My mom’s cancer is coming back. I have just been told by my family back in China a week ago. She was doing fine for a year and half after the operation and chemotherapy. This time, the survival chance is slim. She is just 56.
I keep thinking about this day and night, voluntarily or involuntarily. Why? Why her? In the end I could only blame the genes, because it’s not just her in our family. It’s my grandfather, my uncle, me and maybe my grandmother as well, so far. I have friends about my age who is having or about to have burn out from work, kids and housework. They talk about how tired they are, how they would like to take a break like my husband just did, and how they really couldn’t. I also have friends who have taken a year or so to spend more time with kids, family, travel, personal health and hobbies, and nobody ever regretted that. Before my husband took a break from work, he hesitated a lot. He worried mostly about not being able to find a job that could match his current one, both financially and intellectually. His body persuaded him. It has been giving him signals for years. We did the math about not having any income for a year and cut down some very marginal and neglectable expenses. We were very worried and felt insecure and unsure before we made the decision, but after the decision was made, we were fine. The sky didn’t fall. Life didn’t change, well, it actually changed a lot, but for the better. He got tons of time to nurture both his body and soul, to bond with kids. It’s nice to be able to enjoy this incredibly rare September/October sun in Seattle, to look forward to the 2-month long stay with our family in Europe. When I just had kids, I dreamed about traveling around the world with my husband after kids would have gone to college. I drooled on the travel magazine pictures where stylish silver-haired couples strolling down a cobblestone alley hand in hand, and I comforted myself in pajamas and tangled oily hair: “There is time. There is hope. Just be patient.” Then I learned about the health news of myself, of my mother, and of my husband, and in my early 30s, I realized that there might not be time. I might not be able to live till silver-haired or the retirement. The happy empty-nester life after retirement is not a guarantee that comes with time. So many other things could come with time, or even before time. I am not afraid of aging. I am afraid of ailing, at a young age. And for the first time in my life, I start to understand “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, both in its literal and metaphoric sense.
1 Comment
Lots of families have asked me about our experience with au pairs, especially those who have never hosted one. So I think I’ll just write it down.
First of all, I would like to say that the experience is extremely personal, and there are lots of factors that can affect one’s au pair experience, so just keep your mind open. We have only hosted three au pairs but before that we had hosted a live-in nanny who flew from China for half a year which went pretty well. All of our au pairs were rematch au pairs, meaning that they had been with another family and things didn’t work out quite well, so they went into rematch and looked for another family, which is totally normal. Both au pairs and host families can initiate the rematch. I actually prefer rematch au pairs or extension au pairs (after successfully completing one year, the au pair could extend for another 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or 12 months) because it saves the host family lots of time and some money. 1st, you don’t need to book an international ticket for the au pair to fly her or him to the US from her or his home country. 2nd, you don’t need to spend time and energy to open bank account, apply for social security number etc for the au pair because s/he will very likely has got one after a period of time in the US. These are the very first things that a host family needs to do with the au pair. 3rd, if the au pair has already got a US driver’s license, that’s even better. It saves tons of time, energy and money! 4th, the au pair has already got some experience about working for a host family, no matter good or bad, so it’s very different from a freshly-landed au pair from abroad. Now I know that there are lots of families who prefer to have au pairs who are looking for their first host family, and there are lots of advantages too. Just choose what you want. Our first au pair is from Brazil, and rematched with us from California. That was at the peak of Covid, and we competed with about 40 families to get her, only for her to leave us in two months to get married. I understand her motives and everything but that was still a very stressful experience. Luckily we were not discouraged by this experience and continued our hosting journey. After a couple of months, we rematched with a Mexican au pair who was working for a family in Seattle. We were specifically looking for an au pair who was already in Seattle because there was no Covid vaccines yet and we didn’t want someone to take the plane from elsewhere to live with us. So we met up with this lady in a park to have a chat, and we had good impressions about each other. I have to mention that even after rounds of emails, phone calls, video chats, and even face-to-face interviews, it can still be very hard for me to imagine how it would be to have a total stranger to live in your house, and I have heard that is probably the most scary part to host an au pair, to have someone that you don’t know living in your house and share basically