A HOST FAMILY STORY: A host mom with unconditional love for students

My husband and I were exchange students and, when people give you the experience of being in a new country and having people who love you and you feel that when you’re 17, it just feels natural to continue it. We were teenagers, yet they made us who we are today. Therefore, now, if I can do that and give that love to someone else, it will make the world of tomorrow better. I think that’s what YFU, Youth For Understanding, stands for: making the world better, communication, understanding, and loving one another. The main word that I get out of this is love.

Being a host mom is like being an exchange student, just on the other side of the fence. We have hosted more than 20 exchange students here in France and I’m still in contact with most of them. I try to talk to them all at least once a year. The older exchange students call us more and, in the beginning, we wrote and sent presents. When we retire, we’re going to go on a world trip and see everyone. The people that live closer we’ve visited, and the people in Germany we see almost every year.

We like to think that we are good parents. Every time when we take a new student, I don’t like to talk to them before because I think it’s like when you expect a new baby, you don’t decide everything, you just wait and see what happens. I tell them a little about us and then I give them the mailing address of the students from the year before. I tell them that if they have any questions, they can talk to the other girls.

The most beautiful thing is when you share something like when my students come back and show their natural parents around the house; they know it’s their house and I get to know the parents. Every year we have someone else who comes with something new to share. We might have a new game and our Christmas tradition changes, or we always have a new food that someone wants. This is something you can do for the rest of your life; you’re never too old to learn.

Hosting isn’t just about giving people a language, it’s about giving people a new home and sharing it together. Living with people that are different from you is important because it makes you grow and understand things. I think the appreciation of that is harder today for young people. They are exposed to so much more, but it’s harder because you see so much that nothing really seems important.

This intergenerational conversation that comes with hosting is completely necessary and possible. One of my exchange students from Thailand wasn’t used to, as a young person, talking to adults, but now she probably calls me the most!

The first thing for hosting is if you want to host, you must realize that you’re to be a parent and it’s not always fun. To establish these parent/child boundaries, you first need to analyze what you want and need and then make the rules for yourself. Establish what it is you want and what makes you happy and then write them down. You can’t assume someone from another country knows your rules. That’s what’s interesting about hosting, though, things that are completely normal to your culture, aren’t normal to other people.

Explaining these rules helps too. I honestly believe that somebody who decides to host a teenager (a student who is a teenager already), who doesn’t speak your language, and to help them go to school in a school that goes long hours and in a language that he/she doesn’t speak for free, they really want to do be host parent. Also, somebody who leaves their parents at a young age and goes to another country that they don’t know, with people and a language they don’t know, and they accept these people to be their parents, who will really parent them, he/ she is a really a good person too. This means two good people who, if they learn to communicate, should have no reason to not have a successful exchange year. 80% of hosting is just communication. Living together has to be give and take.

I’m thankful for my students because they exist and we love each other. A family is what’s in your heart, not just your blood type. I hope that the YFU anniversary will get more people to realize that, in an organization like this one, it can be part of your life forever. It’s about learning to live and continuing to grow, which you’re never too old to do.