A Tale of Three Hungry Sisters

This is what happened one morning last weekend.

It involved teamwork:

And following directions:

And taking turns:

And patience:

And collaboration:

And independence:

And a tiny bit of help from Dad:

And results!:

And Mom felt like she might be out of a job. Which was just fine with her. 

This IS Vacation

So much on my mind this week...and it's the first time I've had a chance to sit down and say something. Maybe I should write something political, but my friends the columnists have done such a good job. So I'm not going to hold court here about the loss of the Voting Rights Act, the end of DOMA, the triumph of Wendy Davis, and the senate's bill giving hope at last for fair treatment of the undocumented.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the personal. Because I find myself in a strange predicament this week. I'm without two of my three kids, who are off at sleep-away camp. Like my two-year-old, I keep looking for them everywhere, and they're nowhere to be found. (Except, on occasion, on the camp website, where I may have the luck to find one or both of them deep in a selection of hundreds of photos. One mom noted on Facebook that she can recognize her kid by the corner of a shoe. It's an addiction. As soon as they're spotted, you want more. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.)

This is not the first time that they've both been away, or that I've been away from them. Last summer, Bella went to camp for one session, and Ruby overlapped with her for a week. But this year, Bella's away for 7 weeks, and Ruby for 4. That's a long time.

I was so harried moving, helping the kids finish school, and getting organized and packing for camp, that I didn't have much time to consider what it would be like with the kids gone. It was the day after they left that Josh said to me, "Why'd we have to send them away for so long?" [Some Israeli friends, who can't wrap their brains around the American institution of summer camp, jokingly chided that it's child abuse.]

Why, indeed? For one thing, they wanted to go. When I was a kid, camp was a given, not a choice. But I always said I wouldn't send my kids unless they wanted to go. My girls were SO EXCITED for camp. They woke up at 5 am the day they were leaving, like people do when they have to catch a plane for a long-anticipated trip. Looking at the photos, camp looks like one long vacation for those lucky kids. Like Club Med, without the parents at night.

I went to camp for seven summers as a camper, and three on staff, and there's no question that the experience shaped me. I made some of my deepest friends, and each summer had more memories by far than the school years in between. By the time I was in college I couldn't think of coming home for a summer. How would I cope just hanging out with my parents?

I think that now, more than ever, freedom for children is scarce. What a gift for a child to be sent off on her own for a few weeks, knowing that she's not really on her own at all. She has friends and counselors there to help her, coupled with increased incentive to figure things for herself, without Mom and Dad in the background. It's hard not knowing all the details of my kids' lives, but at the same time, it's a gift for them to learn self-reliance, and to find out all the ways in which they don't need me.

So what is a parent to do, with their kids gone? In all my summers at camp, I never thought for a moment about what it was like for my parents back at home. I guess I assumed it was one glorious kid-free vacation for them. Alas, my (pre-children) daydreams of summering in Tuscany while the kids are at camp was squashed by the reality of paying camp tuition. This really IS our vacation. For them, it's the time of their lives. For us, it's a few weeks to focus on the little one, and to be able to float by with less structure. We will all blink our eyes and find ourselves packing school backpacks, come September.

On Weaning My Ten-Year-Old

Good. I got your attention. I knew I'd get this title-writing-thang down.

No, I'm not talking about Game-of-Thrones-style breastfeeding until the kid is in middle school. My two oldest were weaned from the breast at a relatively normal age (depending on whom you ask, of course), while still toddlers. And as I mentioned yesterday, my 22-month-old is on the verge of being done.

I'm thinking about a different kind of weaning, but one that is arguably more important: weaning a child from needing his/her parents to do everything for and with him/her. Weaning her from needing to be watched while she's walking down the street, or riding the subway, or using a public bathroom. I'm talking about giving kids freedom and trust, and teaching them independence and self-reliance.

Starting from when Bella and Ruby were about 7 and 5, I would sometimes leave them in front of the television while I popped across the road for some ingredients for dinner. We were living in London at the time, and directly across the street from our terraced house (that's Brit-speak for townhouse, see photo), there was a small grocery shop and a vegetable shop. I told them that their tushies were glued to the couch. Don't move, I said. I'll be right back. I was never gone for more than 5-8 minutes.

Did I assess the risks involved in leaving such young kids alone for a few minutes? I certainly didn't spreadsheet it. I used my gut, as I do every day as a parent. I just felt it would be infinitely easier to go pick up the needed broccoli myself, than to coat, shoe, and shlep the kids across the street to the shops with me (where they would undoubtedly beg for biscuits or lollies).

When we moved back to New York, a friend told me that it is illegal to leave a child at home alone until they are 10. I was not able to find evidence that it is illegal, but the New York State Office of Children and Family Services has this to say on the topic: Some children are responsible, intelligent, and independent enough to be left alone at 12 or 13 years of age. 

What?! Starting in middle school, the NYC Board of Education expects my kids to take the subway or public bus to school--they age out of eligibility for yellow bus service. Kids are expected to be able to move around the city on their own at the exact same age when they can be first left in their own homes? This doesn't make sense to me.

It's true that all kids and situations are different, but I would posit that weaning any child from their parents' constant supervision is akin to weaning a child from breastfeeding. It should be done slowly, and with sensitivity to the child's needs. Louisa started weaning from breastfeeding the day she started eating food, when she was six months old. A year and a half later, she is almost ready to give up the breast altogether. Similarly, kids need to gain independence gradually. At first my girls only stayed alone for a few minutes, and by now this has progressed to an hour or two, in the daytime only. It is always the girls' choice to stay or come with me. They know not to cook or bathe while I'm out. And they're pretty smart.

Bella also has been going out on her own, very locally, for the past few months. We send her on errands to the coffee shop across the street (how nice to have a young eager soul who's willing to go buy her parents coffee when we're out of beans!), and to the deli around the corner. On the latter errand, I followed her a half block behind the first time she went, mainly because I wanted to make sure she knew where to go, not because I was worried for her safety. She's also gone a block away (across Third Avenue!), to meet a friend.

Bella has plenty of intelligence and awareness, and I'm hoping that by taking small steps now, her increasing independence, when it comes, will be natural and pain-free.