everything together. I understand that it is a big leap for lots of people. For me it was never too hard, probably because I had been an Airbnb host before and we were happy to share some common spaces with the guests. Also, the live-in nanny from China helped with the comfort and confidence as well. “What if it doesn’t work out?” That’s the question in many people’s mind. Well, if it doesn’t work out, you try again and look for another au pair, or you quit the program. There will be some loss of money and time and energy, but then you have tried. And that’s it. So back to our 2nd au pair, she stayed with us for almost 1 year until she could no longer stay in the US and had to go back to Mexico. Au pairs can only stay in the US for 2 years, and during Covid, there was an extra 6 month extension. As any relationship, there were ups and downs during this experience but in general, it was great, and we were very grateful for her help. She was very good with kids, especially younger ones. She took care of our son from 1 year old to 2 years old and she loved him as her own son. She spoke almost exclusively Spanish to him and his word was “aqua”, the Spanish word for water. She was also a good cook, enthusiastically making Mexican food as much as she could. In this way, she definitely shared her own culture with us and passed her love for Mexican food to the kids. Our kids loved tacos, quesadillas, guacamole and lentil soup for example. She was happy and optimistic in nature. She loved singing and dancing, and making friends, and taught the kids many Spanish songs. She made friends with a local nanny who took care of a boy about our son’s age and they quickly became best friends and had playdates every week. This was essential to our son because as a pandemic baby, he couldn’t socialize normally with other kids and had very few friends of his age. I could go on for pages about the good little things she did to our family. I have just actually written a recommendation letter for her to use for job-hunting in Mexico. But even that, it was not all rosy and it never started very smoothly from the beginning. There are lots of things to get used to each other, for the au pair, the host parents, the kids, etc. I remember those difficult moments too. The key to stick it out is in my opinion open communication and mutual respect and support. I cannot stress that enough. An an pair is not a maid, but a family-member, who helps out with the childcare, shares his or her culture, but is also respected and given his or her own time and space. Coming from China, I know this is very different from an a-yi that many Chinese families use in China, who helps out with almost anything from childcare to housework to cooking. I have learnt a lot from hosting au pairs, about how to communicate with others, how to deal with conflicts, especially when it involves the most precious things in the world for you: your own children. I think I have grown so much as a person. It’s also very enlightening to get feedback from someone outside the family about parenting etc. It is true that with one more person in your house, you have more to think about, and maybe a little bit more inevitable problems to deal with, but the benefits to both the adults and the children far outweighs that I think. So when we got our third au pair I think I was a bit more ready than before. She is from China and rematched with us after a few months with a family in California. She will finish her first year with us soon, and it’s sad to let her go because we are leaving the au pair program. Nothing wrong with the program or her, but our life plans change and will take a break from the program. It’s a lot easier in some way to have a Chinese au pair with whom I can speak my mother language which definitely facilitate the communication. We share the same culture and there’re so many things to tell from a hand gesture, a frown, or a smile. My older kid already speaks fluently Mandarin, but it definitely helped my little one to be fluent in Mandarin as well. Meal wise it’s also easier because we could share most of the food. But there are also downsides to host an au pair from the home country of one or both host parents. The core value of the au pair program is to promote cultural exchange and I think that’s also the most beautiful part of it, to experience another culture while staying in your own home. You kind of lose that to have an au pair from your own country, but I think in most cases, it’s for the kids to keep up the language that the parent speaks, and that’s already enough reason to have an au pair. I just feel sorry that our Chinese au pair could not use English as much as she wants, because Mandarin is the dominate language in our house when it involves childcare. So now that she’s looking for her next host family, I really wish she could find a good, if not better one, and I am wiling to help. I’ve been keeping contact with our 2nd au pair and I hope to do so with our 3rd or future au pair as well. Our kids remember dearly each au pair as well. They will always be regarded as a family member who could visit us any time they want, and hopefully we could also visit their own country when possible. Last summer, I wrote in a post about the multi-lingual education in our family: “If we cannot travel to other countries for another year, and Alicia missed the kindergarten cutoff date by being just a few days younger, I think we better use this year to learn something new. Learning other languages seems to be an easy, though unsatisfying compensation for not being able to travel.”
