The Exchange Student Who Wasn’t.
Last week, I ran across a message on our local FCC email list that said there was a 16 year old Chinese girl exchange student who needed a host family for the rest of the school year. She was originally placed with a “welcome family” who could only host her for two months. AND, she was already enrolled in the High School district where we live.
Now, if you know me, you know I am not a very woo-woo kind of person. But I will admit, there was something about this situation that seemed like it was meant to happen. The girl was in our school district, from China and we have an extra bedroom. See, kismet!
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but I thought I would ask Mr. A what he thought. His answer was an immediate “NO. Absolutely NOT. No WAY. NO HOW.”
Now maybe this isn’t the most flattering side of me, but Mr. A’s “No!” felt like he was throwing down the gauntlet. Could I or couldn’t I force him to change his mind and do something he was dead-set against doing? It was a challenge I felt I could not walk away from.
When pressed for reasons, Mr. A listed the following problems that meant we should not have an exchange student:
- He would not be able to walk around in his underwear. (note: he NEVER does that anyway)
- We do not currently have curtains in the extra bedroom
- He did not want to live with a stranger.
(Ok, so I will admit that the last one is a legitimate concern.)
Several times that night, I came back to Mr. A and asked him to think about it. Each time he was firm in his no. But I went on the internet and started doing research anyway.
The next day, he went to work as usual. Around 1:30, he called and said: “So what are you doing right now?”
To which I replied, “Hanging curtains in the extra bedroom.”
“WHAT? WHY? We don’t need curtains in there! We are not getting an exchange student!”
“Oh, you never know! Someone might need to sleep in here sooner or later! Or maybe much sooner!” I said. Mr. A hung up in a huff.
Then later, around 5:00, Mr. A called back and wanted to discuss the exchange student situation again, but I asked him to wait until after he came home from work (around 9:00 because he had a dinner meeting.) Then, that evening I found out they had already found another family for the girl.
That night, Mr. A came home. I let him give his spiel. He said he had been researching the exchange student thing. He thought it would be great if our girls were exchange students to Taiwan when they are in High School (China doesn’t currently have any programs he could locate.) He said he thought it would be good if we had an exchange student to make the girls more interested in the idea. He thought it would be better if they were older, but if I felt this opportunity was too good to pass up, he would be willing to consider it.
Only after I was sure he had caved did I let him know that someone else snatched up our exchange student already. I was really bummed about it, but Mr. A looked more than a little relieved.
Now, we have more time to think about whether or not we want an exchange student for next year or some other year. I still think it sounds like it would be interesting and that would outweigh the weirdness and ackwardness of having a stranger in our house.
Also, this situation provided an interesting experiment: Exactly how long would it take for Mr. A to give in and agree to what I want, even if he really, really did not want to do it.
The answer: Less than 24 hours.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 am
I was an exchange student to Australia and have long planned to host a student ourselves. I’ll be honest and say that I think it’s better to host when your kids are teenagers themselves, and I think most of the friends I made while on exchange would agree with that. That’s coming entirely from the student’s POV, of course, and every program may be different (I was a Rotary exchange student), but I have been operating under the assumption that we’ll host no sooner than 2017, barring someone’s desperate need.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 am
He really loves you!
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:44 am
I was an exchange student, twice. One year in Austria at age 17 and 1/2 year in Venezuela when I was 19. My first family had a 6 y.o. and a 13 y.o. That was fantastic. The kids were young enough to not cause problems (ie too many teenagers in one house) but not too young that there was no relationship. The little boy tought me the colors and numbers in german on my first week by playing UNO for hours. The second time I live with a family with 3 teenagers. It was a lot of fun, but probably very very hard on the parents. Too many fights, too many scheduling problems.
We plan on doing it once both girls are in primary school, but before they are in high school.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 am
I had considered an exchange student from China due to our situation being similar to yours. However, I consulted an adoptive Mom who herself was an exchange student (TO the US) when she was a teen. She said that, while my motives were innocent, having a teen exchange student living with a family with toddlers might make the exchange student feel a bit like an Au Pair.
