ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that it is important to take all recorded motivations at face value and try to identify some logic behind apparently diverse reasons to migrate. The economic and social difficulties accompanying the post-socialist transformation and differences in salaries between the home and host countries are an obvious point, which is made both by researchers and by the au pairs themselves. The idea of a 'natural' capitalist development relates to the concept of the 'free market', which is commonly depicted as a 'natural' and impersonal mechanism or means of coordination. The fact that narratives of transformation can be linked to consumption reinforces the discourse of the socialist era as a rupture and failure through everyday experiences and interpretations of material culture. The neo-liberal narratives of transformation described above are coupled with the importance of experiences and skills ascribed to the West and capitalism.
