Sending the Kids to Summer Camp
On my way to the office this morning, I noticed a group of parents loading their children onto a bus and telling them to have a good time. The kids were all wearing matching red T-shirts, and I guessed they were all being sent off to summer camp, because I live in the sort of neighborhood where there are luxury buildings and people can afford to spend thousands of dollars to send their kids into the woods to participate in color wars.
Don Steinberg wrote a story for Philadelphia magazine recently which discussed how much it can cost to send a kid to summer camp:
Overnight camps cost a lot to run these days, and they’re not cheap. The fee at Kweebec is $8,795 for seven weeks ($8,995 for older kids), which depending on your income bracket seems like either what’s wrong with America or the going rate for this kind of thing. Pine Forest and Canadensis, up in the Poconos, cost a little more. Saginaw, Green Lane and Nock-a-Mixon are a little less. The specialized Krinsky camps can run $6,000 for four weeks. These fees, now the norm, reminded me of Meatballs, the 1979 movie where Bill Murray plays a counselor at bargain-basement Camp North Star. In one scene, he does a local TV interview posing as a programs director for Camp Mohawk, the ritzier across-the-lake rival.
“How do you justify $1,000 a week?” the reporter asks. “Well, our political roundtable,” Murray says. “Yasser Arafat is gonna come out, spend a weekend with the kids, just rap with them. … The kids wanted animals, so this summer each camper will stalk and kill his own bear in our private wildlife preserve. … “
My family couldn’t afford to send me away to summer camp, but I was the sort of kid who would have enjoyed it. While at a friend’s house, I remember catching a glimpse of Bug Juice, a reality show that ran on the Disney Channel from 1998 to 2000 about teenagers at summer camp, and my friend would say, “Oh man, this is exactly how camp is.” It seemed fun.
I was the sort of kid who was in the band in middle school, and I did go to band camp, but instead of swimming, or archery, or color wars, we basically just practiced music for 12 hours a day to prepare for “sectionals.” Band camp lasted a week, and it cost something like $200, and yes, it’s one of the geekiest thing I’ve ever paid to do.
What did you play?
@probs Woodwinds! Alto sax. Clarinet.
@Mike Dang rad! I also played alto sax.
@probs Wow same here!
Nerd camp changed my life and set me on my current life path, but when I think about how much it cost I am astonished my parents sent me. Then again, they did have to compare to three weeks of full-time child care anyway, plus they got a little vacation for a few weeks. But it’s also amazing to me how much it costs to send your kid to day camp in this town – and it’s only going to be for 4-6 hours a day, so you still have to find and pay for other child care if you work full time.
@Jenn@twitter NERD CAMP! It changed my life, too, and I had such an unholy good time there that my parents kept threatening not to let me go back the next year. But if I had had to go to a real camp, with sports and outdoorsy activities every day? I woulda died. For real. I woulda died a death caused by a thousand dodgeballs to the face. So grateful to my parents for never forcing this dweeby indoor kid to go to regular camp.
@werewolfbarmitzvah I had to go to a few regular camps when I was too young for nerd camp, and it was really a sad time for me (hello, crippling anxiety, lack of interest in crafts, and exercise-induced asthma! Let’s spend the summer together!). My mom has always been a tomboy and very outdoorsy, and was utterly baffled by my lack of interest in sports – I think she was still excited that sports for girls even existed, since they didn’t when she was young. But she ultimately came around and understood that I’m a big nerd, and I ultimately came to share her love of hiking and day trips outdoors because I found ways to feed my nerdiness with them, so all’s well that ends well.
Band camp is so great! I went all four years of high school (no middle school marching band) and then became an instructor and got to go to TWO band camps every year. Band camp is even better than debate camp.
@highjump YES to band camp. What a time!
I went to yearbook camp one time. I also went to traditional camp, and my mom was the camp nurse at an all boys camp where I was the only girl for two to three weeks a summer from when I was 8 until I was 13. Other camps included, church camp, basketball camp, tennis camp, soccer camp, leadership camp, and cheerleading camp.
I’m pretty sure yearbook camp was the nerdiest camp I attended, and/or actually exists in nature.
@Charlsie Finally someone who went to more camps I did! Golf camp, tennis camp, 4H camp, leadership camp, nerd camp, zoo camp, and regular old day camp.
I am pretty sure I’m my parent’s most expensive kid.
For the summer after ninth grade I participated in the People to People program. It’s basically a travel service for middle and high schoolers. It was mind boggling expensive (~$5,000 for a three week trip through the UK). I still can’t believe my parents let me do that. But it was good in that we had to meet like bi weekly the year leading up to the trip and learn about UK government and history. And then we did volunteer-ish things while there like chop down an invasive species of tree and burn them.
