It was a beautiful summer day, the afternoon sun hung above us while floral and sweet aromas lingered in the light breeze.

A four-year-old boy was running through the very green yard with a machete raised above his head. His older brother ran ahead of him, six-years-old, laughing while escaping his sharp reach.

These children, those two boys, were insane. Their parents would let them cut the grass with the riding lawn mower, and when the mother wasn’t around it was hard to have any authority with them.

The boys would throw temper tantrums for ridiculous reasons, like any child I know, but the parents would give in.

The men of the household once took a weekend to cut all of the bamboo in the driveway with machetes, and the boys screamed for a knife.

As an au pair, I would aim to intervene and invite the children to come and play with me. The children would huff and puff- NO! They wanted a knife!

Oh and the battle had just begun. The uncle handed over a machete the size of the young boy’s arm to the youngest.

Within his older brother’s sigh of jealousy, he went crazy, slashing everything in his way, missing his face but consistently staying a threat to himself and others.

He raised the blade and started to chase his older brother when I intervened and grabbed the knife from his hand, claiming that it was not a toy.

He screamed, “STUPIDO!”

I was saved by Nona coming outside, she agreed with my decision and scorned the boys for playing with knives.

Please, don’t give the children the responsibility of threatening objects when they can react with horrifying tantruns to any situation. They loved attacking people randomly, pulling hair, scratching as deep as they could with their nails or screaming as loud as they could in your ear.

Don’t give that kid a knife, okay?  

At this point I realized it wasn’t a culture difference, it was a wealth difference. In the first few weeks I was worried, I did not understand why these parents were so passive with their children.

This six bedroom red mansion dominated the side of a hill in the country, gated and protected by a roti.

There were security cameras and measures taken in each area. But the place was vacant, who was the real threat?

The children wore Armani, drove a collection of battery powered cars and received fifty euros once a week for their allowance.

I used to get a dollar and would be happy as a clam the whole way to the store for some penny candies, but no, these kids had big options and that family wasn’t shy to show it.  

They always had the best, the father being the president of a prominent pharmaceutical company and experienced scuba diver, and his trophy wife (a pharmacist, surprise, surprise) had a pharmacy of her own.

The mother kindly recognized my photography as great,  and told her family about the photos I take. (Thanks.)

Her nephew’s communion was on the horizon and his family had asked me if I could take some photos of their son- which I was thrilled to do, and gain the portrait experience.

The family loved the photos, which they showed with upmost gratitude by inviting me to their son’s communion and celebration afterwards.

All of this was nice, I received a wax sealed invitation enclosed with a copy of their chosen shot. The dinner lasted hours on the top of rolling hills filtered by a heavy fog.

At dinner, I received a small gift for my help, I was on cloud 9, being recognized as a Photographer for the first time, eating the best food I have ever had and having the family hug me and laugh with me into the night.

Amazing.

Then we came back to the house, I began to clean up the toys before bed and such when the mother started to scream at me. She was livid that I had not watched the children while at this dinner, myself, explaining that we had just discussed this was my day off the night before, and apologizing for any misunderstanding.

At this point, I was weeks into my stay with the family and I had not yet received one day off.

But she wouldn’t have it. This is when things started to get really weird.

I strived to stay positive, although my days were crap around the home, my time alone was full of adventure and wanderings- even if I had ‘two hours off in town,’ I would make the very best of it.

One evening after supper, we were playing with the boys outside while the father was working on setting up lawn furniture.

The young boy screamed and screamed for a tool, so the father begrudgingly passed him a wrench.

Fuck.

Within moments the boy was throwing this wrench at his brother’s head, intervening once more, asking for the potentially damaging tool while trying to grab it from him, he whips it at my face.

There was a brief pause soaked in his laughter before blood started to squirt.

Double fuck.

I couldn’t give a shit about his brother at this point, and saving his forehead from the same excruciating pain; it was pain nonetheless and I had to go and tell Nona!

Nona fixed me up, and sent me to bed with a large dinner. The family, aside from the mother, did welcome me and were warm and kind people. 

The next morning, Ladia (the mother) sat me down and informed me that it was “my own stupid self” who let that all happen.

She explained that I should have just let him play with it anyways.

At this point, a seed of resentment that was sowed weeks ago had sprouted into a hateful bitch.

I mean plant.

A delicacy in the Piemonte region is ground beef served with salt, olive oil and RAW.

I tried it once out of courtesy, but explained that it may make me sick- because we don’t eat raw beef in Canada.

She laughed, and understood for the most part. But the seed was only planted then.

Overtime, she began to tell me how attractive she was- myself, believing she was suffering from postpartum-depression, I tried to make her believe what she was saying.

But after the wrench, she hated me. She would only feed raw sausage or beef with dinner, leaving me with a bread only diet for weeks.

At this point, she began to encourage the children to call me a pig, or ‘bruta’ and would even do so herself.

Once, she locked me in my room ‘accidentally.’ I wasn’t here for them, I was a college student ecstatic about traveling Europe while working, I knew it was time to go and find a family that would allow me to have weekends off for travel (which I did, because that is what most families like.)

But even when I called the connection in Torino and asked to change families, I still felt bad for Ladia.

She must have been very sad.

My last day resulted in fighting to be paid for the months I stayed with them, the mother refused, pushing me until the Aunt came to ‘hold her back’ and Papa Paolo escourted me out the door, the two boys oblivious, saying good bye only to have the mother slam the door behind them.

The father apologized the entire way to town, bringing me to the bank and paying me my due wage as an Au Pair.

That night, I slept in a room by a creek that was populated with ribbets from horny frogs- but it didn’t matter, I was out of hell.