The Battle of the Pox

The constant tap dance between transient, unclear boundaries is the unwritten law that permeates all aspects of la vie d'une fille au pair. The family you live with is your employer, your landlord, and all the while acting as your surrogate family while living thousands of miles and a major body of water away from friends, family and the only life you've ever know. Needless to say, things can get complicated.

Benji's chicken pox, for example, has been major point of contention in the house. Getting into his pyjamas Tuesday night, I noticed the first fateful red blister on his chest. My heart was breaking for him because he had his first grade holiday concert the next morning, as well as Marc's work's party for kids, sure to be amazing with its $300,000 budget...but obviously you can't send a contagious kid to school or a party with 400 other small children. I called Michelle, expecting a full-fledged panic response. She was shockingly calm, and didn't make a big deal of it. I was instructed to tell Benji that "we can't be sure it is chicken pox, it could be eczema or something else.....we just don't know." I understood what she was up to, wanting to send Benji to school for his concert regardless of his pox. She conspired with me later, asking, "Meggie what should we do, do you think we can let him go?"

Uhhhh......asking me as a friend, an employee or innocent bystander? Rationally I knew that it would be best to keep him home, but I knew the answer she wanted to hear. I replied, "Oh, I'm sure it's OK for him to go for his concert.....if he's contagious he's already been at school for 2 days and the other kids are gonna catch it anyways." Abandoning better judgement for the sake of my employers' motherly compassion.....it's all in a days work.

The party went off without a hitch, the kids were adorable, and thankfully Benji hadn't sprouted pox on any uncovered parts of his body. During the concert I was relegated to servitude, Michelle asking me, "if I wanted to take some video," which in au pair world means "you will spend the next 45 minutes crouched in the back zooming in on my sons potentially pocky face, because he is the most brilliant and wonderful child in this entire class, if not the entire world."

It wasn't until we got back to the house that the merde hit the fan. I trotted upstairs like a good little au pair, to make the requisite healthy lunch of steamed vegetables and rice. All of a sudden, histrionics hell breaks loose. Both kids screaming and crying, and Michelle yelling to Marc that "all kids get it sooner or later, just let him go to the god damn party!". The mood was tense when they all came upstairs, each teary eyed kid clinging to their respective parent. Then the firing squad turns on me. "Est-ce qu'il avait ces boutons ce matin? ( Did he have all these spots this morning?")

Rock, hard place, ME! To tell the truth and get Marc pissed at Michelle, and subsequently Michelle pissed at me? Or to lie to my boss in the name of keeping peace and order in the household? Call me a bad person, but I chose that latter. "Non, il avait seulment un ou deux, pas si beaucoup comme ça (He only had one or two, not a lot like now). My first lie to my employer/landlord/pseud0-father, out of necessity, loyalty and respect to my pseud0-mother... and hopefully the only mensonge I will be forced to tell for the entire year.