Sending the Kids to Sleepaway Camp
Was it everything I hoped it would be when our kids left the house for a week?
For years I talked about how glorious it would be the day my kids were old enough to go to sleepaway camp. Before you think I’m an awful mother who doesn’t love her kids, let me explain. My wife, Mary, and I don’t have a big family or a lot of help with our kids. We both have one sister who lives far away. Mary’s mom and both my parents are deceased, and her dad not only lives far away but is also approximately 900 years old. Now I’m not complaining that we don’t have the big village, but it does mean that alone time comes at a price. There are costly New York City sitters to be paid, plus the date itself. Going out on the town for a night can easily be a $200 or $300 investment. During those daycare years (why on earth does childcare cost so much?) grown-up time can be difficult to pull off.
But we firmly believe that our relationship is the foundation of the family, and that meant we needed to prioritize spending time together without someone yelling, “Mommy” while wiping their cheerio-crusted hands down our shirts.
We paid to play as often as we could afford to. We tried to do one weekend away each year. We vacationed almost exclusively at Club Med because their all included (read: free) child care allowed us to turn family trips into a partial vacation. Club Med should be named in our will for saving our marriage during those early years. I mean I’m not putting them in the will, but I probably should.
Sleepaway camp became my fantasy because I figured it would be exactly like Club Med, except without us there at all.
Can you imagine?
My dreams of what we’d do with an entire grown-up week weren’t elaborate. I wanted to get back to what we’d lost as settled-down parents. I was hoping to rekindle that 20-something Saturday vibe of rolling to brunch that turns out to be bottomless (IYKYK) followed by an impromptu movie and a late dinner before crashing until 11 am the next day. Sunday would, of course, involve accidentally binging an entire season of a bad HGTV show, during which we would only pause to greet the food delivery person at the door.
I also wanted that feeling of spontaneity because every second of my life was so goddamned planned.
I formed a group text with my close friends so we could alert everyone of our impromptu plans, and whoever was available to join us was invited. The Universe would dictate our week.
After years of planning, both our kids were heading to sleepaway camp for the first time. As the departure date approached, there was a lightness in my step that I hadn’t felt since B.K. (Before Kids.)
Drop-off was surprisingly uneventful. The kids weren’t upset we were leaving them. They were genuinely excited about the adventure. That is one parenting win I’m quite proud of. All the years of babysitters and Club Med camps resulted in our kids being just fine when we left. Score one for independence.
We pulled out of the camp parking lot a bit flabbergasted. Was it possible that we were going to be alone for a whole week?
On the drive home, we listened to a true crime podcast, and no one punched their sibling or needed to pee five minutes after leaving a gas station where I asked everyone if they needed to pee. We languished in pausing the podcast to share an anecdote and speaking without being interrupted.
As we parked the car back in Brooklyn, we realized that packing and driving, and dropping off was more grueling than we anticipated, so we decided to have a chill night and rest up for our big week of fun that was definitely starting tomorrow!
We woke up on our first day of freedom, but we were still a bit tired. We thought, “You know, we never get to just sit around. Let’s enjoy the nothingness and order in.” It was spontaneous, not necessarily in the way I’d hoped, but we knew we needed the break, so we took it and felt no guilt.
As the week rolled along, my besties whom I’d been rambling on for years about “Grown Up Week Or Bust” noted that our text chain had no texts in it. They suggested dinners or nights out on the town. We declined. It turned out, we weren’t up for anything. We wanted nothing more than to lie around our apartment in pajamas and swear as much as we wanted.
One would think eventually we’d feel rested and ready to go, but that’s not what happened. There were no gatherings. No bottomless brunches. No dinners.
The week was nothing like I’d thought it would be.
After the kids came home, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the way we spent our time. Did we blow an entire week watching bad TV? Or did we give ourselves exactly what we needed–rest during a time when parenting was most physically exhausting with the early wake-ups, the school shuttling, the lunch and dinner making, and all that dirty laundry?
To this day, I’m not sure of the answer. I suspect, though, that the answer has nothing to do with whether or not we wasted our time. Instead, I think it’s more about the fact that one can’t necessarily go home again.
It turns out I’m no longer a 20-something who brunches and wanders about. The years I spent waking up at 4 am to feed kids, change diapers, and soothe nightmares have changed my sleep cycle. If God or Buddha or The Universe deigned for me to sleep until 7 am I will know that Hell hath frozen over. I’m now a lady who has kids, who looks at the world differently. If I tried to go to a bottomless brunch, I’m pretty sure I’d be looking at all the drunken young folks and wondering if they are contributing to their 401ks. Oh, and I’d also need a solid week to recover from unlimited mimosas.
Life changes. You move into different phases.
It’s now six years of sleepaway camps later, and our family’s evolution has continued.
My daughter is entering high school and my son is heading into 7th grade. My daughter spends the majority of her time in her room or out with friends. We regularly get calls from her where she kind of says hello before launching into, “Me and Shelly and Beth are going to get coffee and maybe thrift. But I’ll be home before dinner. Probably.” My son is buried in his online gaming world and IRL he’s minutes away from hopping on the subway by himself to golf without needing me to drive him.
They don’t need us as much as they used to. At least not in a physical way. It’s everything we’ve strived for as parents who believe it’s our job to push our kids out of the nest so they can march into the world as well-adjusted young adults who have happy lives and don’t move back home.
Yet…while I write this, our kids are at camp, and the house is quiet. Unusually, perhaps even unsettlingly quiet. Don’t get me wrong. Mary and I have had a delightful week. There were no fights, no broken glasses, no punching, and our house hasn’t been this clean since the kids were at camp last year.
But, the silence in the house tells me it’s time to start thinking about our lives after…. Our lives when they go to college. Our lives when they build their own lives.
It’s scary. It’s daunting. It’s also lovely at the same time.
Sigh! 100% right on the money.