This study explores how the Korean early study abroad students in the U.S. and their families experienced while they adjust their lives to new cultural environment and different family structure in the U.S. The main arguments about the early study abroad phenomenon has been focused on the benefits or the financial cost of studying in the U.S. However, this study investigates how these students and families pay psychological and cultural costs for living in very different cultural environments in the U.S. This study takes an ethnographic approach to a qualitative methodology in addressing the importance of psychological and cultural costs what the participants paid. The data was collected from field notes, the transcripts from interviews and the Korean club meetings, and research diaries. Eight Korean early study abroad students, their mothers, and their guardians participate in this study. The students experience parentification and their parents concerne on the lack of their parenting in the U.S. These participants live in very different cultural boundaries among home, school, and community. Huge cultural differences between their home/school and school/community sometimes hinder the students’ smooth transition between two different cultures.