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Be Prepared

May 15, 2018 By Nicole Kear Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: children, family, lesson, mother, sleep away camp, Summer camp, worrying

 

I never went to sleepaway camp as a child. I never wanted to, really, and it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing my over-protective mother would have suggested. She wouldn’t even let my sisters take candy from strangers on Halloween, opting instead to drive us to pre-arranged trick-or-treating sites, where we could trust the Kit-Kats were razor-blade-free. My mother was what is now called a helicopter parent, though that would be an understatement, I think, for her style of watchful parenting.  

I always thought she went way overboard with her constant worrying.  Then I had children. And I still thought it was pretty overboard. And then I sent those children to sleepaway camp. 

It was the packing list that activated my anxiety. Not so much what was on the list, but what wasn’t. 

“I thought the list would be longer,” I told my husband David, handing over the single–sided sheet. “Can this really be all a ten-year-old needs? For two weeks? In the woods?”

Woods make me nervous. This is mainly because I’m a city girl, but the fairytales I read as a child didn’t help. In fairytales, nothing good every happens in the woods. When kids enter the woods, witches try to eat them and wolves try to eat them and huntsman try to rip their hearts out of their chests. 

“Everything she needs is on there,” said David, a veteran sleepaway camper and former Boy Scout. Despite his experience, I didn’t find this reassuring. He doesn’t really subscribe to the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared!” He’s a classic under-packer and the few times we’ve hiked, he’s refused to carry bear spray, and only begrudgingly consented to a bear whistle. 

So I decided to trust my instincts and use the camp’s packing list as a first draft, a rough outline on which to build. I wanted to benefit from the experience of other parents so I posted on Facebook, soliciting suggestions of items to add. 

“A bathrobe,” one friend wrote. “So she doesn’t have to walk from the bathrooms to her cabin in a towel.” 

“Flip flops, for the gross showers,” wrote another.

I read these to my husband, with satisfaction. 

“See? This stuff didn’t even occur to us!” I told him. “And we don’t want her walking around in a towel, for God’s sake. In the woods.”

“So pack her a bathrobe.” 

“Of course I’m packing her a bathrobe,” I said. “The point is, we almost overlooked all this stuff.”

“And she would have been fine,” he grumbled.

“And she would have gotten Athlete’s Foot.”

Another friend responded to my post, advising that I treat my daughter’s clothes with permethrin. When I, ignorant, asked what this was, she explained it was a tick repellant. 

Ticks. 

Ticks.

I’d been so busy worrying about bears that I’d forgotten about ticks. Lyme-disease-carrying poppy-seed-sized ticks. What else, I wondered, was I forgetting about? 

I purchased a large vat of Permethrin, which ended up being a sandora’s Box. Where do you draw the line on what gets treated? Shirts and shorts, obviously. But what about pajamas? And sheets? And the now-indispensable bathrobe? 

I chatted with another mom who was also sending her daughter to sleepaway camp for the first time, and at first, this fellow feeling relaxed me.

.“The more you know, the more you worry,” she said. 

“It’s true,” I agreed. 

“Il’s like, I used to enjoy water parks,” she sighed.

“What’s wrong with water parks?”  

“Oh, just the pedophiles.” 

“WHAT PEDOPHILES?” I nearly screamed. 

“Oh, it’s just – you didn’t know that water parks are, like, the number one place to find pedophiles?”

“No,” I said. “I did not know that.” 

There was much I did not know. The awareness of how much was, to say the least, disquieting.

The more I worried, the more stuff I added to my packing list. I could not eradicate ticks, or far worse things, but I could pack stuff to repel them.  My list swelled. 

I packed three different kinds of flashlights, with extra batteries, because if the woods are menacing, imagine the woods in the dark. 

I packed a battery-opened fan to clip onto the bed because what if it was broiling hot at night and she couldn’t fall asleep and that led to insomnia which can really ruin your day, I thought at 2am. 

I packed a large pile of pre-addressed and pre-stamped enough envelopes.

“It couldn’t be easier for her to write to us now?” I showed David with pride. 

“You could write the letters for her,” he said.  

“I’m just worried she won’t communicate with us and we won’t know what’s going on.” 

“Oh I know what you’re worried about,” he said. “Trust me.” 

Drowning. 

Tick bites.

Homicidal maniac loose in the woods.  

Bullying. 

Bears. 

Social isolation.

Meningitis.

Nuclear warfare.

Getting lost in the woods. 

Insomnia. 

Homesickness. 

That she’d have so much fun, her life back at home would pale in comparison, and she’d forever chase the halcyon days of summer camp. 

My list grew. It needed staples.

Worrying is really very exhausting but what’s far more exhausting is worrying while pretending you are not – the which is critical, of course. Because you want your child to be unfettered and free and have a great time! And not give a passing thought to secondary drowning!  I thought, more than once, that it was lucky I’d been professionally trained as an actress. 

The monumentally time-consuming and expensive feat of procuring every item on my list was only matched in difficulty by the feat of fitting it all in the oversize duffel bag I had purchased. I was up past midnight on the night before she left, but I managed to make it work. Before I zipped it closed and handed it over to David, I had the idea to write little notes of love and encouragement and to tuck them into pairs of socks and shirts and bathrobe pockets. Then I went to bed and worried that those notes might be embarrassing and lead to public ridicule and potentially bullying, item number four on my list of Stuff to Worry About. But by then, the duffel bag had been lugged out to the car and was out of reach. 

