My family spent this past week at our annual camping trip in the Sierra Nevadas, which is essentially an excuse to sit in the woods among a variety of rodents and drink some beer without anybody casting a glance askew.
We have done this at Family Camp for the past six years, and it has been an interesting transformation, to say the least. We've been bringing Thing 1 and Thing 2 since they were babies, and to see them grow and evolve has been both refreshing and somewhat challenging.
But before I broach that topic, let me tell you the highlight of the week: My wife and I come back to our tent one afternoon to change for the pool, and as I'm pulling the towels off the line I hear my wife scream, "Stallion, there's something moving in my suitcase and there are baby pigs in there. Please get them out."
"Baby pigs? What are you talking about?"
With a whimper: "Baby pigs. Please go look."
So I pull the suitcase out of the tent, turn it over, shake it upside down and sure enough a mouse falls out and goes scampering away.
"Baby pigs?" I said.
"Don't you see those two pink things on the ground?"
Actually, she was right. There were two pink bodies about an inch long laying on the ground. And I have to admit, they did look like baby pigs -- though much smaller. Turns out, the mouse had chewed a hole in the suitcase, climbed inside, ate through four of my wife's shirts to make a nest and birthed two baby mice in there. More than a little bit disgusting. So I gathered the baby pigs in a cup and threw them in the woods, only to be asked by my wife if I was sure an army of angry mice weren't going to attack us in the middle of the night looking for their offspring.
(I must say, ever since seeing Ratatouille, I have second thoughts about being mean to rodents of all kinds. But in my wife's suitcase? C'mon, even my patience has some limits.)
Anyway, that was just one snippet of the week. But the bigger issue is this: Thing 1, now 6, can go off on his own comfortably and play with his group of friends and essentially never see us the entire week.
There are two trains of thought on this. The first is that it gives him a sense of independence and confidence that he can't really get in any other situation. The camp is enclosed for the most part, other parents look out for kids and while there are dangers they are not the same as in the real world.
On the other hand, this is a Family Camp, the point of which is to spend time together as a family.
Ultimately, I compromised. Because I truly believe that one of our primary duties as parents is to instill in our children a sense of independence, the ability to go out in the world and function on our own. I hate parents that preach that, but as soon as their child tries to do that the parent calls them home because they are uncomfortable with the notion of no longer being in control.
However, I do want to spend some quality time with my family at Family Camp. And so while I allowed Thing 1 to roam on his own for most of the day, I did set up activities for us together, and I forced him to sit at the dinner table with us rather than with his friends. In that fashion, he could tell us about his day even though we weren't there to see it all.
In the end, I think it was a great way to go. He blossomed what seemed like years. He built confidence. He met people. He learned to do things he otherwise would not be able to do, like:
1) Doing a flip off the diving board.
2) Play dodgeball with kids three years older than him.
3) Win at shuffleboard.
4) Make a pot by himself.
5) Make lanyards.
6) Go paddleboating.
7) Execute a tie-dye t-shirt.
8) Communicate on his own with adults.
Now if he could only learn to remove baby pigs from his mother's suitcase, we'd be golden.
