What if everything turns out great?
musings on the lifelong impact of jewish sleep-away camp
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musings on the lifelong impact of jewish sleep-away camp 〰️
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🔯 Jewish sleep-away summer camp made me the person I am today. (I do not say this lightly - backstory + more here)
👩❤️👨 Jewish sleep-away summer camp is where I made friends, went on my first hike and overnight in the woods, learned how to build a fire, trust-fell into my friends’ arms, experienced my first kiss, cooked in a commercial kitchen, and became an experience designer and leader, all by age 18.
🚛 Jewish sleep-away summer camp is why moving into my college dorm was no big deal
🏕️ Jewish sleep-away summer camp is where my two kids (~8 and 11 yo) are right now for 2 whole weeks.
❤️🔥 Jewish sleep-away summer camp is the reason my husband and I have had our first two consecutive nights (going on 2 weeks) without kids in > 11 years.
🎁 (Jewish) summer camp just might be the most important gift we can give our children, and ourselves.
🤒 Jewish sleep-away summer camp is also where my almost 8 yo son (I’ll refer to him as “A”) is currently sick with a fever and sore throat and my older kid is doing… who knows what?
According to Jonathan Haidt (author of The Anxious Generation), among the most effective antidotes to the screen-based-childhood-induced mental health crisis are both sleep-away camp and faith-based communities. Not only is there a wealth of data to support this claim, as a product of these same experiences, I feel its truth in my bones.
As Haidt explained: “All children are by nature antifragile. Just as the immune system must be exposed to germs, and trees must be exposed to wind, children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks and stumbles in order to develop strength and self-reliance…kids must have a great deal of free play to develop and they benefit from physical play, which has anti-phobic effects. Kids seek out the level of risk and thrill that they are ready for, in order to master their fears and develop competencies.”
As I sit here with the knowledge that MY sweet almost-8-year-old baby A is literally fighting off an assault on his immune system right now far away from me, NOT swimming or doing arts and crafts, I’m more than a little anxious and uncomfortable. We got the call last night while eating at a restaurant, ostensibly enjoying our freedom from responsibility. I immediately lost my appetite and wanted to go home. I cried. I worried. I imagined worst-case scenarios.
Then I reminisced about the infirmary visits of my own childhood at camp. And I reflected on how we’ve spent the last 6 weeks actively addressing A’s high anxiety levels not by reassuring him that “nothing bad will happen” but by empowering him to bravely take a chance - that there may be obstacles, but it will all be worth it. We read both kids a series of guided visualizations about a variety of camp scenarios - some dreamy and exciting, others challenging. I sent them off with “coping cards” - each with a strategy to combat the scaries or sad moments. The top card read “What if everything turns out great?” And is followed by one that said: “Remember: 1) You are capable of whatever comes your way and 2) You are safe and surrounded by a community who will take care of you.” (There were also some reminders of breathing techniques and favorite calming visualizations). As I sat on my sofa crying about the turn of events just one day into the experience, I started to imagine this story not as “ruined plans” but as a hero’s journey - a high-powered inoculation against learned helplessness.
This morning we got an update from the health center that the fever is still going strong. I remembered that during what was a very busy work week last week I had a mild sore throat and wondered if I might be getting sick. It stayed mild and I brushed it off, but now realize I must have passed it on to A. So it’s MY fault. I asked the camp staff how he’s taking it, noting that typically A can get very frustrated and/or anxious when things don’t go his way. (Really, where does he get that trait?) He’s also the youngest member of our family to display the symptoms of “man cold.” If I had a penny for every moment I spent soothing his rage at the injustice of a trip-and-fall, but not the injury itself, I’d be a wealthy woman. Guess what the camp said? He’s in very high spirits, not at all anxious, contentedly reading a book on the porch or chatting with his new infirmary friend. What’s that about the anti-phobic effects of summer camp in nature?
“All children are by nature antifragile. Just as the immune system must be exposed to germs, and trees must be exposed to wind, children require exposure to setbacks, failures, shocks and stumbles in order to develop strength and self-reliance…kids must have a great deal of free play to develop and they benefit from physical play, which has anti-phobic effects. Kids seek out the level of risk and thrill that they are ready for, in order to master their fears and develop competencies.”
