First, begin with a study of this photo. I’m glad that guy in the middle isn’t my dad (or my husband for that matter). Hey, Mr. Stern and Grumpy! And then move to the left for Carmella Soprano (yes, I know she’s a fictional character) and her slightly heavier sidekick with a white visor (the better to see her child at visiting day from afar?). And then there’s crazy Ms. Two Hands in the Air, who apparently has gone a full 24 hours without seeing her child.
Apparently residential camp has changed as Baby Boomer parents have become more helicopter-like. At least that’s what these anecdotes suggest.
Exhibit A:
Mr. Picon, who owns several auto dealerships, remembered calling Mr. Kagan, the Bryn Mawr director, on Jaime’s very first day of camp back in 2001.
“I called the camp at 7 a.m. and Dan answered the phone,” Mr. Picon said. “He said, ‘Jaime’s fine. And are you going to call me every morning?’ “
Anticipating a lecture, Mr. Picon said, “I think I am.”
To which Mr. Kagan, himself the father of three daughters, warmly replied: “Well, do it at this time of day, it’s when I have some free time.”
If you don’t think your kid is going to be okay at a residential camp, don’t send him. Period. The camp director can’t say that because he needs your money.
Exhibit B:
Norman E. Friedman, a consultant who conducts training at 44 camps, said parents also take up valuable camp resources by breaking the rules they have tacitly agreed to.
“They’ll give their child two cellphones, so if they get caught with the first one, ‘Just give it up and you’ll have the second one to talk to me,’ “ he said. “That’s widespread, not isolated. I call it fading parental morality. What they’re doing is entering into delinquent behaviors with their children. And what kind of statement is that to a child?”
Well, it’s a statement that says, essentially, The Rules Don’t Apply To Us Because We’re Special. Nice.
Exhibit C:
Starting about seven years ago, camps tried to satiate parents’ need to know by uploading pictures of kids at play daily to password-protected Web sites, a one-way communication tool that seemed to respect the sleep-away tradition of maintaining distance. But such real-time glimpses often aggravate the problem, as the obsessed become obsessed with what they are seeing — or not seeing.
“I have parents calling and saying they saw their child in the background of a picture of other children and he didn’t look happy, or his face looked red, has he been putting on enough suntan lotion, or I haven’t seen my child and I have seen a lot of other children, is my child so depressed he doesn’t want to be in a picture,” said Jay Jacobs, who has run Timber Lake Camp in Shandaken, N.Y., since 1980.
I really shouldn’t read the New York Times.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
The one that got me was sending your kids to camp without their medications. That’s just horrendous parenting. Is there a reason your child is on it–or do you think they won’t need it because you aren’t around (hmm, maybe they won’t). I’m thinking if I can afford to send my kid to a camp like that, I can also afford a week or two at a spa my own self–or a beach, or in my own house, where it is quiet. Maybe the parents need some mood-altering medications, too. I’ll take mine on the rocks, thank you very much.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
There is really a neverending list of examples in that article of weird choices. And, yes, drug the parents.
July 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Maybe compulsive over-protective parenting should be a suggested addition to the “Stuff White People Like” web site?
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
July 28th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Or possibly some variation like, White People Like to Send Their Children to Sleep-A-Way Camp and Then Call Every Single Morning to Check on Them.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Yikes! I’m continually amazed at the parents I encounter (pretty much daily) who seem to consider their children as accessories in their own lives. It’s a kind of self-centeredness that is frightening beyond words. These camp parents aren’t worried about their kids, their thinking of themselves.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I seriously thought that picture was a still from a movie. The people are so hyped up, I didn’t believe it was real! Also, I thought the grey haired guy was Leslie Nielson.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:35 am
It does look like a still, particularly with Ms. Two Hands in the Air.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Who are you to suggest these people aren’t special? Every one of us is special, in our own special way. Don’t let the rules stand in the way of what’s special about you!
July 29th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Whatever did children do before cellphones and constant monitoring?
Don’t answer that.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
A $10,000 summer camp?!?! No wonder these parents feel entitled - they are paying out the wazoo!