Childrearing
Packing Hell: My Daughter Is Going To Camp – Why Does She Need So Much Stuff?
Last weekend, I went to visit a girlfriend. “Don’t even look in there,†she said as we passed by her guest bedroom. Of course I looked. There were so many clothes, in piles everywhere; it looked like her two kids were moving into a dorm room for college for a year. They were in the middle of packing for camp.
So, yes, I almost cried when I saw the list, not only because of the extra cash, but because this list would take me weeks to cobble together (or at least three very tiring days). When I went to overnight camp, I was sent with a sleeping bag and a trunk. I literally slept in a cabin that had a leak right over my head. I’d either wake up soaking wet from a rainstorm, or I’d wake up covered in mildew. And I loved it! But my mother certainly didn’t pack, as my daughter’s camp list says to pack, 12 short-sleeved T-shirts, four long sleeved t-shirts, and three WARMER long sleeved sweatshirts.
My daughter doesn’t even own six pairs of shorts, or hiking boots, and really? Three different TYPES of jackets? Not to mention “the bedding.†Like I said, I slept in a sleeping bag. Apparently, campers these days don’t actually camp. They stay at a hotel. A shitty hotel, but it’s definitely more of a hotel when I hear that I need to pack her with four sheets, two warm blankets, a comforter, two pillow cases and a pillow (plus a sleeping bag that’s only used for canoe trips). My daughter, ahem, doesn’t know how to make a bed even, so I’m sure she’ll really appreciate the fitted sheets I need to by her. (She has a double bed at home and I need to buy for single bed. But, apparently, she doesn’t have to make her bed at camp. The counselors will do it.)
This whole list – and I haven’t yet tackled to the other stuff on the list – makes me cringe. But it also makes me laugh hard. Last year, my daughter went to a different overnight camp. I dropped her off with her duffle bag (packed with way too much stuff) and shed a tear and took a picture. When she ran off the bus a week later and I was there to greet her, I couldn’t even hug her. That’s right! I couldn’t even hug my own daughter, because she smelled that bad. And she was also wearing the exact same thing I sent her to camp in the day she left, except when she got off the bus, her T-shirt was inside out and backwards and her fly was down on her shorts. Obviously, she hadn’t changed at all into the numerous shirts, shorts and sweat outfits I had packed for her.