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When I was
thirteen, and a city boy, my mother declared that I was both
lazy and obnoxious—she
said I was in the "back-talk" stage—and
that I should be sent away to camp. So I was sent to an all-boys canoeing camp,
which I absolutely loved. It was one of the great experiences of my life. I returned
home physically stronger and more confident than I had been two months earlier
(and probably still as obnoxious).
A few years ago, when my son, Will, was twelve, I felt it was
time for him to go to a sleep-over camp. Looking at my gentle
and rather "soft" son
on the edge of adolescence, I had a classic father's reaction.
I thought he ought to be more independent, that he needed to
get away from his mother's
overprotective hovering, and he could benefit from more outdoor
activities so that he could get stronger. Also, he needed to
get away from his video games and his laptop computer for a month.
(Well, he didn't think he did, but
I sure thought so!)
Naturally,
I wanted to pick a camp that would give my son the same incredible
experience that camp had been for me. I recognized that he was
not quite as athletic and outgoing as I had been at his age (and
not nearly as contrary), so I chose a camp for him that had many
of the same elements mine had had: all-boys, campfires, canoeing
and kayaking, waterfront activities, etc., but which also had
the things my son adored which I was never good at: arts, woodworking and dramatics.
We visited the camp at the end of the summer a year before he was to attend.
He had a great time playing Ultimate Frisbee® with a bunch of boys and counselors.
He said he liked it. So off he went.
He attended the all-boys camp for two summers, and I was very
proud of him for doing it. He took risks and attempted things
he had never done before, including kayaking and performing in
skits in front of the entire camp. He received an art prize at
the end of the second season. However, it was unmistakably clear
that he wasn't really comfortable there. He didn't
love it. As kind as the camp staff were, as friendly as the other
boys had been, the camp wasn't
really a fit for him. When I picked him up on the last day of
the second year of camp, here was my son, stronger, more confident,
and more challenging than he had ever been. He looked me in the
eye and delivered the news: "Dad," he
said, "I don't want to come back here. This is your
kind of camp, not mine. I'm not like you."
Ouch—that hurt. My intentions had been so good! Because
his mother and I wanted him to have a camp experience that he
loved, we renewed the search. This past summer we sent him to
an arts camp that had ceramics, theatre, wood-working, glass-blowing,
and lights, set and sound design, among other offerings He
called us at the end of the first week to report happily that
he had gotten a part in "Rocky Horror Picture Show," and
that he was taking a stand-up comedy seminar. On the wood lathe
he produced a beautiful martial arts fighting stick, with which
he still practices daily. He wants to go back next year for the
full eight weeks. (Did I mention that he also had a girlfriend
at camp?)
The other day I asked Will: "I know you loved your arts
camp much better than the canoe camp, but do you feel you got
something out of the canoe camp experience?" "No,
Dad," Will said. "I wish I'd
had had those two years to go to the arts camp." Still
casting about, I asked him whether they had had campfires at
his arts camp. In an exasperated "duh" tone
of voice, he proclaimed, "DA-AAD, it's not that kind
of camp!"
There is a parenting lesson in here somewhere, and I'm
searching for it. Was it wrong to send him to the kind of camp
I had loved? Is it essential that a child love every camp experience?
Can you predict what a thirteen-year-old will love? (I think
not.) Is there some value in a son attempting to do
the things his dad wants him to try, and thereby discharge some
unconscious obligation to his father and better define his own
identity? I hope so, because that's
what happened in this family.
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