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This article by Jamie Saxon was prepared for the March 2, 2005
issue of U.S. 1
Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Camp Conundrum
by Jamie Saxon
There is a reason why I keep my Christmas tree up so long (this year I
broke a record and dismantled it on February 5). My family thinks it’s
because I’m pathologically attached to the Christmas season (which I
am, sort of, but that’s another story), but really, I loathe what
comes after – planning my son’s summer camp schedule. As I slowly,
sadly turn the kitchen calendar from January to February, my anxiety
level hovers precariously close to Paxil-perfect. Somehow I figure
that every day I keep the wreaths hanging up outdoors is one more day
I don’t have to think about summer.
If you’re a working parent, you know the feeling: a tightening in the
heart, dry mouth, rapid pulse, raging headache, an uncontrollable urge
to surf the net for camp information (and Canadian pharmacies that
dispense Paxil) when your boss is looking the other way (love that
minimize function). What is it that sets our teeth on edge about
summer camp?
My hatred of the summer camp philosophy started the summer after my
son finished kindergarten (until then he was in blessed preschool,
open year round). Taking a tip from friends, we went to the open house
for ESF (Education, Sports, and Fun), the camp that’s run on the
campus of the Lawrenceville School. There was still snow on the
ground. We were very impressed (and very naive) – nice counselors, big
swimming pool, top-notch facilities, well-rounded program. We thought,
great, we’re set. Sign him up. The price was a little steep, but the
school is five minutes from our house. Can you spell convenient?
Then Working Parent Nightmare No. 1 set in: you have to pay MORE for
after camp care. Why is it that camps think that just because school
gets out at 3:30 p.m. that parents want their children home at that
hour in the summer? I’ll tell you why. Because camps operate in the
same stay-at-home-mom bubble that schools do. Well, Mr. Camp Director,
let me illuminate you. Statistically in this country more mommies work
than don’t, and mommies who work are not home at 3:30 p.m., and if
Mommy has just written a check for $275 or $300 a week for day camp,
she is not going to be very happy about having to write another $50 to
$75 check a week for after-camp care.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 2: You better fill out those
registration forms fast. The good camps fill up fast, baby. A few
weeks after the ESF open house, we received a letter in the mail
stating that the camp only had openings for two of the eight weeks we
had signed our son up for. This was in February, for god’s sake. How
could they be full already? (Remember. Naive.) My husband and I were
incensed. Why did this camp have an open house with cookies and cider
(and, my husband observed, very attractive counselors) when they were
already practically full? Since misery loves company, we called the
friends who had suggested the camp to us. They had been turned away
for most of their weeks, too, as had other friends of theirs. They
said, “We’re going to the Princeton Friends Camp open house on Sunday.
Why don’t you come along too?”
We did – and it was exactly what we wanted for our son. A nice
peace-loving, non-competitive Quaker camp where the kids spend the
morning swimming at the Hopewell Quarry Swim Club and then the rest of
the day in “villages” the campers build themselves in a spacious
wooded area. Each week has a theme, such as Castles, Habitats,
Planets, or Greek Gods, and all the activities surround that theme.
The ice cream man comes once a week. It’s the closest thing to the
olden days (i.e. when I was growing up) that I could imagine. The
campers start each day in a tranquil grove of trees, sitting on logs,
for “Community,” which includes announcements – and a full minute of
silence (Remember. Quaker.) Imagine 200 children and a few dozen
adults sitting quietly, soundlessly, for one full minute. Camp
director Rip Pellaton once told me, “For some kids it’s the best
minute of the day. And for some it’s the hardest minute of the day.”
The other great thing we love about this camp is the crazy cheers the
counselors make up for their groups. Each group is given the name of
an animal like Flamingos or Manatees, and the cheer, usually based on
the melody of a pop song, touts the attributes of that animal, often
with silly gestures. By the end of the first week, my son knew all the
cheers, which he sang for our guests at barbecues for the rest of the
summer whether they liked it or not. The real bennie? After camp care
doesn’t kick in until 4:30 p.m., with a grace period until 4:45 p.m.,
so if you can sneak out of work a little early you can get away with
no after camp care.
A couple of summers ago, however, we decided that our son was getting
a little older and would enjoy a little variety in his summer. So we
considered a slew of other camps. Needless to say, we couldn’t afford
the area’s two premier day camps: Frogbridge, which offers
air-conditioned door-to-door transportation, hot lunch, towel service,
and bathing suit laundering on 86 “acres of fun” that includes a video
arcade, computer center, driving range, 250-foot ziplines, and beach
volleyball (no child should have that much fun when their parents are
slaving away in an office) or Rambling Pines in Hopewell, which also
offers door-to-door transportation to “225 acres of fun.”
