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[quote=Anonymous]I am a former AP.

My first host family was living in Central US. They had a very nice house, great jobs. They were older (42-58), had a very unhappy 7 yo little boy. They made me work the full 45 hours and would NEVER dismiss me even 5 minutes earlier, even if they were home. Which didn't happen a lot anyway because they always had something going on after work, either the gym or date night. I was finishing work at 9.30pm when I had to put the kid to bed.
Then ready to work at 7am to get him up and ready for school. 
They would spend about 30 minutes per day with him and it wasn't quality time since I was there ... working.
They would use me half days on Saturdays, which would ruin my plans if I was invited out by other AP. I always had to say no and they stopped inviting me.
Then when the kid was off from school they asked if I wanted to make extra cash. They divided the weekly stipend by 45 hours which back then was $140/45, which made about $3 per extra hour ... I agreed to do that and so did the former AP but when you think about it I can't believe I accepted such a low wage.

The kid being very unhappy, yelling, hitting me etc, and since I wasn't having a good time on my time off (didn't even have a tv in my bedroom and no access to the car on weekends, living far from anything walking distance) I decided to leave and rematch.

Second host family, the father was a crazy person who would go through my stuff, steal my mail and yell at me if I had forgotten to clean up bread crumbs ...

I stayed because I wanted to experience America. But this was not the experience I had been dreaming about for years.
And most of my friends had problems, one was overworked and so tired she didn't even enjoy Manhattan on her days off on weekends, another one wasn't paid on her 2 weeks off (the father told her "Yes, we paid you, remember?!" but he hadn't ... she didn't say anything. They would also send her to the repair shop and wait for the car to be repaired for hours, among other things ...)

If I had to do it over, I'd probably chose another programme to spend one year abroad. Sadly I couldn't afford to study so I had to pick something that'd make me earn some money. That's why I chose the AP programme.
And it was in my field (early education), I love kids of course, it sounded like such a great experience but I can't believe all the crap I went through. And I was not a terrible AP. I was an excellent driver, love to help out, am a good roomate, never take advantage of anything, just a good person to be around. I didn't deserve that.

I also believe the rules need to be changed and I'm hoping for the best for future APs.[/quote]

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