Today I attended my daughter’s graduation from the Japanese preschool! I think I was more excited as the parent witnessing her child’s first graduation than my daughter herself who was experiencing the first graduation in her life. I was excited because I had been looking forward to this day for a long time so that I could say to my daughter and myself: We made it! I felt such a relief because there were days that were so tough, days that she hated going there and I doubted my decision to send her to a Japanese preschool. But the most I felt was the pride for her. As the only child who joined the preschool with almost zero knowledge of Japanese, whose parents are not Japanese and can not speak Japanese, I couldn’t imagine how it felt to be in that Japanese-only preschool during the beginning months. Yes I believed and am still believing that children learn a new language pretty fast, but this don’ts mean that it is not difficult at all, especially for a 5-year-old child compared to an infant or a toddler. She had no chance to practice what she learned at the preschool, because we don’t speak Japanese in the house, and there’s no social environment either. We tried our best to arrange play dates with her Japanese class mates, but we, or at least I, could only communicate in English. I felt bad about it, so I finally started to learn Japanese by myself a few months ago. I made some progress and had some “ah-ha” moments, but it was a really slow process. At least I could read some Japanese and practice the graduation songs with her. As it says that it takes a whole village to raise children, and that definitely includes the part of language learning. It will never work if the child is the only person in the family learning the language, and it will probably not last long if the child speaks the language only within the family. It needs to be a community, if not a society. But that all depends on your goal. Do you want your children to master that language, or are you fine with exposing him/her to the language and culture without mastering but probably kindling a lifelong interest that s/he can explore on her own at adulthood? After a year’s journey of learning Japanese, my daughter will start kindergarten in the local English public school. Her Japanese is far from fluent and we probably will not continue any Japanese learning, but this year of adventure has surely taught my daughter and myself many things that will unfold further as time rolls by. I might continue my self-study of Japanese. The little brother has also picked up some Japanese as he listens to and watches his big sister with a strong interest. And we will definitely visit Japan again as soon as it opens to tourists. I cannot believe that I am so late to this game of home exchange which has existed for over half a century! If you love traveling and want to travel more economically especially if you have kids or a large group, home exchange might be the perfect solution for you! What is home exchange? Wikipedia has summarized it well: “Home exchange, also known as house swapping, is a form of lodging in which two parties agree to offer each other homestays for a set period of time. Since no monetary exchange takes place, it is a form of barter, collaborative consumption, and sharing. Home exchange can cover any type of residence including apartments, houses, holiday cottages, boats, or recreational vehicles. It can include an exchange of the entire home or just a room. The length of the swap can vary from a weekend to over a year. The swap can be simultaneous or non simultaneous. Home exchanges are usually arranged via specific types of social networking services, most of which charge a fee.” The fee is usually an annual membership fee which is right now around USD 100, nothing to compare with the hefty fee charged by Airbnb or VRBO for each transaction. Some networks offer the ability to collect a security deposit which will be released if no loss happens. The two oldest and dominant home exchange networks are Home Link and Home Exchange. In 1953 a group of European teachers looking to travel internationally economically during their summer breaks. That same year, teacher David Ostroff created a home exchange network called "Vacation Exchange Club" (now HomeLink) in New York City. In 1992, Ed Kushins started what is now HomeExchange.com after a home exchange experience in Washington D.C. In 1995, he moved the business to the internet. But I got into this business because of a new network called People Like Us which was started in 2018 by an Australian couple who wanted to travel overseas for three to six months at a time to improve their language skills and live the local life. It is claimed to be “the friendliest home exchange community in the world” and has a very supportive and active Facebook group where the founder is available for questions almost any time. I am a member on both People Like Us (PLU) and Home Exchange (HE), and I would like to share a beginner’s view about these two networks. However zealous me and thousands of others feel about home exchange, it is