Sometimes
they talk about the food:
Scene:
sitting around the kitchen island
Meg:
“Two years ago my section made me a Boston Cream bannock* for my
birthday.”
Anna:
“Oh, we made one on Wawiagama Lake that had chocolate pudding for
frosting and M&Ms on it, and Mimi dropped it but Jenna glued it
back together with more pudding....”
My
thought-bubbles:
1. While plotting the dessert-to-be, they gathered and split the
wood, built the fire, set up the reflector oven and cooked dinner as
usual; 2. these girls weren't worrying about calories or body image;
3. their memories are about the teamwork and the crazy fun they had.
Sometimes
they talk about the challenges:
Scene:
on a rainy drive to the mall.
Anna:
“I remember walking on those logs across the swampy part of the
Diamond Lake portage and because it was raining I slipped off and got
stuck up to my thigh...”
Andrew:
“Oh yeah, I remember that portage. When we did it...”
Anna:
“...and then Tal had to reach to me with her paddle, and I almost
lost my boot but instead she fell off too and then we were both
laughing hysterically and then the rest of our section had to put
down their packs to help us get out...”
My
thought bubbles:
1. This is more about friendship than adversity; 2. wow, they needed
to be strong and agile to do that; 3. there's no sense of failure
for falling off, only the sense of achievement for getting out; 4. they
probably had a great bannock that night too.
But
mostly they talk about their friends, where they've been and where
they're going to go. As I do the dishes I am silently grateful for
the self-esteem, trust, and playfulness that I hear.
Remember
Tiger Moms, the intense-pressure-to-succeed style of parenting? If I
am a Tiger Mom about anything, it is about helping my children become
their own best friend. It's one of the bottom lines in life: if you
like yourself and can rely on yourself, then you will be okay. But
here's the oxymoronic part of the equation: if I am to succeed with
that goal, I have to let go of my children. That's the opposite of
the clench of a Tiger Mom. But here's where the parenting
secret-weapon comes in – let them go to camp, to sleepaway camp, to
a wilderness camp.
For
us, Camp Wabun (in Temagami, Ontario) has been the
antidote to the over-scheduled, over-pressured, and over-evaluated
lives our teens navigate. Imagine the release of that load. Imagine
what the coming generation would be like if they all had a better
view of the horizon, and could look up and out at the world with the
strength and calmness of knowing themselves.
The
hard part for Bob and me was not knowing every little thing about
what they were experiencing. Was it going ok? How were the bugs?
Were they homesick?
But when
I stand on that Wabun dock each August, water clean enough to drink
lapping at the boards, and watch as each of my children's sections
paddles in to camp for the last time, I know we have made the right
choice. They are glorious: strong, confident, bonded to their
friends and their own inner capabilities, full of fresh sunlight and
the beauty of the land that they came to know.
And,
I'll wager that each of them – Meg, Anna, Andrew – is his or her
own best friend. It gives me hope.
*Bannock
is a slightly sweet yeast-free bread that has been a staple of
old-style open fire cooking for generations.
Note:
There are many good camps out there. For information specific to
Wabun, visit www.wabun.com. Also,
Michael Thompson's new book Homesick
and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow
(Ballantine Books, 2012), is a good resource on this subject.