The following interview was conducted by Evelyn Poporo, a Grade 11 FHCI English student.
“I moved from Sweden to Canada when I was 19 years old. When I graduated high school, I realized that I had specialized in the wrong career path. I was doing finance, economics… I hated it. I graduated anyways, and then it hit me that I had to start all over. I needed a break from school and needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. A common thing back then in Sweden was for girls to work overseas as a nanny or housekeeper, and that’s what I did. It was my ‘gap year’… but for 27 years. I figured I would just stay for one year to brush up on my English and to get my life sorted out. When I moved it wasn’t hard to make friends as I knew so many other Swedish nannies. However, I was very homesick and the one thing that I missed the most about Sweden was the food. It was hard to adjust to Canadian food. I also had a hard time expressing myself in English; I couldn’t make witty jokes the same way. Luckily, I had a really strong support group. I called my mom every week, my employers were very understanding, and I had a good group of friends. What made me stay in Canada was Domenic, my husband. It was love at first at sight, what can I say… He knew what he wanted, he was gorgeous, and we just clicked. I fell in love. I didn’t want to go back, so I chose to stay for one more year to see how things turned out. Shortly after that, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. So I moved to Canada for good and we got married. Working as a nanny taught me a lot about what I wanted to do. My employers were never around for their kids because of work, and I saw how much they struggled. I knew that when I had kids of my own I would want to stay at home with them and be there for them. I really wanted to be a stay at home mom. After we got married, we started our family right away. Being a mom is what I truly wanted to do with my life and is something that I never regretted. I love my family and my job is to raise them.”
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