An American au pair in Italy cut her time short with a family when she saw too many red flags and decided to leave in the middle of the night. A TikToker by the name of Ella Katherine shared a five-part story about why she left her host family’s house without warning. She also shared why her time as the au pair lasted less than a week after spending $1,000 on a plane ticket to the country.
Ella’s first video about leaving her host family’s Italy house under the cover of darkness, in the wee hours of the morning, shows her journey from gathering her bags to making it all the way to the airport more than five hours before her flight home.
She doesn’t explain much, except that she “needs to get out.” Afterward, she posted a series of TikToks under her handle, @ellarkatherine, to explain what happened with her host family and why she felt the need to leave so suddenly and without actually telling the host parents how she felt.
She says that her arrangement with the family, made through the host mom, who was the only English-speaking member of the family, went smoothly until she actually moved into the family’s home in Italy. According to Ella, she was given chores and tasks that weren’t outlined beforehand, and if she failed to immediately meet the expectations of the host mom, she was called out in an uncomfortable way.
Ella also explains the “language barrier” that made for some awkward conversations, or lack thereof, with the host dad. The former au pair admits that being in the house and living there as the au pair was not what she had expected when she made the plans to move to Italy. Although other people in the comments under her videos called out her “red flags” for simply being “culture shock,” Ella does explain some other uncomfortable instances with the family that led to her leaving unexpectedly.
On the Friday of her first and only week in Italy, during her time off, Ella says in one of her videos that when the host mom came home to see her reading in the living room, she got upset with Ella.
“She comes into the living room and proceeds to raise her voice at me,” Ella explains in the clip. “She was not happy that I was sitting there reading. She asked me why the host dad was doing everything, why I wasn’t helping him cook dinner, why I didn’t bathe [the son], why I wasn’t playing with him, why I wasn’t cleaning up his toys, all of these things. And I was just honestly confused. I apologized, because that’s just what I do. I apologized, I said, ‘I’m sorry. Like, this is maybe a miscommunication. I thought that I had off.'”
@ellarkatherine Replying to @bannahhannah0 ♬ original sound – Ella Katherine
After Ella made the decision to leave and go back home to the US, she didn’t want to tell the host parents. She explains in her video that she “didn’t feel safe” and that she was “uncomfortable” with a lot of things that happened during her week there. Although Ella says she made the right choice for herself, the comments on TikTok show a different perspective.
One user commented under part five of the series, “She raised her voice twice+?? She’s Italian sweety. That’s how they talk 😂.”
Another advised, “Please don’t work as an au pair ever again. You didn’t feel safe really? This is not for you. Doesn’t matter how annoying the mom was, it was very unprofessional to leave without any explanation.”
