I have a love/hate relationship with summer. I love the long hours of daylight, and that my kids are free from homework. I love that we usually manage to take a little vacation as a family, where we can all relax and laugh and be reminded of how much we actually like spending time together.
But I hate dealing with summer camp. Every year, right around Spring Break, I start to have anxiety dreams about organizing my kids’ summer schedules. It’s not that I object to camp per se, it’s that the whole process is so disorganized and terrible and crazy-making. Think I’m exaggerating? Read on.
These days, there are about 837 different camp options to navigate. You were just planning on sending your kid to plain old day camp? You’re way behind the times, friend! What about baseball camp? Zoo camp? Art camp? Aquatics camp? Lego camp? STEM camp? Improv camp? Robotics camp? Marine biology camp? Aerial arts camp? Yes, I swear that last one is an actual thing that exists.
1. All of the 837 camp options are really freaking expensive. The cheapest, most basic camp I can find within a ten-mile radius of my house costs two hundred and forty American dollars per week. Now, I live in Los Angeles, so that’s probably higher than a lot of other cities, but aaargh. That is a huge chunk of change.
2. Coordinating with other parents is basically the seventh circle of hell. I have two school-age kids. My son is easygoing and up for whatever camp I suggest, but my daughter is what I like to call “risk averse”. She will only agree to a camp if she has at least one friend attending with her. This means I have literally been emailing spreadsheets around to the parents of her ten best friends for weeks, trying to coordinate. Spreadsheets, people.
3. Working mom guilt rears it head with particular ferocity in the summer. I have a ton of working parent friends, and we are all trying to book up our kids for the summer out of necessity. Solidarity! However, I also have a ton of SAHM friends, and I get very, very jealous when I see them maybe booking a week here or there, but not really stressing over the whole thing. Lazy mornings, unstructured days…summer is a time when the grass can really feel greener. (She says as she types this article while sipping a cup of coffee, alone and unburdened in her office.)
4. The logistics are maddening. Every single camp has different drop off and pick up times, a different list of supplies needed, different lunch policies, different health and family information forms to fill out…just thinking about the forms alone makes me want to put my head down on my desk and cry.
5. All complaining aside, I know this is an uptown problem. I’m lucky to have so many options so close to home, and I’m lucky to be able to send my kids to these cool places. They’re going to have a blast this summer. I am actually a little jealous of LEGO camp, to be perfectly honest.
That being said, if someone reading this has a magic wand she can waive and magically arrange some kind of carpool schedule for the month of July, I’ll be deeply indebted to you forever.
About the author: Erin Matzkin is a mom of three, technology attorney, and writer. She’s a regular contributor to Babble and her work has been featured on Scary Mommy, Huffington Post Parents, and Project Eve. In her free time (as if there is such a thing) she writes about working and parenting at www.WorkKidsWine.com with her best friend Heather. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; she’s decided she’s too old to learn Snapchat.