I went to girl scout camp for a week or two most summers when I was a kid, which I think was probably around $200 or so. Then my mom signed on as camp nurse for a super ritzy camp of the kind described above, so I got to attend for free. Which was not as great as it might have been, since a) my mom was there and at 13 that is about the most horrific thing you can imagine; 2) first exposure to people way more privileged than myself! oh man, the awkwardness of everything that I didn’t grok yet; 3) also I started in the oldest age bracket, and everyone else had been attending every summer together since they were 6, so no friends for me. But, y’know, the lake was pretty.
@allreb I also went to girl scout camp several years, and I just looked one of them up – it ranges from $2-400 now, so was probably even a lot less when I was there, which, jeez, was going on twenty years ago now (I was a G.S. from Daisy to Senior!) Pretty affordable, pretty fun, learned lots of stuff. I’m looking at these rich kid camps going huh? Did they not pitch tents and have latrine duty? Are they basically doing the kid version of car camping?
Camp Chippewa is more expensive than any of these. The Harmony Hut only cost a few bucks to slap together, but those pilgrim costumes were not cheap.
I spent eight summers at Jewish sleepaway camp- 7 that my parents had to pay for, and one on staff, which paid an amount of money that you never wanted to translate into an hourly rate because we were “on” for something like 130 out of 168 hours in a week.
My camp was down the road from Canadensis, one of the camps mentioned in the article- we played sports against them some summers. Nowadays, it costs a little under $5000 for a four week session, and about $7500 for the full summer for campers. The two summers as a CIT cost a little more, I think. It was a little less when I went there. My brother went to a different, equally expensive camp. But my parents didn’t have to worry about childcare at all because we were just gone, and they had two child-free months every summer. They loved that part- and so did we.
@RachelG8489 JEWISH SLEEPAWAY CAMP!
only i dropped out before i could pay for the privilege of avodah/CIT, and reverted to working for real money at a local ritzy day camp with adorable three to five year olds.
@bibliostitute My parents were THRILLED to pay for the privilege of a full summer of working with campers, doing manual labor around camp, and waiting tables in the dining hall with a little “leadership training” thrown in. Mostly because at that point, they hadn’t had any kids at home during the summer for a couple of years and there was no way in hell they wanted my fifteen year old unable to drive myself anywhere self at home for a summer.
@RachelG8489 wow I am so impressed because my parents were thrilled to save the cash and put me on my bike and shove me down the hill to work everyday. Their stated goal: by the end of the summer, you are biking up that hill from work in >30 minutes. IT WAS A STEEP HILL!
@RachelG8489 I went to one of those too. And honestly, if there was a 529 program for camp tuition that I could put money into so my kids could be assured of a place when they’re born/old enough to go, I would invest in it. Best thing ever.
@Titania Agreed. Camp was 100% worth it for my family. My brother and I loved it, created great bonds with the kids we went with, learned a lot, did things we would have NEVER done on our own.
And while I get that it isn’t affordable for everyone, if my future husband and I are both working full time, then somehow the $1000 a week or so that camp comes out to sounds totally worth it for a full summer of not worrying about childcare AT ALL. Your grocery bill drops because your pubescent kids aren’t eating everything in sight, you don’t have to do their laundry, and no worrying about the day camp ending too early or paying for aftercare and having to pay out the ass if traffic makes you ten minutes late for pick up.
Cello camp here! I actually have fairly unpleasant memories of that experience, from other preteen girls being hell beasts (I think this is a teen thing, not a girl thing, I just am a girl and therefore was cabinned with other girls) to spiders falling on me mid-practice, to being too dorky to smoke pot and therefore being a sad outcast. Also my crush went out with my stand partner. SAD FACE.
@Genghis Khat YES i had such nightmarish experiences at music camp, literally because i did not shave my legs when i was 11. (even the camp counselors called me “beast.”) camp is such an intense lord-of-the-flies social experience that i am (unfairly?) instantly suspicious of people who enjoyed it. like, you were one of THOSE people.
but i’m totally sending my kids to camp, if i can afford it. parents need a vacation too.
Uh wow, I did 4H camp and only now realize that was still probably pretty expensive. Just looked one up and it was $500 a week? Thanks mom and dad.
So I dunno, if these kids are getting non-scary bathrooms and facilities, maybe it’s not so bad?
Also did Boy Scout camp one year where I did A LOT of growing up. One night, to earn a “Survival” badge, they sent us out individually to build leanto’s as shelter to spend the night. It started storming so they gave us tarps but still expected us to stay out. I was 12.
@forget it i quit 4H camp was like $150 a week when I was a kid, but I was also in a poor southern state, so that may have had something to do with it. Our facilities were terrifying, but I have fond memories of making butter in a jar.
I had totally blocked out how much I hated Girl Scout camp, too. My Girl Scout troop was awesome – we did service projects and camped and learned whatever we felt like – but Girl Scout camp was a neverending hell of friendship bracelets and swimming lessons.
@Jenn@twitter My personal hell: my fifth summer at GSC, I was still in the second-year swim lesson group because I never could do the freaking crawl correctly. My limbs are just not that coordinated.
