February 25, 2021
Itās been 538 days since the last day of camp as we knew it. Thatās 538 days since my daughter has been home, nearly 365 of which without so much as a sleepover date. I just need to make it through another 121 days until what I am told will be the first day of camp in 2021. Missing her is a feeling I look forward to.
When I started Campenings in May, 2020, I was driven by nerves and fear. The world around us was collapsing. People were sick and dying. We couldnāt get on a plane or a train. Restaurants were closed. Movie theaters were shuttered. Still, updates from camp kept coming, as though from another world: the count-downs, the packing lists, the health forms and bunk requests. Camps had handled H1N1. Back in the 1940s and 50s they had been a haven for city kids to escape their polio-stricken communities. Covid-19 might be crushing the world, but camp still stood before our kids like a grand glittering unicorn. If they could just get close enough to hop on for the ride.
In the end, for most, that ride never appeared.
As parents we have grown so invested in our childrenās summer experiences that it can feel as if we are going with them. Thatās why I started Campenings, and why, over the spring and summer of 2020 and beyond, the site welcomed more than 40,000 visitors including parents, campers, and camp directors and other staff ā pretty good for a homemade blog with no publicity. My goal was simple: Ā to make sense of these two worlds -- the one that was falling apart, and the other still being held together by friendship bracelets, lanyards, and a gossamer ribbon of hope.
What happened was something else. Very unintentionally, Campenings became a kind of recurring death knell for camp 2020, as one facility after another snuffed out their campfires and put their sāmores on hold. And the day the news came in that my daughterās own camp was cancelled, I decided to quit the blog.
Incredibly, my daughter urged me to keep at it, despite the fact that, for days after hearing the news, she hid in her room wearing the same sweatshirt, her hair a beeās nest, dark circles settling in beneath her usually sparkling eyes. She had come to believe, as so many of us did, that camp was the one thing the virus couldnāt touch.
We made it through the summer, but not without a certain envy toward child-free friends whose kids were running wild (but masked up) in Maine and New Hampshire, where under the strictest of guidelines, some camps were plowing ahead. The green-eyed monster re-emerged when these kids returned home healthy and refreshed after a few weeks of not having to worry about the air they breathed, the surfaces they touched, or the viral toxicity of the friends they loved.
Like so many of you, I am praying for camp this summer. Do I need a break from my recently minted teenage daughter? Absolutely. More importantly, she needs a break from me. And from the computer screen, the phone, the monotony, the isolation, and the intense loneliness of her every day.
Parents are intent on sending their kids to camp this summer, so says the Wall Street Journal. So am I. But I want to make the safest most medically informed decisions possible before I put her on that bus (or drop her at the gate, as I may have to this summer). Thatās why this year Iām reintroducing Campenings early and in a new format, this newsletter. It will be chock full of the latest news about Covid-19 and kids, with expert interviews tailored to camp parents. I will focus on the wide-ranging and everchanging impact of the virus on our children ā medically, socially, and psychologically. My background as a health journalist affords me access to the countryās top medical experts in every field, including epidemiology, pediatrics and vaccine development. I will also laser in on emerging virus-related camp trends, such as bunk and activity reformatting, field trip and intercamp workarounds, and the probable cancellation of visiting day at many camps.
The American Camp Association predicts that when it comes to kids and camp, Summer 2021 will Ā be little different from Summer 2020Ā -- except that many more camps will be open. Still, those camps must remain vigilant against the virus and its mutations and variants. I will speak to directors from camps that kept out the virus during summer 2020, those that couldnāt, and others who wished they had tried. I will talk about vaccines, and what it means if some kids have had them, and some kids havenāt. Throughout it all, I will attempt to wade through the confusion, and both the mixed and changing messages, when it comes to kids, camp and Covid-19.
Something to remember: I am in this with you. What impacts your childās summer also impacts mine. Please send any and all information about your childās camp to me at campenings@gmail.com.Ā As usual, I will keep your personal information confidential. The purpose is to share how different camps are handling protocols, and to make the best and safest choices possible for your children and family. So, let me know what youāre curious about for this summer, what concerns you, what questions you have ā and I will try to get answers for you.
Please subscribe to Campenings, and join me on my journey to keep our children safe this summer.