Yesterday I was out with my daughter, and we passed a summer camp bus. She said- in an accusatory tone of voice- “Remember when you used to put me in those random summer camps just so you could go to work?”
Okay, let’s be honest. ISN’T THAT WHY MOST KIDS GO TO CAMP? I mean, parents work, the kids are too young to stay home alone… off you go!
Looking back, I was so, so lucky as a kid. First of all, I grew up in the 70s (best decade ever to be a kid) AND my parents were both teachers, so we all had the summers off together. I never went to camp (until middle and high school, where I went to a music camp for a few weeks each summer). Instead we spent the summers playing outside, riding our bikes to the library, and going to the pool. So. Much. Fun.
I was home with my kids when they were little, and let me tell you, summers were hard. There was no going outside to play- no one plays outside all day in the Florida summers. It was always me planning an activity, to a waterpark, pool, splash pad, or indoor, air conditioned activity (Monkey Joes, kid museum, Barnes and Noble, etc.) Oof.
When I went back to work, we tried to patch together child supervision for the summer. My husband is a teacher, so is technically off for the summer, but he does a lot of extra things, like teach at band camps or private lessons. I would sit down with a calendar for the summer and try to figure out how many days we would need child care, aka summer camp.
My daughter did the (cheap!) camp at her school for a couple summers, which she had mixed feelings about. Then there was the week-long computer camp where- weirdly- she was literally the only girl. But the “best” was gymnastics camp.
One summer- she was probably 7 or 8- almost old enough to stay home, but not quite- I just needed random days here and there covered. I discovered a gymnastics camp that was RIGHT NEAR my work, the drop off/pick up hours were perfect, and best of all, you could pay by the day. The only snafu was, my daughter had no experience or interest in gymnastics whatsoever.
I called the camp and they said that was fine! Anyone could come! So that summer she got dropped off at gymnastics camp on the days we needed it.
I guess the thing is- most people who go to gymnastics camp DO have some aptitude for it. My daughter is not athletic and she says at this camp, even the lowest level of kids were doing cartwheels. She said one day they told everyone they were going to “warm up” by doing the splits. Luckily she was not scarred for life by this experience, and we still laugh about it to this day. We just chalk it up to a slightly bizarre babysitting choice on my part.
Fast forward to today (my day off of work). I was sitting at the kitchen table, lingering over a late breakfast, when I noticed my daughter, fully dressed and ready to walk out the door. Wait- where are you going???
She explained that her friend was coming to pick her up, they were going to the school to help the band director with something, then they were going out to lunch and then the gym later on. Um, okay… bye!
All this is to say… boy, does this parenting thing get easier. I do NOT miss the days of packing up a zillion supplies to take a toddler to the beach. I don’t miss the days of scrambling for childcare on days off of school. Now when I have a day off work, I can spend it as I want.
On that note- I’m off to the gym, and then to Starbucks to read! (If you’re in a phase of life with young kids, don’t worry- you will get here as well).
Did you go to summer camp as a kid? Did you like it? – I liked being able to be lazy if I wanted and set my own schedule, but I know that’s not for everyone.
Top photo by Jubéo Hernandez on Unsplash
26 Responses
that is TOO FUNNY about gymnastics camp. Hey, at least she didn’t end up with broken bones!!!!
I went to day camp until I was old enough to be a counselor at day camp. It was just “what you did”. I didn’t even question the idea that there was an alternative. Ha! (Thankfully I really liked it!)
That’s true- if she had broken a bone, I never would have lived it down.
I did summer camp and HATED it and swore I would never make my own kids go. Turns out they both love it. And now my daughter volunteers at summer camps as a leader.
It really does get so much easier in so many ways as kids get older. Parenting is still exhausting, but in a very different, less physical and all-encompassing way. Not having to feed or dress kids. BLISS. I’m counting the days until my son is able to stay home independently (soon), and cannot believe my daughter only has three more years of school.
I think it really depends on your personality. I just wasn’t one to get involved in planned group activities. I think your kids are extroverts so they probably enjoy the social aspect of camp.
You are very close to having two independent kids! Levi seems like he could stay home alone now, or are you waiting for a specific age?
“… you used to put me in those random summer camps just so you could go to work?” – oh Angie. If only there wasn’t that pesky thing called work that allows us to pay our bills/provide for our families/pay for extracurriculars! 😛
I had pretty free range childhood summers as a kid and I did not love them to be honest. I was bored and lonely since I lived in a rural setting. So I had very few options to entertain myself in my tiny town of 500 people. Like there was no pool, no library, and most of my friends lived on farms in the country. I went to music camp for several years and one year I went for 2 weeks which I loved! Besides that I barely did any camps since that was not a thing in my tiny, rural community. Plus I had older siblings to keep an eye on me. I did a lot of chores like cleaning, folding laundry, mowing the lawn when I was old enough (which was a big job as it was 3 acres!!). I could not wait for school to start so I could see my friends again and get done with alllll the chores.