I never went to sleepaway camp because I was a) a giant wuss about bugs and b) growing up in a rural area anyway. Day camps I attended:
- town-run camp with daily visits to the town pool
- horseback riding camp
- orchestra camp (violin! we did a Brandenburg concerto and I also was in a double quartet that played the Pink Panther theme)
- schmancy arts camp located at a private school, where I learned to throw pots, write songs and build a human-size chess set
- ad hoc camps thrown together by a neighbor’s mom where we did a medieval feast and a “circus”
- summer school, because I was a giant nerd and it was the only way I could take photography
Yeah, I went to day camp a few times too, but I kind of hated it because I only really started doing it after my Dad met my stepmom, and it was mostly a ploy for them to have alone time, and by this time I was one of the oldest kids there. Oh, and they never asked me which one I wanted to do either.
Also I grew up in Ontario cottage country, and lived right on the lake during middle and high school, so like, you didn’t really need to get sent away for camp.
I just looked up the cost of the week-long camp in Western PA that my sister and I went to for a few summers. It’s $260. Still. That’s maybe $50 more than when we went nearly 20 years ago. It’s affiliated with the Mennonite church (one of several religions my parents tried that didn’t stick), so that may have something to do with the exceedingly fair pricing. I remember it was a lot of fun, and not crazy churchy. More of a Kumbaya-around-the-campfire kind of place.
@RocketSurgeon Where in Western PA? My family is from Pittsburgh/Johnstown, and would LOVE to send the cousins away for a week :)
@Jake Reinhardt The place is called Laurelville, and it’s in Mt. Pleasant, PA. http://www.laurelville.org/. The camps start this week, so pack ‘em up!
Oooh, the other thing I did was a not-camp that all of the schools in my county put together. The top 10 students from each grade in middle school were sent out to one of the county schools and allowed to pick from a variety of courses the teachers put together for two weeks of super nerdy fun. It was totally free (I have zero idea how it was financed, in retrospect) and super awesome if you were the sort of kid who was nerdy enough to want MORE school in you life (hint: I was).
There was a point in my life when I went to Quaker school during the year, and a military-themed summer camp at Valley Forge during the summer.
I went to the local “fun” public summer school program, which was at the high school (exciting!) and included classes in things like cooking and improv comedy and what I can only guess was home-movie-making? It was awesome.
I did a lot of summer (and extra-curricular) activities, but the only sleepaway camp I can remember was a one-week gymnastics camp at a college a few hours south of my hometown. It was SO FUN, though. I was maybe 11 years old, and I felt very grown up, getting to sleep in the dorms and eat in the cafeteria, and just being with my friends “on our own.” Plus, their gym was so fancy, with TWO pits and tons of equipment and it was a total blast.
I didn’t know that the kind of summer camp from the Parent Trap (the original, guys) was a real thing that people did until I moved to the East Coast and everyone from the Northeast was like, “Oh yeah, I went to Camp Waxahatchee all summer, every summer until I was 16 and then I was a counselor until college.” Mind blowing.
@kellyography I’m not sure I realized ’til reading this article that all-summer summer camps like in the Parent Trap existed, and I’m from the east coast (but a slightly less wealthy part than the areas where people send their kids to those camps – my friends all stayed home with their stay-at-home moms during the summer, which is its own kind of luxury).
I went to YMCA sleepaway camp, which provided scholarships and I can’t imagine was too expensive anyway. It was pretty no-frills, but I didn’t know the difference, and I had a fantastic time.
@km1312 YMCA camp represent! It cost $350/400 a week when I went, over 10 years ago now. I just looked it up again and it’s about doubled. Still not in the $1,000 a week club though, and I know they still provide scholarships, especially to kids from the inner-city. Realistically though, sleep away camp with archery, swimming, crafts, food, outdoor experience, and mostly constant supervision for kids under 12 for like $125 a day? Am I the only one that might think that may be totally worth it to also have the kids out of the house? Okay, so these are totally imaginary and theoretical kids, but still…
I went to Math Camp. At Stanford. NERDIEST CAMP EVER!!! (But really it was a lot of fun and I got to learn cool things and it helped me get into college, probably).
@Brunhilde Creative Writing camp at Duke!
Attended the Center for Creative Youth at Wesleyan in Middletown, CT. That was pretty fun (and expensive! I remember picking up extra shifts so I could pay for it cause the rents couldn’t).
I worked at a summer camp in the Poconos for half a summer in 2006. Parents paid about $10k as a base for their kids to come for the summer – phone calls home for the kids were strictly limited, the camp owner was a micromanaging psychopath with a wife who seemed to be heavily medicated (his eldest son was also busted for smoking pot with his buddies and the kitchen staff that summer)… I couldn’t believe how unethical some of the behaviour I saw that summer was. Serious nickle and diming, lying and actions that compromised the safety of the kids. Hard to believe this place is considered one of the top camps in the Northeast.