I'm about fed up!

With Eline! She complained to the exchange program rep that I am too hard on her when it comes to chores. She told me a few days ago that she had cleaned the downstairs bathroom which she shares with Chelsea. I went in to do some laundry (it's also a laundry room) and saw there was still toothpaste in the sink and a big wad of hair on the floor. I told her she had to go back in and take care of those two things, and she got really upset and told Chelsea I expect too much from them.

As for her chores, she and Chelsea rotate chores, which are really pretty easy. One week Chelsea cleans the bathroom downstairs and dusts and vacuums the family room. The next week she takes out the trash, and on trash day takes the can to the street (its on wheels so it's easy to move), and dusts and vacuums the living room. They alternate these chores each week. I think you can see that each girl really spends only about 20-30 minutes each week on chores.

I had told Eline and Chelsea I arranged for tickets to The Nutcracker Ballet so Eline could see it. So the other day she comes home and telles me she went to the ballet with a friend so won't be going with us. She spent the weekend in SLC with her friend, and came home last night and said she wanted to go to Idaho for Thanksgiving with her friend, even though I had told her we had made arrangements to have Thanksgiving dinner with another family. Heck, I practically invited us over so Eline could see a big Thanksgiving dinner, and now she wants to ditch us. Well, honestly, at this point I don't care. Unfortunately for her AYUSA requires 10 days notice and a written request for exchange students to travel with someone other than their host family, so she's probably stuck with us.

I did a survey from AYUSA last week which asked: Does your student regularly shown their gratitued for being hosted by your family? I had to honestly say that besides the first day when she thanked us for having her she has not thanked either of us in any way. I finally decided it was because she probably feels shortchanged. All the other AYUSA host families in our area are wealthy. And I don't just mean they have a bigger house (which isn't too difficult). All of them (5) are very wealthy families and two of the students live in houses with housekeepers, and have no chores at all. Two of the families are taking big trips (one to Disneyland and one to Hawaii) and paying all their student's expenses.

Eline wants to be part of the flag team at school and asked me to pay the $250 fee. I told her she needed to ask her parents and her mother actually told her to ask me for the money. This is not what I signed up for. The program requirements are for me to provide food, shelter, an American family experience (I am supposed to treat her like a member of the family and not as a guest) and to reasonably accomodate for school activities (like driving her to practices, etc.) In return I receive no money. The only thing host families get is the experience of having someone from another country in their home and giving them the opportunity to experience American High School.

Eline makes it difficult to fulfill my commitment to make her part of the family. She is gone much of the time and if I tell her she needs to stay home complains to the program rep or she stays in her room, or goes to a different room to use the computer or watch TV. Even if Chelsea and I are watching the same program on TV that she is, she still prefers to be in a different room.

I guess it's time for ME to call the AYUSA rep and maybe consider a new placement for Eline. This is putting a lot of stress on me that I don't need and I don't think Chelsea and I are getting anything good out of this. Okay I'm done for today.