Camp must haves- Insanity

amother

↑ Honeydew

Wed, May 03 2023, 11:20 am

Forcing uniformity externally is never a real solution. It just shoves the problem under the carpet.

In Israel there is a long vacation and no camp. The younger girls have half day day camp, my teens work for the first 5 weeks and bein hazmanim is family time. Camp isn't a thing. I still feel I would prefer if they had school for at least some of it.

↑ BaltoMom65 ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:37 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Define recently. I'm in my upper 40's, and back in my day, all my friends went to sleepaway camp for at least half a summer.
And my mother AH went for the full summer, every year from the age of 5, till and including the summer she was engaged to my father.

Must be different cities, everyone I knew worked all summer.

shabbatiscoming ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:40 pm

amother Honeydew wrote:

Israel initially started with the American system and is moving over now so that July is an extra month of school - lighter learning but still part of the school system. Right now up to I think 3rd grade and it's moving upwards.

Huh? Where is this happening? Ive lived israel a while. Never heard of this.

↑ BaltoMom65

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:43 pm

amother Oxfordblue wrote:

Why would I want to deprive my kid of childhood fun? Who is doing anything because of “must”? I send happily I think it’s an amazing part of childhood.

If one can afford it. For some reason, there are "community standards " that don't exist everywhere but so many people feel this and are killing themselves for it. It needs to stop

↑ shabbatiscoming

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:44 pm

Chayalle wrote:

And Im in my mid 40s and worked every summer, as did my friends, from 9th grade on. Even before that, if I was able to find a backyard playgroup camp to be a mother's helper, I did.
We all wanted to work. To make money. So we could pay for our fun.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:49 pm

amother Kiwi wrote:

I didn't mean that, though that's a good idea too. I didn't either mean that nobody should go camp. Just that it shouldn't have to be a universal right of passage. It's not a healthy set up and not done anywhere else in the world.

I'm happy to help my teen figure out some structure. I wish they could
Get a job
Take some courses
Take a family vacation
Maybe go to camp for 2 weeks?
Play a sport
Hang with friends
Make some art
Go on day trips
Plant and tend a garden
Go walking and hiking

It’s not a must though, at least not for everyone. Plenty of kids don’t go to sleep away camp.

Highstrung ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:53 pm

flowerpower wrote:

It all starts from the mother. Be confident in who you are and pass it down to your kids. My kids bh have no peer pressure and I take some credit for it. They don’t have a must have list but a regular camp list. The must have list is the issue. Not the camp

But you need to know the fine line . My mother didn’t care what others did . She thought it was outrageous and proudly sent us to camp with the towels that had holes . And linen was second hand linen that she called “camp linen” because they had stains and so on. Every item that was torn or stained she put the word “camp” before it and it became a “camp” skirt , a “camp” top and a “camp” pillowcase . Basically I went to camp with shmattas and my mother claims that’s what “everyone “ did. That’s not true. I was literally the only one without a decent set of linen. So many of my bunk mates told me it was their regular bedroom linen.
I also think little tchotchkes that are “in” can make a child feel better while home away from home. It doesn’t have to be outrageous, but last year I bought a cap with my sons name embroidered on it as a camp gift. It made him feel special and thought about and he wore it whenever the opportunity arose.
I’m literally the opposite of taking peer pressure , yet some people take it to the extreme , like my mother . It causes shame to the kids. We also need to know our children. One child could care less and the other child feels like his/her life depend on it, when it comes to the “in things”.

Last edited by Highstrung on Wed, May 03 2023, 2:57 pm; edited 1 time in total

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:55 pm

PinkFridge wrote:

No. They worked half a summer and went to camp half a summer. That's been going on for decades.

My sisters went to camp, but I only went twice. The rest of the years I worked. Lots of kids didn’t go to camp when I was growing up. It wasn’t a given. I think it’s really only a given in certain places/among certain groups.

amother

Geranium ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:55 pm

BaltoMom65 wrote:

Summer jobs is what every teen did until just recently

Not if you lived in Brooklyn in the 1990s. I stayed home one year working and was literally the only one working and home from my entire BY class as well as my neighborhood. It was extremely lonely . I used to pay money to spend Shabbosim in the camps my friends went to because I was desperate for connection.

