Hahahaha this was so perfect. That last paragraph had me laughing out loud. I feel the same way. Forget my law degree or my career or any other accomplishment in my life…I always feel like I conquered the freaking WORLD any time we get to a field on time and my kid’s team is actually there, and he’s actually in the right jersey, and he actually has his water bottle and socks.
I only had to coordinate one summer camp signup this year and I was such a ball of anxiety that for a moment I was noddingly along with the recounting of your nightmares like, "oh yes, completely normal, totally been there" and then the WTF hit me.
I know being a SAHM mom and a working mom each have their own challenges, but this is one of the ones where I am constantly impressed by working parents (and a rage machine that this even has to be a thing).
Laughing but also wanting to cry bc I relate so hard. I am currently in the “how many camps can I afford and if both twins don’t go at the same time does it even matter bc then I still have to pay childcare for the other one and what the fuck was I thinking having two kids at once” stage of it. AND IM OBVIOUSLY ALREADY BEHIND
Hi Sarah, I need to personally thank you for reminding me I had *not* as of yesterday signed my child up for any summer camps. A few hours, shed tears, “full/waitlist” screens, and several thousand dollars later, I booked some camps. Your list was the nudge I needed! Thank you, comrade. (And for your brilliant humor, of course.)
Fortunately, our summer camp hell is not *as* hellish. But I did finish signing up my 8-year-old earlier this week (and had to find alternatives for chess camp and social emotional learning camp because OF COURSE those were sold out, so instead he will be doing slime camp and intro to photography 😮💨) and then I had a mom of one of his friends text me yesterday to ask if we wanted to coordinate some camps this summer, which, like, YES and NO in equal measure. It would be lovely if our sons magically ended up going to the same camp at the same time, but I want no part in trying to coordinate with yet another person and also how is she not booked yet?! The whole thing is fucked. And gross. And I don’t know how we got here (patriarchy, capitalism, misogyny, racism, etc., etc.). I’m glad you survived to the other side.
I hear other families sharing all the time which kids are going to each camp together but I just cannot do the coordination! Sharing responsibilities with other families *sounds* lovely, but the mental load goes up to lower the physical load and I just can't manage it. The summer camp system is a ridiculous nightmare and I imagine some future historian being completely confused by it.
Just handled our first summer camp sign up season and I only survived because a mom who went through this before gave me the inside skinny on a summer long camp where sign ups are in November. Also, it's a Jewish day camp and we're not Jewish (or really anything) but that's okay because it's all summer long, all day long, Monday through Friday and I just did. not. want. to. deal. And we're completely fine with our kid experiencing and learning to respect different faiths.
Also, I already warned my husband I will never coordinate with other parents. Our kiddo can make summer camp friends and it will be fine. I absolutely refuse to give in to that. If kiddo wants that, she can learn to sign her own damn self up when she's old enough.
That's the OTHER thing - you are so royally fucked if you move to a new town and no one shows you the ropes. It's like they make the summer camp process purposely opaque!!!! I admire your tenacity re: refusing to coordinate.
Our camps are held by a bunch of different organizations and EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. has a different opening day/time. One of them starts enrolling for summer in NOVEMBER. Some of them don’t launch until MARCH which feels insane. One I was trying to get my daughter into opened for signups at TEN P.M. on a Tuesday night. Ten. And it somehow sells out in seconds. They don’t even tell you where the camp is HELD, so you’re at the mercy of parents who’ve lucked into a spot in prior years. Some of them are open all summer, some of them only run a few weeks (which means of course I’ve already scheduled something for those weeks by the time they release their schedule. My school district is the last one in the city to start school which also means I’m scrambling to find a camp that’s still running the last week of summer. And what the fuck is up with these camps that run from 9-4? Losing my goddamned mind, paying a million dollars for the privilege of arriving at work late and leaving early.