We considered the excellent programs at Princeton Day School, the Hun
School, and Mercer County Community College, which offer a
college-style program; your child can choose a morning “course” and an
afternoon “course” (yoga, chess, laparoscopic surgery, you name it) to
make up a full day of camp. A great concept, but my brain circuits
freeze when I have too many choices. I decided to wait on that for a
couple of years. But now, with our son turning 10 in August, we are
seriously considering Princeton Day School, which has won raves from
every parent I’ve spoken to who has sent their children there. “Worth
every penny,” they all say, but I better act fast before the Harry
Potter course fills up.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 3: Camp is not cheap and you have to
pay the entire cost up front in one lump sum – before the summer even
starts. I have no rich relatives who died and left me an inheritance
and neither does my husband. We’re just two average working parents
with two average working incomes. It’s a killer to have to fork over
something like $2,000 to $3,000 all at once. How do other people do
it? (Note: Recreation Department camps, such as Princeton, West
Windsor, and Lawrence are decidedly inexpensive.) We usually end up
charging part of our son’s camp expenses and that is anathema to us.
It is so annoying. Even colleges let you do a payment plan.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 4: Where do you find out about all
the way cool camps? (Did you know there’s a clown camp at Princeton
Academy of the Sacred Heart and a Revolutionary War camp at the Old
Barracks in Trenton?) I don’t do a whole lot of the chit-chat thing
with other moms. At after school care, we working moms pass each other
with that
can’t-talk-now-I-gotta-go-get-my-other-kid-over-at-the-elementary-scho
ol-then-stare-at-my-refrigerator-and-figure-out-if-I-can-make-a-nutrit
ionally-balanced-dinner-from-frozen-chicken-thighs-and-ketchup-and-the
n-it’s-on-to-long-division-and
spelling-and-showers-and-bed-and-then-baby-oh-boy-I’m-gonna-slip-into-
a-nice-tall-bottle-of-Pinot-Noir. Therefore, I get my camp info
piecemeal. My son’s school take-home folder saved the day a couple of
years ago when he came home with a flyer for Science Adventures Camp,
a California-based company that holds science camps on various college
campuses, including the College of New Jersey, a clean eight-minute
drive from our Lawrenceville home.
This turned out to be a terrific hands-on program, very structured
(and since it’s held inside in the air-conditioned college classrooms,
it’s a welcome treat in August), with well-qualified counselors. (It
also has a location in All Saints Church in Princeton.) Each week has
a theme, like Fabulous Physics Fun or Space and Rocketry, and every
day my son came home with lots of stuff that he had made and other
bounty like dissected owl pellets (I guess that’s cool) and a smile on
his face. More good news: You can save money by signing up early or by
signing up for multiple weeks.)
This year I thought my son had outgrown the Science Adventures program
(which is designed for K-sixth grade) but he insists he loves it, and
this summer we’re sending him to one week, “Mystery of the Lost Pirate
Treasure.” The catalog description says, “A mysterious message in a
bottle has washed ashore and the hunt is on. Unearth clues and seek
out stones as we explore the rock cycle in search of lost pirate
treasure. Discover caves, dissect a squid, and brave shark-infested
waters as we follow in the wake of Dread Pirate Pyrite, notorious rock
hound.” How could I say no to that?
You can also go to camp fairs for info, but that requires knowing when
the camp fairs are (too much work). I actually went to one this year
at the Westin. It was OK, but word of mouth is better. This is the
only time you’ll hear me say this: stay-at-home-moms are a good source
of camp information. I learned about a great camp one year from
striking up a conversation with another mom in my son’s dentist’s
waiting room. U.S. 1’s sister paper, the West Windsor-Plainsboro News,
has excellent camp listings in its February 18 issue, which are also
available online at wwpinfo.com.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 5: The scheduling nightmare. I’m not
really complaining about this, because hey, like, I only have one kid.
Imagine having to do this for two or three kids. I knew I was smart
when I quit at one. In the last year my son has become interested in
acting and dance, so I want to mix in an element of the arts this
summer, along with the science camp, and maybe a two-week session at
Princeton Day School, and we still gotta have at least two weeks of
Princeton Friends, because now my son is a veteran and summer just
doesn’t seem like summer without those stupid lovable cheers. I’m
considering Arts for Life, a two-week program held at Lawrenceville
Middle School, the Arts Council of Princeton drama camp (being held
this year at Princeton Junior School), and the Performing Center for
the Arts’ week-long “Kids in the Arts” camp in Hamilton. The Peddie
School has a good theater program but it’s too far from us, as does
Tomato Patch at Mercer County Community College, which is closer but
doesn’t fit with our vacation plans.
I made the cardinal error of trying to get my husband’s input.
“Honey,” I asked tentatively (I’m well-trained by Dr. Phil and know
that timing is very important when you discuss things with your
husband), as he teetered on a ladder, trying to put up crown molding
on walls that, well, how can I say it nicely, are not straight? “Do
you think Mackenzie should go to an arts camp this summer?” “Whatever
you think. Hand me that drill.” Gotta love that compassion. Mackenzie
is also interested in nature, so I’m considering the
Stonybrook-Watershed Association’s two-week Naturalists camp. You
know, worms and bugs and ponds in an “825-acre outdoor classroom” –
bona fide boy stuff. If I’m lucky my husband will take Mackenzie for
a week to Tennessee to visit his family.