I knew it would be a battle not to cry when we said goodbye, but it was a battle I waged fiercely, knowing she’d take her cue from me, and it was a battle I won. My eyes were dry as I waved brightly and walked, fast, out the screen door. 

What I didn’t know is that immediately after that, I’d start to feel relieved. I waited for the other shoe to drop but it didn’t. My worry was dialed way down from High to a Low Simmer, the kind you can ignore. What took its place was excitement about all the adventures my daughter would have. 

As we drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, almost back home, I said to David: “I’m actually feeling better.”

“Good,” he said. “I thought you would. You like to be prepared. Though you do tend to go way overboard.”

“But I let them go trick-or-treating!” I protested. “And I really never worry about razor blades in the Kit Kats.”

He nodded. “We all have to start somewhere.”

 

 

Nicole C. Kear is the author of The Fix-It Friends chapter book series for children, including the most recent titles, Three’s A Crowd and Eyes on the Prize. You can find more info at nicolekear.com.

Illustration by Heather Heckel

 

 

Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville Tagged With: children, family, lesson, mother, sleep away camp, Summer camp, worrying

Selfish Dreams

December 6, 2017 By Ambika Samarthya-Howard Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: career, children, dreams, family, life, mother, motherhood

There’s pivotal moment in every mom’s life after the birth or adoption of her child when she decides she has the space, desire, and need for self-care. This can come in the form of returning to the book by the bedside that’s been there since 36 weeks, or returning to her favorite yoga class.  Unfortunately, for working moms, this moment sometimes comes later, and for me, it came a year after my child was born and I went on my first retreat. From there, I was inspired to head back (reluctantly) to the gym.  And that’s where I met Natasha Forrest.

I think there’s a Natasha in many of our lives.  She’s the woman you randomly meet in the library or bar who is just a kick-ass woman, and then you realize that not only is she a mom, but she’s also doing amazing and unconventional things in their career. Natasha is even more of an inspiration for me because she’s a single mom. Natasha was a full time accountant, with crazy hours, doing part time fitness training on the side, when she was let go from her job during a company lay-off.  Her son was one at the time (he’s now five), and she decided she actually liked her part time job more. She had the choice to find a new accountant job, or follow her dreams.

So she decided to go for it.

The irony of having a child is that is gives you a deep awareness of what truly matters to you, but the clarity it shows you is even harder to put into place because you now have another being completely dependent on you.  I left my ad agency job after I had Ananda to go back to writing and filming for social good. I have friends who left their jobs after having a kid to pursue their novel or graduate degree.  I realize this is a position of economic privilege – to be able to leave your stable job to pursue a risky alternative.  With Natasha the courage was even more profound because she is the primary caretaker. “Is it selfish? Of course it is. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You have to look out for you. At the end of the day no one else is going to,” she said honestly.

It’s a way of being and speaking we are not comfortable with because of many of the parameters of guilt and shame often put onto moms. I myself am often overwhelmed by the guilt that comes with caring about something outside of my child. I feel it both as a social taboo and a biological pull.  Annabel Crabb once said: “The obligation for working moms is a very precise one: the feeling that one ought to work as if one did not have children, while raising one’s children as if one didn’t have a job.”

It’s even more audacious for moms who love their job and pursue dreams, because they love what they do, and want to do more of it. I asked Natasha how she copes with the guilt, and she responded that following what she loves actually enables her more flexibility to be with her son. “I set my own hours, I don’t stay up all night stressed out with work.”

I found myself making similar adjustments when I took on the lead communications role at a global NGO based in South Africa. I start working as soon as I wake up at 6am on most days, to make sure I can pick up Ananda by mid-afternoon.  My job involves deadline pressures, conference presentations, and frequent travel – all of which sit with my personality quite easily. But I still catch myself justifying my career: whenever someone asks “wow, how do you balance all the hours” or “don’t you miss your son when you’re away?” I immediately explain how the job allows me flexibility to be on his schedule so I still spend half the day with him.

What’s shocking is how much I’ve internalized this, to the point that when someone says “sounds like the perfect job for you”, I still respond with the script of “but I do it cause I can make the hours work”. When did following our own dreams feel like such a guilty pleasure?

Motherhood and careers hardly feels a balance – it feels more like an avalanche. Natasha has worked hard the last four years, getting training certificates, putting in extra hours, all while managing drop offs and pick-ups. She’s had a series of promotions – and an insanely toned body – to show for it.  She also has a wonderful, active son.  The worst thing about giving your all to your career and your family is that you’re exhausted. “When I’ve been training all day, I’m tired at 9 and can’t play soccer with my son,” she confides.

Ironically, listening to Natasha’s long-term commitment to herself and family gave me the strength to pursue my last selfish goal: to get back to working out regularly.  I’ve started to see exhaustion as not a reason to not do something, but as part of the journey.

It’s always about trade-offs. But it’s also about being happy. And when a mom is happy, often her children and families are too. Natasha may be an ambitious personal trainer and single mom but she’s one happy woman, and I can imagine her son is better off for it. “I still sometimes ask myself when I’m going to get a real job,” she jokes. Then she turns and asks me to give her another set of mountain climbers.

Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: career, children, dreams, family, life, mother, motherhood

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