These days the boys go to the school-based childcare program which they both seem to enjoy. It’s mostly the same teachers as the before and after care during the school year so there is a feeling of continuity. They do a great job with weekly field trips. This will be Will’s first summer in the program but he’s the kind of kid that gets along with anyone plus he’ll have Paul there. They are also doing 1 week of day camp/week through our church which they love. It has several field trips and it’s nice to sort of change things up while keeping the logistics easy as the church is 1/2 mile from our house.
Phil was actually saying this past weekend on our date night that he feels bad that the kids don’t have the same summer he had. His parents were also both teachers so he was home with them all summer and was out and about in the neighborhood. But he also understands this is not the 90s and free range parenting doesn’t work in a urban area with busy cross streets (I could bike all over the place growing up and he could to but that is not the case in our neighborhood as we are 1 block from 2 pretty trafficky city streets). For me, it’s hard enough at times to fill our weekends – I would not want to do that 7 days/week! But at our kids’ ages, the less we are home, the better… but the less I am home, the more exhausted I feel!
I’m surprised Phil still had a free-range summer in the 90s. I guess it depends on where you live. I agree that it doesn’t work in most areas now, which is sad! But then, most of us do need to work in the summer so young kids staying home is not an option.
I feel you, Lisa. We lived smack dab in a cornfield and were left alone to do what we wanted during the summer. There was no place to go – we were miles away from things and it wasn’t safe to ride our bikes on those roads. I basically hated summer because during the school year I could be with my friends. *shrug* My parents couldn’t afford to put me in camps (let alone have the time to drive me there), so from the time I was seven or so, we were just kids in a farmhouse watching soaps. I think a lot of people romanticize summers of free range kids and maybe some kids did enjoy it, but certainly us rural kids whose ranges were pretty small probably didn’t.
I don’t know know how parents who are hourly wage workers deal with childcare during the school year (random late starts, early outs, snow day, etc.) and the summer feels like an unpleasant game of Jenga combined with Whackamole.
I grew up in the 60s! My mom didn’t work, so summers weren’t a problem. Unless you count the zillion times she would holler, “It’s a beautiful day! Get outside!” I found that I could grab a blanket and a book and read like a maniac, totally left alone. I had a couple of friends across the street, but it was tough to find things to do that all of us liked. As I got older, I had my little sister, but we fought like animals.
To this day I feel guilty if I’m not outdoors when the weather is fine. And I still take my books outside to read in order to avoid that feeling.
Yes, my best friend and I used to read all the time too. Like sometimes we would just be sitting there together, each reading a book. Ah… the good old days.
I never did summer camp as a kid ( except a few days of Vacation Bible school). We just hung out, read, played with friends, watched whatever weird movies they had on in the afternoons ( Abbot and Costello , Godzilla, Meet Me in St Louis, … no rhyme or reason, we’d watch anything). My mom was mostly home, but we also had a bunch of older siblings to watch us.
I’m home all summer with my kids, and we do library and pool. They’re really too big for playgrounds! (I keep having to remind myself that my two tall teen boys are not 8 yrs old anymore.)
Enjoy your day off!
Yes, we would watch TV sometimes too. Weird stuff, like Batman and Gilligan’s Island. But we were never tempted to watch TOO much TV because there just wasn’t that much on. It seems like we could always find something to do, and those summers seemed to stretch on and on forever. I’m sure they went much too fast for my parents though!
I structured my whole life to give my kids the summers you and I enjoyed as kids. My mom stayed home until my little brother was 6 (at which time we were old enough by 90s standards to stay home/go to the pool by ourselves– LOL I was 11), but really almost every mom in our town stayed home, and I literally did not know a single kid who went to daycare. No camps here for 20 summers and going strong. I love my SAHM summers.
Yes, I read your post today with your summer schedule with Minnie!!! I love that so much. Your kids are LUCKY.
