• Parenting

Monday, July 14, 2008

Her Summer Job

posted by drouse at 7h17

Every year since Emily was five, Terrance and I have the exact same conversation.

It occurs in April, when my teacher instinct kicks in and I think
"School is almost over, I need to think about summer camp and/or
activities."

Terrance counters with "I am not sure we should schedule her
too much this summer..."

And for a few brief shining moments I think "Yeah! Lets just
let her hang out and do nothing all summer...."

This is the moment when the Professional Dawn - the Teacher Dawn -
runs in and bonks me on the head for my foolish thinking.

As an only child, Emily demands 120% of our attention. Both of us.
All the time. For the past ten years, she has perfected her
techniques of making sure that neither of her parents are at less
than 85% engaged with her at any given moment. This means even as she
has me pinned down on the bed reading, she has her father getting her
stories loaded on her ipod.

Her future as the Secretary General of the U.N. aside, Emily needs
external stimulation. She NEEDS other kids. She needs days that
are filled with swimming, and choices about things to do. She is a child
for whom structure is paramount and companionship is key.

Unlike the days in which her father and I ran around in vaguely
feral neighborhood packs of kids from sun up to sundown, Emily has
never known life without some kind of adult supervision. I have a lot
of mixed feelings about that - sadness, guilt that I am perhaps over
managing my child's childhood, fear that I am stunting her growth,
more fear that if I were to allow her too much freedom that bad
things could happen, pragmatism that the "good old days"
weren't nearly as idyllic as I recalled including some very real near
death experiences I had as part of those feral packs and finally the
overarching parental desire for her to be happy.

After the first week of summer vacation spent at home, Terrance
and I look wholly haggard and used up. While we both work primarily from
home...we both have WORK to get done. Work which does not get done
while entertaining our daughter. Thankfully, I have always ignored
Terrance's utopian ( and cheap) vision of our self entertaining
child, and enrolled Em in day camps.

Hey Nonny Nonny!

The first day of camp is verily a joyous one. The smell of
sunscreen and bug spray abounds as elated parents leap from vehicles
to pass their beloved offspring on to camp staff. The smell of rubber
burning as parents peel out of the parking lot....

Okay, I am kind of joking about the rubber burning. But not
entirely.

When Emily is running with her peers at camp, being entertained by
energetic young adults and a pack of other kids her age, her primary
adults can get the-not-very-exciting-but-wholly-necessary work of
Adulthood out of the way.

When we pick her up at 4 p.m., she is sun kissed and tired
looking. We are happy to hear of her adventures of the day as she
describes how her swimming lessons went, or what choice activity she
did that day, or who her newest friend may be.

With her parents happily engaged in the work of adult, Emily does
the time honored work of being a child in the summer.

Play.