Why I Put My Children Off To Summer Camp

When I was a young boy many years ago, I remember wanting a hero to look up to. I'm sure my son did as well. You know, as parents we try to do the best by our children. We install traditions and customs we learned from our parents and do better than they did for our kids. I can only hope I've done a good job by my kids.

Paul had gone away for summer camp along with his sister together. This time of the year had always been odd for you. You had consumed so much of who you were into making my family happy. That was my only goal in my life; to make my family proud of me. Don't get me wrong, sending my children off to summer camp to be able to experience those types of situations is an accomplishment. As I said earlier, it's more than my father had been able to do for me. Paul had finally found solace at summer camp that one year. He had come to terms with his bedwetting all from a camp counselor. You had wished you were that camp counselor, you wish you could have been the one to save your son from the embarrassment. “That does not mean I have failed my job as a hero” you had told yourself over and over again.

I wanted to appear better than my father, much better, significantly better. And so I sat and I thought. What else could I do? While they were both away at summer camp you had spent most of your time gardening. Yeah, granted it was more of a tomato garden than anything else but you enjoyed it. Planting those tomatoes as little of a task that may seem had made you feel important or significant. You felt like you had done good by your family and by you every time we had grown one of the reddest tomatoes all of New Jersey had seen, and you were proud. You caught yourself smiling thinking about how silly you felt for smiling at something so small, but that didn't