My mom was a teacher too and I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED my summers home so much. Wisconsin has amazing summers and those summers are like, my best core memories. I sometimes still close my eyes and can remember the sounds and the smells and I get so nostalgic for everything about them! I never had to do childcare/ camps in the summers and it was the best. I stayed busy with other things- some activities and lessons etc- but I was never gone all day, every day. As I got older I babysat and worked and volunteered and did summer sports trainings and swam in our pool and HUNG OUT WITH FRIENDS so much and rode bikes and ate ice cream and ran through the sprinkler and read books and helped my mom clean out closets and went on family vacations. Ahh I miss those days.
I know!!! I miss those days too. And I bet our summers were similar, I grew up in Northern Illinois. I agree I can still remember the sounds and smells. Those were the good old days for sure.
Maybe because I was an only child, I loved summer camp. When I was old enough I mostly went to sleep-away camps with horseback riding and water skiing and s’mores, so what’s not to like???
I don’t think my kids liked camp as much as I did — and they mostly did day camps and weren’t interested in sleep-aways.
LOL on sending your daughter to gymnastics camp when she wasn’t into gymnastics.
If you didn’t have kids to play with, I can see why you would like camp. We had lots of kids in the neighborhood and I also had my sister. There was always something to do.
I didn’t do summer camp as a kid. Occasionally I took swimming lessons at the community pool, and there were some crafting days at a park, but otherwise I had a babysitter in the summers.
My kid has always gone to summer camp. When she was small, I worked full time out of the house, so it was daycare and then summer camp. When I started working part time from home, she still went to summer camp… and even now, camp is a BIG part of her summer. She needs other kids and structure and I am not good at providing either of those things!!
Some kids really like it. I remember my sister went to sleepaway camp one summer (I had NO DESIRE to go) and she liked it.
Ah yes, parents dropping kids off at random camps so that they can indulge themselves with a nice work day. Lol.
I remember summer camps as being very tedious, long days. I was not sporty, and there were lots of sports. I’m hazy on when I was deemed to be old enough for Home Alone, but whatever age it was, once I got there it was glorious. The boys had a lot of Boy Scout activities, random camps, and babysitters.
And then we all grew up. Huh.
Yes, I picture summer camps as having a lot of things I wasn’t really good at, like crafts and sports. Of course I wouldn’t really know since I didn’t go!
Although I’m older, my mom was a stay at home mom and I just went outside and played with my friends or we went to the town pool. I think I went to girl scout camp for a week.
My mom worked as a preschool teacher when I was growing up so she also had summers off so I never went to summer camp. We mostly stayed home and played outside (growing up in Colorado the summers were nice, minus the near daily afternoon thunderstorm) and went camping a lot but that was mostly on weekends when my dad was off work. And my sister and I did swim lessons many summers, and we did a tennis day camp for a week once that was kinda fun — I was never good at tennis but I liked to play with my dad and sister. But it was nice not to have such a structured summer! I wish I was a teacher now so I could have summers off. Even though I work for a school district, I’m a 12 month employee so no summer break for me but I know I’d be doing a lot of running if I had more time off!
My mom stayed home with the 5 of us. She substitute taught and eventually became a realtor and then went back to teaching when we were in high school (or I was in high school). I loved summer. It was the best. We def watched some dumb TV, but mostly we were outside. We went to the pool almost every day, and then when we got home my mom made us read. We had my brothers’ little league games in the evenings. We traveled to Irish dance competitions on a ton of weekends with our good friends (the mom didn’t drive, so we took their kids/mom in the back of our ’76 Chevy Impala station wagon). When I got older – like 12!, I babysat nonstop. I loved it. No camp for me. I also worked at Burger King and babysat too. I’ve had my daycare for 11 years now, and I sit for teachers’ kids, so summer off. I almost resented the start of school when they kids were young – it messed with all of our fun. I’ve always been a stay at home mom, and we spent most days at the pool or the zoo or the park or having friends over. My kids have never been to daycare or camp, and they tell me that they are so grateful. We were dirt poor, but once you join the pool – it’s already paid for.
My parents worked split shifts – my dad worked evenings and my mom had a more regular daytime schedule, so we didn’t have to go to camps. We did a summer camp one year, which was a lot of fun, but we were only able to attend because my mom worked at the school so it was free for us to attend. Those camps are so expensive!! I don’t know how people who don’t have the resources handle summertime with their kids. It must be really hard!
And how DARE YOU send your kid to a summer camp JUST SO YOU COULD WORK!!! The audacity. lolololol
I am absolutely in that stage. We are jjuuuuust getting to the point where I can leave them home alone. My oldest could stay home alone all day and would be fine. Even my second oldest would be ok, but the two younger ones are just not quite there yet. Thankfully, I am a teacher and have off in the summers, but it’s like a full time job just keeping everyone happy, fed and get them to where they need to be!