not for every one. I couldn’t believe that I had paid $400 per night on Airbnb over the years while we could have basically stayed at others’ homes for free. But not really for free, because rule No.1: in order to stay at others’ homes, you need to first or at the same time offer your home to others. It took me two years talking my husband into this home exchanging idea, which is, as I learnt later talking to other people, quite normal. I got it. Home is a private place, your sanctuary, full of your personal collections and treasures. Ask yourself or your partner hard about what really bothers you if opening up your home to strangers. It really boils down to the question of trust and a very valid question. All the networks have been trying hard to assure their users that they are covered if anything happens. There are tons of tips as how to select your exchange partners, but the key word is always communication: email, or video chats. Read through their profiles, look through the home pictures. Do your work, lots of work. So yes, home exchanging requires lots of time to do research, sending inquires and following up before finalizing. It’s not rare that you have to send 50 inquires before getting any positive response. If you need something within a week for sure, go for the hotel or Airbnb, because finalizing a home exchange can take months. HE has a much larger network, with homes almost everywhere. We found a house there at a beach town in Alicante area in Spain for a week, after trying fruitlessly at PLU, but I got valuable recommendations about places to go in Alicante from a local PLU member and we actually met up together with another local PLU member for a short afternoon. So for our family: HE=more useful; PLU=more friendly. But if you are empty-nesters and are not bound by time or destination, PLU would probably be enough. HE is much easier to get you started in the home exchanging game. When you sign up and complete the profile of your home, you will get loads of Guest Points (GP) from HE which you can use to “pay” to stay at someone else’s home without having someone else staying at your home at the same time. GP is the core of the concept for HE. Every home is assigned a value of GP based on many factors and the amount of GP you would “pay” to stay at a home is the nightly GP multiplied by the number of nights, unless it’s a simultaneous swap where no GP would be involved. You can purchase a limited amount of GP if your GP is not enough to stay at a home. I personally think GP is very convenient, but PLU wants to stay away from any kind of monetary-like system, so it introduces the concept of “globes”. Globes were rewarded to the first group of paid members only so the definite number of “globes” is very limited and does not change unless the founder decides to release more globes to the network. If you want to host someone but does not go to their home, you could earn a globe from them instead - if they have a globe and are willing to offer it. Reality is that not many people have globes, and because they are so rare, people only want to offer their globes to more exotic places instead of within the country. So PLU introduced another two concepts to address that problem:
HE works in a much similar way as Airbnb regarding booking and reviewing. Most people update their availability regularly and it’s easy to book. Video chats are usually not involved but they are pretty common on PLU. In the case of cancellation, HE team would offer help to find you a home within 50 miles (pretty large radius) or offer you $200 per night. Though usually not satisfactory for many users, it’s much better than PLU in my personal opinion where no systematic help would be offered except for the super friendly community of the PLU Facebook group who would offer their homes if available. But again, it’s hard to match the requirements of the original seekers of home exchange. But PLU is still so young and it has achieved acknowledgment in a stunning way. I know some people who have downsized their home exchange networks to just PLU.
I don’t have experience with Home Link and I think two networks are enough for our family. Airbnb also has a Facebook group dedicated to users who would like to swap their Airbnbs, and the Facebook group of world schooling families offers some house swap opportunities too, usually for a longer period and very family-friendly. So definitely join those groups if you are interested in home exchange. There are dozens of small questions to get informed before your first home exchange of course, feel free to ask me in the comments or answers are usually easy to find on the websites of the networks or their Facebook groups. Friendly warning: once you start it, there’s probably no way back to hotels or Airbnbs. Bonus: if you decide to sign up at HE, use my referral code to get both you and me some extra points! pingping-e7133 Home exchange veterans: as I mentioned above, I am a beginner. If there's anything that needs to be corrected, please kindly let me know in the comments, or simply share your opinions and experiences! |