I continue to be grateful I live in a district with a robust Boys and Girls Club. The flurry of sign up for us comes the first day of camp when you have to sign up in person for all the field trips and the week of off-site camp. God help if you're not in line at 7am to ensure your kid gets to go to the trampoline park in July. I still have two weeks to figure out but that feels much more manageable
Solidarity!! I feel all of this so deeply as I am currently in this hell. And I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about all of this, but can we also add on to the fact that if you work full time, as both my husband and I do, and need either an early drop-off or late pick up because a camp that lets out at 2-3pm is smack in the middle of both our work days? That will be seventeen thousand more dollars, per day, per child, please. The fact that we treat summers as though many families don't have two working parents (and in many cases those parents have more than one job), is absolutely insane to me. Moms are expected to create these amazing summers, whether we are booking camps because we're working outside the home, or if we're SAHMs, curating these bucolic perfect sunny days with pools and popsicles and enrichment every day for 3 months. It's the definition of "being a mom like you don't have a job and being an employee like you don't have kids". I'm WILDLY lucky that I get to work from home, but that doesn't mean I can have kids running around all summer. And literally, the whole timing of camps means we have to ostensibly plan the whole summer calendar in, like February to make sure we can get into the camps we want, and the weeks we want, while keeping other commitments in mind. The cheap "throw-them-outside-all-day-and-visit-the-public-pool-on-a-good-day" day camps I went to as a kid don't exist anymore. They really don't. And anyone (cough cough, Dave Ramsey, and also my mother in law) saying things like "you're dumb if you spend thousands on summer camp, throw them into a free camp" is beyond insulting and really undermines just how difficult all of this is. Even our YMCA is $400/kid/week. That is SO MUCH MONEY. If we wonder why couples are choosing to be child-free, things like this absolutely play into the reasons.
After camp year one, I gave up the idea of different camps for different interests. I just cannot do the different forms and learn the different policies and drop off procedures for a one week experience. I was lucky enough to find a (somewhat) local camp that has a good variety of different tracks and my son just goes to that one camp all summer with a different topic every week. I know that I am extremely privileged to have it available and to afford it but he still enjoys it and it's all I can manage! Sign up is still stressful but was back in the fall so our summer has been set for months. My in-laws recently offered to have my son stay with them for a week this summer and attend camp in their state. It's such a generous offer and he was so excited and it's good for everyone involved...except all I could think was that I would have to fill out forms for another camp!!!
I have to do this next week. Because our main summer camp sign-up was last-minute POSTPONED from this Wednesday to next (!!!!?!!), which is its own kind of hell. Will be in a state of perpetual anguish until then.
Hahahaha this was so perfect. That last paragraph had me laughing out loud. I feel the same way. Forget my law degree or my career or any other accomplishment in my life…I always feel like I conquered the freaking WORLD any time we get to a field on time and my kid’s team is actually there, and he’s actually in the right jersey, and he actually has his water bottle and socks.
You are definitely a god. I think Eisenhower had less to do planning the D Day invasion
I only had to coordinate one summer camp signup this year and I was such a ball of anxiety that for a moment I was noddingly along with the recounting of your nightmares like, "oh yes, completely normal, totally been there" and then the WTF hit me.
I know being a SAHM mom and a working mom each have their own challenges, but this is one of the ones where I am constantly impressed by working parents (and a rage machine that this even has to be a thing).
Laughing but also wanting to cry bc I relate so hard. I am currently in the “how many camps can I afford and if both twins don’t go at the same time does it even matter bc then I still have to pay childcare for the other one and what the fuck was I thinking having two kids at once” stage of it. AND IM OBVIOUSLY ALREADY BEHIND
TWISTED
Hi Sarah, I need to personally thank you for reminding me I had *not* as of yesterday signed my child up for any summer camps. A few hours, shed tears, “full/waitlist” screens, and several thousand dollars later, I booked some camps. Your list was the nudge I needed! Thank you, comrade. (And for your brilliant humor, of course.)
Fortunately, our summer camp hell is not *as* hellish. But I did finish signing up my 8-year-old earlier this week (and had to find alternatives for chess camp and social emotional learning camp because OF COURSE those were sold out, so instead he will be doing slime camp and intro to photography 😮💨) and then I had a mom of one of his friends text me yesterday to ask if we wanted to coordinate some camps this summer, which, like, YES and NO in equal measure. It would be lovely if our sons magically ended up going to the same camp at the same time, but I want no part in trying to coordinate with yet another person and also how is she not booked yet?! The whole thing is fucked. And gross. And I don’t know how we got here (patriarchy, capitalism, misogyny, racism, etc., etc.). I’m glad you survived to the other side.
really love to see that slime camp is a thing ELSEWHERE as well lol
I hear other families sharing all the time which kids are going to each camp together but I just cannot do the coordination! Sharing responsibilities with other families *sounds* lovely, but the mental load goes up to lower the physical load and I just can't manage it. The summer camp system is a ridiculous nightmare and I imagine some future historian being completely confused by it.
