On Parenting

and it's surprises

I dropped my two oldest daughters off at camp yesterday for a week. It’s a relatively typical Vermont summer camp. Canoes, archery, arts and crafts, that sort of thing. The location is bucolic; open freshwater on Lake Champlain, accessible by a one-lane dirt road winding through corn fields. The cabins are rustic, arranged along another wooded path as if on a city street. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of girls between the ages of 7 and 14 checking in on a staggered interval.

The check-in was simple. A lice check. An introduction to the camp nurse. A cabin assignment. The first order of business for the week was a swim test, and dozens of girls in bathing suits and towels were running around the woods. There seemed to be no timeline, or at least none that my daughters registered. It was that sort of euphoric chaos that only exists in childhood moments of freedom and excitement, which, as an adult, you only catch a whiff of, here and there, when you encounter awe-inspiring natural beauty or head out on a road trip or walk into a ticketed event you’ve been anticipating forever. It was an expression of joy.

I wanted to hug my girls before I left and walked down to the cabin my eldest, now a young teenager, had disappeared into. Waiting outside while she changed, I thought about bringing her home as a newborn. I was in medical school, my wife was in her residency training, and we lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in Brookline, MA. We had received permission from our landlord to repaint our closet as a nursery. It wasn’t even a walk-in closet, and I had to build the crib inside the closet itself, because if I had built it outside, it wouldn’t have fit through the door. That first year of her life, my final year of medical school, was me and her, as my wife had a much tougher schedule and mine was more flexible. I fed her in her little plastic high chair in our one multipurpose kitchen-living room. I changed her diaper. I gave her bottles. I took her on walks and brought her with me everywhere. I took her outside for the first time in her life. I showed her the sky for the first time.

They were little and I was younger once upon a time

And now she came out of the cabin like a shot, with her friend from Middle School who was staying in the same cabin. I stepped into her path.

Hey girl! Can I get a hug goodbye?

Dad…. her eyes darted around, embarrassed, this was her domain, I was an interloper.

I got a way too brief hug, and she was off. Running down the path to the beach, towel in hand. Bittersweet.

I traipsed over to my younger daughter’s cabin. She came out and stood on the steps. No tears, but she looked nervous. Maybe overwhelmed. I gave her a big hug.

Are you excited, buddy? I dialed up the excitement factor for show.

Dad… I don’t know anyone in my cabin.

We talked for a minute about how she would shortly make new friends, and by and by, a counselor came over to ask if she was ready for the swim test. She brightened up a little. One last hug, she still looked nervous. But no tears.

That’s the thing about parenting. It’s this ever-shifting balance of offering safety and reassurance, and escalating doses of independence until one day when you let the thing you love more than anything else in this world walk out to find their path. What we give them, in the best sense, evolves from protection and safety to, I hope, a tidbit or two they find useful as they navigate their own life. But more so than how to drive a car, or pay your taxes, or navigate friendships and workplace politics and (I shudder to think) romance, I hope we’ve imbued in them a moral code. I hope they learn that their father was not always successful at what he set out to do, but he attempted to do it all guided by a firm belief that power is important because it can be used morally or immorally, and its exercise is only moral when it is used in defense of those without it. Power is important because there are many who seek it for the wrong reasons.

As I walked back to my truck for the drive home, I waded through the excitement, joy, and anxious tears of a summer camp drop-off. It took me back to my own leaving the nest moments as a kid, culminating in the Naval Academy’s “I-Day.” I knew no one at Annapolis on checking in, and after the swearing-in ceremony, when the parents leave and the screaming and “chopping” begin, I wondered if I had made a mistake. I was lonely, and moreover, worried about being lonely. It is always an empty feeling. The military is good at making you feel lonely, but then excellent at making you feel you’re never alone.

I looked back before rounding the corner up to where I had parked. My oldest daughter was visible, having come back up the path, now motioning to her sister to follow her down the path to the beach. It must have felt like such a relief for my youngest to see her big sister was there, looking out for her, and I instantly felt worlds better about leaving my baby girl at sleepaway camp. Her big sister, of her own accord, had decided to help

Most people are mostly good. I don’t ever want to forget that.