I don’t own a Blackberry. I’m not even quite sure I know what one is
but my friend Ginny, a corporate flight attendant, sent me an E-mail
last week from hers: “I’m in Aspen!” I hate her. I plan my son’s
summer the good old-fashioned way – on an 8.5 by 11-inch piece of
lined paper. I write each of the 11 weeks of summer on it. With all
the scribbles and arrows and parentheses and cross-out lines, it could
double for a math problem in Good Will Hunting. Several camps overlap
with each other, and I still don’t know when we’re going to New
Hampshire because we always coordinate with another family we met up
there. I usually take Mackenzie to see my sister in Trumansburg, New
York, for a week or part of a week but she, how do I say this nicely,
played hooky the day in vitro where they hand out the organizational
gene, so I don’t have a clue which week it will be.
Really, it’s all still up in the air. And my psychological profile is
edging closer and closer to that of the little blob guy in the Paxil
commercial. While I am highly organized (you can’t be a working mom
and not be) I am also a terrible decision-maker. My biggest fear right
now is that I’ll lose my piece of paper and have to start all over
again (God forbid, I should photocopy it – I mean, who actually
photocopies their address book in case they lose it?), so I carry it
with me in my bag – to work, to the gym, to Panera, where every other
day or so, I pull it out, like a security blanket, dog-eared and
coffee-stained, and stare at it, and make a few more scribbles. I kind
of like my little “planner.” It has a lot of information on it and
makes me feel like I’m doing my homework.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 6: Camp must be enriching. The
February 18 issue of West Windsor-Plainsboro News also has a good
article by Euna Kwon Brossman about the trend of camps for older kids
adding another academic or do-gooder feather in the college
application cap. The story made me sad, actually, because I still
cling to the anachronistic notion that summers should just be about
having fun, a break from school, go outside and play, you know, what
we did as kids. “Go out and play and don’t come home until the
streetlights are on.” I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and never
went to camp. I played on a big rock in our woods (aptly named Big
Rock) with my best friend, Beth Judd. When we got bored we rode our
bikes to Friendly’s, then to the Stamford Nature Center and fed the
ducks and looked at the totem poles. When Beth’s parents had an
addition put on their house, we’d run around the perimeter of the big
hole in the yard after the workers had gone, then leap through the
sprinkler to cool off. We’d ask her mom for a Popsicle and then we’d
ride our bikes to my house and ask my mom for a Popsicle. The plan
worked out well.
I struggle with the way things have changed. Is it OK for my son just
to have fun at camp? Does camp have to have a greater purpose? I hope
not. I can see the just-you-wait wagging of fingers by readers whose
kids who are entering the college application stage. But for now, I’m
choosing to look the other way. Mackenzie can volunteer as a Russian
translator and master algorithms when he’s older. We as a family find
that 1960s idyllic slice of summer at our little rented cottage in New
Hampshire, where Mackenzie hangs out with the same gaggle of boys,
kayaking out to Blueberry Point, the rock island in the middle of the
lake; jumping off the floating docks; playing a pick-up game of
baseball on the little beach; and at night telling ghost stories and
roasting marshmallows by the campfire. For no matter what camps we
pick for Mackenzie, that one week in July is what summer is really
about. It’s “camp” for Mommy and Daddy too. No cell phones, no
television (OK, the laptop works up there). Just the loons’ wailing,
the creak of the screen door, and the moonrise every night over the
mountains.
Working Parent Camp Nightmare No. 7: There is no day camp the last two
weeks of August. What’s up with that? Sorry to break it to you, Mr.
Camp Director, but while you’re puttering on your motorboat down the
shore, working parents don’t necessarily get the last two weeks of
August off – and we need something to do with our kids. I suspect
there is no camp the last two weeks of summer because either a) the
directors want a vacation after managing a bunch of screaming kids all
summer or b) all the counselors go back to college well before Labor
Day. I scoured the Mercer County section of the program guide of the
camp fair I went to and found five camps that go past August 19.
They’re not fancy-schmancy, but they’ll do in a pinch. Hopewell Valley
YMCA Summer Fun Camp in Pennington wins the prize for being open
through August 31, and the Hamilton Area YMCA Camp at Sawmill, the
Princeton YMCA Camp, the Howell Living History Farm Camp in
Titusville, and the CYO Day Camp in Yardville are open through August
26.
Dear readers, here is a message for the entrepreneurs out there: You
could make a million bucks in one week if you held a really good day
camp the last week of August. Working parents, I guarantee you (I’ve
already taken an informal poll) would pay through the nose for it.
Corrections or additions?
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