Tips for Au Pairs Returning Home
Re-Entry into Your Home Culture
Extensive observations of people returning to their home culture following an experience in another culture, such as foreign students, Peace Corps volunteers, and diplomats, have shown that there are three phases to the process:
- Preparing to leave and actually saying good-bye
- Transition, including travel and greeting friends and relatives at home
- Settling in and feeling like you belong at home again
The easiest of these is of course, the middle one. The first and last are more difficult. You should give some time thinking about and planning for these phases.
Preparing to Leave Your American Host Family and Friends
An important part of preparing to leave is evaluating what the experience in the United States has been like for you. Reflect on your year. Think of the three best things and the three worst things that have happened during the past year. Write down your thoughts, you will value them in future years.
Think about some specific plans for saying good-bye to your American host family. Some ideas might be:
- Planning a family party
- Preparing a meal for your American family
- Re-visiting some favorite places
- Repeating favorite games/activities with the children
- Taking pictures
- Making little keep sakes as good-bye presents
- Planning to write letters or make occasional telephone calls to your American family,
possibly inviting them to visit you.
Settling In and Feeling You Belong in Your Home Culture
When people return home from overseas, they can behave in one of three typical ways. These behavior patterns are similar to those displayed when one first enters a host culture. As you think about these potential patterns, remember your own attitudes and behavior of a year ago when you first reacted to the American culture.
Alienation: You may react negatively to your home culture, rejecting its attitudes, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns. In this case, it is important to realize that you may have become so accustomed to life in the United States that you do not realize you are again in a state of transition and are experiencing the stress of re-adjustment. This pattern can be reinforced if you find that your friends and relatives are not very interested in what your American experience has been like, or if you find that the people you left behind have also made significant personal changes.
Reversion: You may deny important personal changes that have taken place during this year and immediately try to fit back into your home culture as the same person you were before you left home. This pattern may be inadvertently reinforced by your friends and relatives, since this is the person they remember you were before you left for the United States.
Integration: Hopefully you will try to integrate your changes into the home environment and develop a new and expanded identity. In this case, you will come to accept the fact that you are in transition between two cultures and continue to learn through this process, as you did when entering the United States a year ago. You will seek to understand the changes that have taken place within yourself and in the home environment during the past year. Here, the re-entry can be a growth experience, but often one that involves considerable doubt and contradiction at first.
Anticipate the kinds of conversations you will have on returning home between yourself and your parent; between yourself and your siblings; between yourself and your old friends.
Think about what is realistic and unrealistic to expect for change or no change in these relationships.
Remember that saying good-bye is always hard. For some, being angry is easier than feeling the pain of sadness and loss. But the good-byes you say now to your family and friends need not be final ones. There is always email, the phone, and mail to enable you to keep in touch!