Just handled our first summer camp sign up season and I only survived because a mom who went through this before gave me the inside skinny on a summer long camp where sign ups are in November. Also, it's a Jewish day camp and we're not Jewish (or really anything) but that's okay because it's all summer long, all day long, Monday through Friday and I just did. not. want. to. deal. And we're completely fine with our kid experiencing and learning to respect different faiths.
Also, I already warned my husband I will never coordinate with other parents. Our kiddo can make summer camp friends and it will be fine. I absolutely refuse to give in to that. If kiddo wants that, she can learn to sign her own damn self up when she's old enough.
That's the OTHER thing - you are so royally fucked if you move to a new town and no one shows you the ropes. It's like they make the summer camp process purposely opaque!!!! I admire your tenacity re: refusing to coordinate.
What...what do they do for an entire week in slime camp? Do I want to know?
Our camps are held by a bunch of different organizations and EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. has a different opening day/time. One of them starts enrolling for summer in NOVEMBER. Some of them don’t launch until MARCH which feels insane. One I was trying to get my daughter into opened for signups at TEN P.M. on a Tuesday night. Ten. And it somehow sells out in seconds. They don’t even tell you where the camp is HELD, so you’re at the mercy of parents who’ve lucked into a spot in prior years. Some of them are open all summer, some of them only run a few weeks (which means of course I’ve already scheduled something for those weeks by the time they release their schedule. My school district is the last one in the city to start school which also means I’m scrambling to find a camp that’s still running the last week of summer. And what the fuck is up with these camps that run from 9-4? Losing my goddamned mind, paying a million dollars for the privilege of arriving at work late and leaving early.
I fucking hate summer.
um i'm sorry - TEN PM!?
I continue to be grateful I live in a district with a robust Boys and Girls Club. The flurry of sign up for us comes the first day of camp when you have to sign up in person for all the field trips and the week of off-site camp. God help if you're not in line at 7am to ensure your kid gets to go to the trampoline park in July. I still have two weeks to figure out but that feels much more manageable
i sort of think i'd prefer a physical line to the hell of the digital line haha
Solidarity!! I feel all of this so deeply as I am currently in this hell. And I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about all of this, but can we also add on to the fact that if you work full time, as both my husband and I do, and need either an early drop-off or late pick up because a camp that lets out at 2-3pm is smack in the middle of both our work days? That will be seventeen thousand more dollars, per day, per child, please. The fact that we treat summers as though many families don't have two working parents (and in many cases those parents have more than one job), is absolutely insane to me. Moms are expected to create these amazing summers, whether we are booking camps because we're working outside the home, or if we're SAHMs, curating these bucolic perfect sunny days with pools and popsicles and enrichment every day for 3 months. It's the definition of "being a mom like you don't have a job and being an employee like you don't have kids". I'm WILDLY lucky that I get to work from home, but that doesn't mean I can have kids running around all summer. And literally, the whole timing of camps means we have to ostensibly plan the whole summer calendar in, like February to make sure we can get into the camps we want, and the weeks we want, while keeping other commitments in mind. The cheap "throw-them-outside-all-day-and-visit-the-public-pool-on-a-good-day" day camps I went to as a kid don't exist anymore. They really don't. And anyone (cough cough, Dave Ramsey, and also my mother in law) saying things like "you're dumb if you spend thousands on summer camp, throw them into a free camp" is beyond insulting and really undermines just how difficult all of this is. Even our YMCA is $400/kid/week. That is SO MUCH MONEY. If we wonder why couples are choosing to be child-free, things like this absolutely play into the reasons.
After camp year one, I gave up the idea of different camps for different interests. I just cannot do the different forms and learn the different policies and drop off procedures for a one week experience. I was lucky enough to find a (somewhat) local camp that has a good variety of different tracks and my son just goes to that one camp all summer with a different topic every week. I know that I am extremely privileged to have it available and to afford it but he still enjoys it and it's all I can manage! Sign up is still stressful but was back in the fall so our summer has been set for months. My in-laws recently offered to have my son stay with them for a week this summer and attend camp in their state. It's such a generous offer and he was so excited and it's good for everyone involved...except all I could think was that I would have to fill out forms for another camp!!!
yesss the different policies, times, and locations are extremely brain scrambling!
I have to do this next week. Because our main summer camp sign-up was last-minute POSTPONED from this Wednesday to next (!!!!?!!), which is its own kind of hell. Will be in a state of perpetual anguish until then.
HOW DARE THEY