If you wish, offline, I can give you the email of my friend.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:23 am
Nice. It usually takes me at least 48 hours to get my husband to cave.
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 am
Maybe you should start by hosting someone for a short-term visit to see how it works out. You could contact the International students office of the local university and offer to host a student for a week around the holidays or something. The language school where I worked also did homestays, and some students were very short-term.
I really learned a lot when my family hosted students, and for the most part it was a positive experience, but it was also disruptive. I don’t think I would do it for a whole year.
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 am
Our school has exchange students from Mainland China. We have some kind of exchange program where we exchange both students AND teachers. In Boston there are ALWAYS Chinese students looking to be placed.
Having had two exchange students (German and Danish boys) and both were difficult situations (one was on steroids, dumb as a box of rocks, and lost my then 7 YO daughter who was kidnapped by drunken morons and was missing for several hours before police found her, the other drank very heavily and stole money from my son’s bank). I’d NEVER do it again, but if I did, only girls. ONLY girls. Just a hint!
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I was a Rotary exchange student to Denmark when I was 17-18 yrs old. I had both really great and really challenging experiences with each family I lived with (back then, Rotary did this thing where you split your year between 2-3 families instead of spending the whole time with just one- they might still do this, I’m not sure)
I think the “living with a stranger” thing is a legitimate concern but they are only a stranger in the beginning…by the end you all feel like family. There is something really cool about reaching out across international lines and getting to know someone that well. FWIW, I think its a fabulous experience both exchange student and host family.
Just my 2 cents
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
My family hosted an exchange student when I was in high school, and it was a really nice experience for everyone involved– we kept in touch with her for more than ten years after that. But several of her friends went to families who had small children, and they pretty uniformly felt that they were only there as babysitters, without their prior knowledge and against their will. Not knowing the specifics, I can’t say how true that may have been, but I think it’s probably best to wait for a long term exchange until your girls are near the same age to ensure a good experience for everyone.
As for the stranger concern, the program we did it with let us read biographies of the students with essays about themselves, so we could choose one who seemed likely to fit in with our family, so you should feel like you have an idea of who they are before they arrive. They had very specific rules about how they must be treated as an equal member of the family, with all rights and responsibilities that entails, so they should settle into feeling like another kid fairly soon, especially if you do it when your kids are older so you already have rules established for things like dating and curfews.
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Ooh, I was an exchange student to Germany twice when I was 16. The first time, our German program matched up with a school in Bavaria, so that a bunch of kids came here and stayed with us for a month, then we went there and stayed with them for a month. Then at the end of that summer, I went back with a different program, and stayed for 10 months near Cologne. The second time, I stayed with a family with 4 little kids (18 months - 8 years). It wasn’t an ideal situation for a variety of reasons (my host father spent the last half of my stay in jail for fencing stolen property, some of which he’d tried to sell to me, among other things), but having multiple little kids did make it feel more au pair like to me. I didn’t have any more kid-responsibilities than any teenage kid with 4 much-younger siblings would have had, but I had significantly more than I’d anticipated having.
I’d love to have an exchange student, but we have no spare bedroom. And Chinese is spoken so much in our house, I’m not sure it would be beneficial to an exchange student to stay with us.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
*snort* especially on the walking around in underwear clause.
48hrs here.
Gobama!
November 4th, 2008 at 3:42 am
You are totally the winner in your completely scientific experiment!
(I’m the winner in my house, too.)
November 4th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
My MIL has had several exchange students, one from China, one from Japan and one from Norway. I didn’t know the first two very well but I got to know the Norweigan student was a really wonderful person and she really clicked with our family and it was really hard to say good bye to her when the year was up. We still communicate via facebook and I think she might visit next year.
I would say that it’s anyone’s guess now what kind of relationship your family could have with this student having never met her, but good luck convincing A! And if you can’t covince him, try working on the girls and maybe next year or so you could apply for an exhcange student and it would be 3 vs 1 and poor A wouldn’t stand a chance.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:36 am
we had a nightmare situation with our exchange student. Do your homework! She cost us $1000.00 in phone bills, which her parents finally paid, thank God!