A Different Kind of Tough Love: The Au Pair Who Reinterpreted Two Generations of Mother’s Love
- While my husband and I fold faster than a law firm with federal contracts, Maureen is just not afraid of my children’s tears.
If someone had told me before I became a parent that one of the greatest lessons I could teach my child was disappointment, I would have stopped speaking to that sociopath.
But here I am, the mother of two young children—too young by societal standards for this Gen Xer—having that epiphany. This is hardly a hot take. Setting aside the millennial obsession with “gentle parenting” and loving boundaries, I remember a time when my mother’s glare would stop me in my tracks. My kids? They mirror the death stare comically or with double the vigor.
I’m not sure whether to feel sheepish or awestruck that I’ve only recently learned about the gift of no from our Gen Z au pair who came to live with us 16 months ago. Maureen is from a small city in northern France. Blonde-haired and green-eyed, she threw us for a loop when she told us she was a practicing Muslim who only ate halal food. Her English, barely passable upon arrival, is nearly impeccable now. The bond she has with my kids is heartwarming. The love is evident and yet, she can be the embodiment of a velvet hammer.
If, in fact, persistence pays off in life, then my children will thrive in whatever dystopia they inherit. For the time being, it’s my husband and me who are enduring their incessant pleas and tantrums in an insatiable pursuit of candy and cupcakes. But while we fold faster than a law firm with federal contracts, Maureen stands firm in the face of threats—effortlessly. She’s just not afraid of my children’s tears or of making them feel like a promise was broken. The latter is maddening as someone who is dealing with perimenopause brain fog. Did I promise they could have Oreos after dinner? I wonder.
Sadly, she will be leaving us this summer to continue her graduate studies back home. She is our fourth au pair and the one who has stayed the longest. Now, we are faced with the reality of her imminent departure and the task of looking for our next child-rearing partner.
By contrast, when Maureen says no, their mutiny ends not with an explosion but with a small puff of smoke. In doing so, she is teaching my kids that the world will not bend to their will and that life is full of disappointments. It is what it is, she says without actually saying it, teaching them radical acceptance. In psychology, “radical acceptance” means accepting situations as they are, even if they are unfair or painful.
Sadly, she will be leaving us this summer to continue her graduate studies back home. She is our fourth au pair and the one who has stayed the longest. Now, we are faced with the reality of her imminent departure and the task of looking for our next child-rearing partner. Last weekend, as we were cruising the au pair agency’s website for who would take her place, Maureen was in the room.
“Mommy, she knows gymnastics!” my daughter exclaimed upon seeing photos of one candidate. Initially, Maureen was keen on looking at some of the profiles with us as we played the videos and she recognized some of the accents. After a few moments, she quietly disappeared, and my maternal instincts led me upstairs, where I found her sitting on the floor of her sun-drenched bedroom, scrolling through her iPhone.
“Hey,” I said gently, and she looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. I sat down and gave her a long hug.
“I will have only one host family, but you will have many au pairs,” she sobbed.
My heart sank as she explained that the ease with which we were searching for her replacement made her feel dispensable. She wondered aloud how we could have the fortitude to do that. What I wanted to tell her was that as a mom with a demanding career, I have to radically accept that there will be a carousel of caretakers helping us balance work and parenting. I wanted to tell her that as their parents, my husband and I have to make our children resilient so that they can accept that change is constant. Ironically, her ability to hold the line with the gift of no is only rivaled by our power to cushion the turbulence of transience.
The women who have touched my children’s hearts and helped us rear them leave an imprint on all of us, and for that, they can never be forgotten. The season of our lives that brought her into our orbit is ending, and that reality gives whole new meaning to the concept of “tough love.”
Kiran Khalid is a freelance writer and Vice President of the South Asian Journalists Association. With over 15 years of experience as an award-winning correspondent and producer, she has worked for major broadcast outlets including CNN and Good Morning America. Shortly after 9/11, Kiran was on the ground in Pakistan, where she gained rare access to a madrassa to report on what many presumed were “terrorist breeding grounds.” A decade later, she returned to Pakistan to fill in for CNN International’s bureau chief in Islamabad. Most recently, she worked at Edelman, the world’s largest public relations firm, advising clients across the energy sector on climate change issues. Kiran made history as the first Pakistani-American broadcast journalist when she debuted on-air at KZTV, the CBS affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two children.