BY JODEE TAYLOR
I got a kick out of a recent New York Times story about parents sending their kids off to sleep-away camp, then checking on them multiple times a day. The story, hilariously headlined "Dear Parents -- Please Relax, It's Just Camp," mentioned parents who flaunt the ban on cell phones by sending their kids to camp with two phones in case one gets confiscated and "parent liaisons," described as "almost like a hotel concierge listening to a client's needs" by one camp consultant.
My own kid, 15, went to camp this summer for two weeks. It was math camp at the University of Michigan and I still am stunned that I raised a kid who wants to go to math camp. I got some e-mails from him while he was there. (The high-speed Internet was a novelty to a kid who lives in dial-up land.) There was no ban on cell phones, but he didn't use it, either. In fact, I'm pretty sure he forgot he had parents during two astoundingly fun weeks in Ann Arbor.
We missed him, of course. We had to take out the garbage ourselves and care for all those animals ourselves and, well, nobody mowed the lawn. But it was a nice little mini-taste of what sending him off to college will be like, too.
I was especially proud that he was able to teach his roommate how to do laundry. I got a kick out of the souvenir he bought for me (granted, it was with my money) and I cherished the random e-mails, which had more to do with baseball than Fibonacci numbers. He was definitely taller when we picked him up two weeks later and, of course, he was hungry.
It would never have occurred to me to check up on him or to e-mail his teacher or to even call his dorm. Part of the camp experience is learning to do things without your parents, not having your parents sneak around to rescue you.
I feel sorry for both the kids and the parents in the summer camp story in the Times. The kids are being taught that rules don't apply to them, that adults are there to cater to their every whim and that if there's even an itty-bitty moment of uncomfortableness, someone will somehow save them from it.
The parents are encouraging all of the above, of course, as well as depriving themselves of the satisfaction of doing what parents are supposed to do -- raising independent, contributing members of society.
I'll send my kid over to teach their kids how to do laundry.
Jodee Taylor can be reached at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.
