Ticked off.
I couldn’t have been happier! If only I could have flown tomorrow to start my new life. Shortly thereafter, the confirmation email from AP arrived that the family was expecting me on August 20. I jumped all over the house and told everyone who wanted to hear and everyone who didn’t about my good fortune.