For the last two summers I worked as a counselor at a summer camp. The ages of the campers ranged from seven to seventeen. Kids stayed for six days at a time before a new term began. Every six days, I was responsible for another batch of twelve guys. We lived in teepees in the middle of the mountains, and overall it was a fantastic experience.

My time at this camp was invaluable. I can scarcely imagine better real-world training for parenthood. My fellow counselors and I used to joke that if we messed up one week it was all right because we would get a fresh start mere days later.

In seriousness though, working at this camp made me appreciate my parents so much. Another common saying amongst the camp staff (obviously not uttered in front of campers) was that there was no such thing as bad kids, only bad parents. This seemingly innocuous statement actually segues nicely into a larger issue that I became aware of over the course of my tenure as a counselor.

While the majority of my time was spent teaching sports classes and keeping my guys out of harm’s way, I slowly began to realize that there were some larger latent sociological issues at hand. The last day of every term was called Parents' Morning. After a week apart, parents would trickle onto the camp grounds, eager to see their beloved offspring once again. With all the joyful reunions taking place, you would think that the kids had been gone for six years instead of six days.

During my first few weeks, I dreaded Parents' Morning. As counselors, we had to wake up at about five in the morning and get our campers’ luggage out on the road so that it could be picked up and relocated in a place for convenient pick-up by exiting families. The rest of the morning was busy and stressful, and a few hours after the camp was cleared of campers several hundred new ones would arrive.

Article Author: Daniel Terracina

Daniel Terracina is a professional writing student. Recently a professor encouraged him to apply to write for Blogcritics. Daniel is very excited about the prospect of writing reviews for various items. …

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