↑ flowerpower ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:59 pm

Highstrung wrote:

But you need to know the fine line . My mother didn’t care what others did . She thought it was outrageous and proudly sent us to came with the towels that had holes . And linen was second hand linen that she called “camp linen” because they had stains and so on. Every item that was torn or stained she put the word “camp” before it and it became a “camp” skirt , a “camp” top and a “camp” pillowcase . Basically I went to camp with shmattas and my mother claims that’s what “everyone “ did. That’s not true. I was literally the only one without a decent set of linen. So many of my bunk mates told me it was their regular bedroom linen.
I also think little tchotchkes that are “in” can make a child feel better while home away from home. It doesn’t have to be outrageous, but last year I bought a cap with my sons name embroidered on it as a camp gift. It made him feel special and thought about and he wore it whenever the opportunity arose.
I’m literally the opposite of taking peer pressure , yet some people take it to the extreme , like my mother . It causes shame to the kids. We also need to know our children. One child could care less and the other child feels like his/her life depend on it, when it comes to the “in things”.

Baruch hashem most normal mothers are not that way!! They make sure their kids go with a decent stock. The problem starts when the mother has little self esteem and feeds into all her kids “needs” because “everyone” (2 kids probably) has it….

↑ flowerpower

Wed, May 03 2023, 2:59 pm

amother Geranium wrote:

Who were the counselors in every day camp back then if not for high school girls?

little neshamala

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:00 pm

flowerpower wrote:

Same her BH

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:00 pm

chanatron1000 wrote:

It's not about jealousy. Can we stop pretending people don't look down on those who don't conform?

So they should work on themselves. Everyone being the same was never a thing in Judaism, starting from the top. Yaakov had 12 sons, each of whom was unique and special in their own way. They were never, nor ever expect to be, all the same.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:04 pm

amother Geranium wrote:

But most of the Jewish world doesn’t (or didn’t) live in Brooklyn. So while that may be (have been) the thing in Brooklyn, it certainly was quite prevalent in other places.

amother

↑ Geranium ↓

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:12 pm

flowerpower wrote:

Who were the counselors in every day camp back then if not for high school girls?

There were very few daycamps in those days.
I worked in a cheder Preschool daycamp, and they had mostly married teachers with a few teen assistants. I remember that I had a friend that lived 10 blocks away , from elementary that begged me to stay home and work with her in daycamp because there was nobody else and her mother never sent to day camp. She did mommy camp. But as the teens got older they started working . So I stayed that summer and then one more summer after that because my mother sent my sister to camp instead. It was ok during the hours of daycamp, But it was super lonely after work was over with absolutely nothing to do. I’d spend hours writing letters to girls that were in camp , imagining the fun they were having .
I thrived in camp. Not so much when I stayed home.

amother

↑ Kiwi

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:14 pm

Ema of 5 wrote:

It’s not a must though, at least not for everyone. Plenty of kids don’t go to sleep away camp.

Where I live , 90-95% go. My teen would feel I was depriving them of something very basic if I didn’t send them. Plus of course they’d be lonely cuz everyone else was at camp.

↑ Chayalle

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:14 pm

Highstrung wrote:

You just need to be balanced. They can go with decent stuff, but the obsession with everything that everyone else has gets out of control.

↑ Highstrung

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:21 pm

Chayalle wrote:

You just need to be balanced. They can go with decent stuff, but the obsession with everything that everyone else has gets out of control.

I 100% agree . I think there are many kids who find it to be out of control too.

Last edited by Highstrung on Wed, May 03 2023, 3:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

↑ Geranium

Wed, May 03 2023, 3:30 pm

Ema of 5 wrote:

But most of the Jewish world doesn’t (or didn’t) live in Brooklyn. So while that may be (have been) the thing in Brooklyn, it certainly was quite prevalent in other places.

This need for camp is location specific. Brooklyn at least back then emptied out in the summer because the Jews went upstate. There was a reason for this. The city was smelly , muggy , cramped and filled with pritzus. People felt that those two months in the fresh air , where they could run around , gave them a better quality of life that carried over to the rest of the year and they saw that as an important need. And that included kids going to sleep away camp.
If you grew up in a less cramped neighborhood or in a city that wasn’t as muggy and as humid , or if you had a decent amount grass and trees it made more sense to stay home and work. So that’s why I specified Brooklyn. It was literally a desert in the summer when the frum people went upstate and it was rare to have teens sitting around.
I actually think that because of pricing in the last decade or two it had become more common for people to stay in the city .