Exchange student

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by RoaminRed

Sounds like a problem with the father, not the student. As an adult, he should have had enough control over the situation that he wouldn't allow a visitor to "seduce" him.

Thank you, Cotton Mather. And you would think so. At the same time, it's pretty important to realize that possibility always exists, especially when you're dealing with a college student whose cultural values do not always mesh. While everybody walks into this situation with a great deal of idealism, and appropriately so, only a fool does so without some kind of awareness of what could happen. In this particular situation, the father worked from home, the mother worked outside of the house, and the exchange student in question had irregular questions. So there was a LOT of alone time between the two.

[akm4]

And here I was worried about an attraction between my daughter and a male student! Wow, a whole new scenario to consider.

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Thank you, Cotton Mather. And you would think so. At the same time, it's pretty important to realize that possibility always exists, especially when you're dealing with a college student whose cultural values do not always mesh. While everybody walks into this situation with a great deal of idealism, and appropriately so, only a fool does so without some kind of awareness of what could happen. In this particular situation, the father worked from home, the mother worked outside of the house, and the exchange student in question had irregular questions. So there was a LOT of alone time between the two.

Last time I checked, it's not culturally appropriate to go around sleeping with older, married men in Germany.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Last time I checked, it's not culturally appropriate to go around sleeping with older, married men in Germany.

You would think so. However, her parents were evidently not that upset about it. Instead, they actually wrote the husband that the understood how such things could happen, their daughter being so beautiful and all. Personally, I would have probably boarded the first jet from Stuttgart and given the guy what for.

Who knows? Maybe it just doesn't have the stigma that it does here. Nevertheless, it's a dynamic that I bet this family never thought of before agreeing to host.

[TouchOfWhimsy]

Originally Posted by RoaminRed

Sounds like a problem with the father, not the student. As an adult, he should have had enough control over the situation that he wouldn't allow a visitor to "seduce" him.

Wow, I agree! We hosted a cute, tall blonde German girl, and had no problems with her being too "open minded" about things like that... yikes! I can't imagine my 30-something husband even THINKING about something like that with her... she's a child! Yuck!

[Moth]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Just, um, make sure that your student isn't some hot, open-minded blonde from Germany, like what happened to some friends of ours. She seduced the father within three weeks, and was evidently bedding him whenever the mom and the other kids were off on errands. Ended up pregnant, the parents wound up divorced, and the father wound up paying child support on two different continents.

LOL!

I have a story with a slightly different bend. Young couple arranged to have three exchange students stay with them for a year. All three went to high school with me. One was from Argentina, one from the Netherlands and one from Chile. All three were male and each could have been a model.

Well, you know where this is going. The host couple went through a rocky patch and one of the students took it upon himself to have a fling with the wife. Apparently it all turned out ok though, well, more or less.

[Honeycrisp]

THere are very short hosting programs that are good if one doesn't want to commit to a semester or longer program - some of the local colleges sponsor groups from other countries, the students take classes at the school and on weekends are hosted by host families (in our case they were from Japan and were very interested in our culture, the school had a square dance where the host families and students got to know each other, then they'd visit on a weekend or 2 (the girls loved to shop and we took them bowling and did a little sightseeing). There are other programs that are during the summer which are nice especially if the families have children around the same age. Another group was wonderful and we hosted several times thru them, it was Up With People, they're from various countries thruout the world who perform singing, dancing etc - they just slept at various homes (I think we made breakfast and/or dinner once or twice) and we got them to the place where they had to set up and rehearse, they came with guest books that we signed and could see where they had been in the past and of course we went to the show afterwards which was wonderful, there are several groups, some travel in the N US, Europe, Asia, some travel in the S US, S America and Africa, we were very impressed, also the students were college age if I remember right and had a year commitment to the program and spoke wonderful English, we hosted thru them several times and got to meet other UWP students too and all were outgoing etc, it was like we always knew them. It was particularly nice for us b/c there were several families in our area hosting at the same time so we got to do group things (not all had their own kids) and it was fun, a nice experience at the time (and looking back).