And yet I’m still keenly aware of the everpresent possibility of actual, real, life-or-death danger. As Jamie Simon, a leader in the summer camp movement, former director of, and current mom of another 8 year old at the same camp my son is attending wrote just this week, “This summer, in the wake of tragic events that have shaken the camping world, the worry feels heavier. The what-ifs are real.” And just as we were adding final items to fully packed bags last Sunday morning before drop-off, we got the news that a wildfire was currently being monitored mere miles from the camp. Images of the tragic events in Texas this summer overwhelmed me. To be Jewish, and a 3rd generation holocaust survivor, is to always be wondering whether the anxious feelings are a signal to take protective action and flee, or an overactive inter-generational-trauma response meant to be combatted with mindfulness and a swift reality check. This is when I look to my husband and more even-keeled friends for a barometer on how much action to take. This camp wins awards for and trains other camps on its safety procedures. They gave the green light to camp’s start date, and so I gave them my first and second born children.
As a friend once expressed to me, to parent is to have your heart live outside of your body. On the drive home from the restaurant I said to my husband: “I love him so much. And it’s really hard to love someone so much.” In my darker moments as a mom I’ve been unsure if I could handle the level of pain this depth of love has brought into my life. I don’t think I knew how intense it would be pre-kids.
A is a deep, sensitive soul. He only occasionally lets me have a peek into this depth (check out my story about the Beatles from a few weeks ago for a taste). He’s always loved flowers, has recently discovered poetry, but also loves fart jokes and is as rambunctious and full of boy-energy as they get. I’ve had this image in my head for years that, given lack of advanced artistic skill, I haven’t been able to manifest. When generative AI made image generation possible, I was excited to see if I could do it. It took many tries (and coaching from an artist/AI designer friend), but I finally came close… My heart is a vase, with flower blooms peeking out of the aorta, veins and arteries. Inside the vase are all the little trinkets and things that make A who he is. They fill up the heart vase more and more until eventually it explodes and I’m left shattered. That’s how it feels to be his mom.
A’s role as my artistic muse also recently inspired me to write a poem about the concept of time and the many ways musical artists have tried to capture this conundrum. You see, A has only ever had the most tenuous grasp on the concept of time - he’s truly unsure of the difference between yesterday, a year ago, or tomorrow, and if I’m honest, I’m in a similar boat. So when I heard that he was taking this all in stride, I imagined that his lack of care for the passage of time might be the real asset right now. While I’m back at home calculating the potential percentage of his two week session that will be “ruined” by the illness, he’s sitting on a porch with a view of Yosemite valley and a good book. Who needs a screen, a calendar, a clock, or even their mom, at a time like this?
I’ve known for most of my life that my summer camp experience made me the person who I am today. I think it’s the reason why I love attending, (or better, planning) retreats, seminars, or any live event that transports you to a “temporary alternative world” for a while. I’m always searching for that feeling of ultimate freedom, sure that some magical experience is just around the corner, or that I might meet my next group of soul sisters. I didn’t venture to think how summer camp might come to my rescue yet again, as a middle-aged mom, challenging, stretching, and healing me all over again. As Haidt also explains, the decline of a play-based childhood is as toxic for parents as it is for our children. Being so accustomed to monitoring our children’s every move, it becomes more than a little unsettling to lack not only the ability to help but the knowledge of what they are doing. Because we’re not just raising children, but future adults. To be able to strike out on their own, they have to start sometime, and to let them go, so do we.
And so I sit here in my screen-induced anxiety. I don’t know how this particular story will unfold or end. I’m a committed “possibilist,” having adopted this identity as a more positive spin on the pessimist I spent most of my life inhabiting. It’s helped me lean into my power as an experience designer, choosing to focus my energy on manifesting positive possibility vs. dwelling on worst-case scenarios. But magical thinking does not rid the world of pain and suffering. There’s always a chance that things take a turn for the worse and A gets sent home early, as happened to a friend of mine. I’ve already worried about that scenario and how it might ruin his perspective on camp for life. But also, as I wrote on those cards for my kids… “What if everything turns out great?” Only time will tell.
I am also reflecting on the fact that I’ve only had the time to muse and write about this experience because, thanks to Camp Tawonga, I’m not actively in the trenches of caring for a sick child right now. Instead, I’m sitting in the blessed silence of my home office with a candle, music, puppy on my lap and a view of my backyard, grateful to Jewish summer camp once again for this rare respite from the hamster wheel, prepared to face whatever comes my way.
