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Sleepaway Camp

N

NDR2

Well-Known Member
Has anyone here ever been to sleepaway camp when you were younger? My sister went for a few summers, but I didn’t have the desire to – I thought I might get homesick. Then I thought I’d like to give it a try. So I went during the summer when I was 12, and stayed for 4 weeks. I ended up having a miserable time. I was really homesick - more than I thought I might be. I cried almost every day there. The activities may have been fun, but I was too homesick to enjoy them. It also felt uncomfortable being out in the country where it was chilly, and getting so many mosquito bites. I normally liked to swim, but the lake there was ice cold. The head of the camp was a jerk, too. He yelled a lot, and often criticized me when I complained. I tried asking my parents if the stay could be cut in half (2 weeks instead of 4 weeks), and they said no – and the head of the camp gave me a hard time about it. It also was an all boys’ camp, and the staff seemed to express very “manly” attitudes, and sensitivity was most likely frowned upon there. It may have just been a bad camp, but after that experience I realized I certainly wasn’t camp material.

My parents originally registered me to go back the following summer, without asking me first. I knew I didn’t want to go back. I begged my parents not to make me go. I also yelled at them about it, and even broke a few things. Finally I put my foot down and said I wasn’t going. My parents said I’d at least have to go up and talk to the head of the camp. I tried to pretend I had mixed feelings about it, but the head of the camp would only see things his way and told me to “cut the baloney.” After that short talk I said firmly that I wasn’t staying. A few staff members (who weren’t there the year before) were encouraging me stay. The head of the camp even attempted to apologize for raising his voice, but I thought he sounded phony. The whole time I maintained my stance. So finally my parents and I drove home. (When I think back about this I wish I’d been more firm).

So feel free to share your experience and feelings about sleepaway camp.
 
I went to four years of Girl Scout Camp and loved every minute of it. It had everything I didn't have at home; consistent rules and expectations, and being in the woods, swimming and that is where I learned to canoe which became a lifelong passion. I took my first canoe trips at that camp. It was two weeks long and I wished it was all summer. There was also music and dance. I know I got made fun of and didn't really make any friends, but it didn't matter because what we were doing was so much fun.
 
I went when I was 8. I remember hearing someone say I might be homesick, and I had to ask what that meant. My mom explained that when some kids are away from home, they miss it so much that they make themselves sick over it. I didn't get it. I asked if the kids didn't know they would go back home, and she said they probably did. I thought it was silly. I knew I would go back home when the camp was over. What was to get upset about?

So I went to camp and loved it. It was the first time I was away from home and family. Didn't faze me a bit. I did get overwhelmed with some of the activities, but I just found a tree to sit under till things quieted down. Some activities were sports, and I already knew from two years of school that I hated sports, and camp was supposed to be fun. I found plenty to do wandering around camp during sports. We had a daily half-mile each way hike to a swimming area in a clear stream. That was my favorite part, especially eating huckleberries off the bushes along the trail.

When I got home, I was quized about being homesick. I just said I knew when I was supposed to go back home. I also wondered why they asked. Wouldn't the camp had told them if I had been? (I still envisioned homesickness as an illness.) Turns out, my mom had been anxious about me being gone, and kept setting my place at the table, etc.

Over the years, I have been counselor at several camps. It was a way to combine my outdoor time with getting a paycheck. Never got rich at it, but it paid my meager bills and fed me as well.
 
I stayed for 5 days in Yorkshire when I was 11, with the school. It wasn't summer camp, it was just a historical field trip during term time, where we stayed for 4 nights in a hostel. But I felt homesick from the moment my mother kissed me goodbye before getting on the coach, to the moment I stepped off the coach after arriving back.
I was very nervous and tearful all week, and kept complaining about everything and being fussy and emotional. I wish I had of just chilled out a bit and had a laugh with my friends. I think I did at breakfast and at night in our dorms.
On one of the days we went to a viking village place where we all had to dress up as vikings and live as vikings for a day. The staff there had to stay in character of pretending to be strict, angry people telling us what to do, and my stupid shy, anxious mind told me they were strict for real, and I just spent the whole day looking around me with a frightened look on my face and not speaking a word, just taking it all in and more or less enduring the day and wanting so bad to just go home (they actually filmed us there, and I still have the video to this day).
I was more relaxed on the last day because I knew we were travelling home the next day, and it was just filled with buying gifts for our families and playing in a nearby park, which I enjoyed.
 
I went to quite a few summer camps as a kid. I found it very stressful. Lots of kids and counselors all around me and constant noise. There was so much confusing socializing in the bunk rooms and during mealtimes and I could never find a quiet space.

Most people seemed to be forming friendships, but I just wanted to be alone among the stones and the trees. I would stay awake well into the night, waiting for everyone to finally fall asleep and then have a bit of the quiet solitude that I craved so much. I didn't particularly miss my home, but I was sure happy to get back there because it meant camp was over.
 
I have fond memories of summer camp at a lake here in Alberta... I went the same one - for one week a summer - for most my childhood (many moons ago)... I certainly don't remember being homesick
 
I didn't go to camp in the summer, I was sent to my grandparents (on my mothers side), they had a small farm with cows and pigs - I have many nice memories with my grandfather following him around, sitting on the tractor and doing things with my grandmother inside, but also about being homesick :)

When going for camps, it was not scout, but something simelar in red-cross, I had a really hard time in the big bunk rooms, so I got to sleep with some of the older girls who just were 2-3 in each room, or with the teachers.
 
I went to Boy Scout summer camp three times. Just two weeks each time. I liked it a lot, especially learning how to make fire, cut wood, cook, swim and canoe and finally lifesaving. But I knew everyone more or less and we did overnight camps at other times of year. I really like the woods so it was a good environment for me.

It was a 'manly' environment for sure, but I didn't mind it. Once in a while it got weird and had a Lord of the Flies vibe with the hazing of the new kids, but just in pretence. No one was ever really hurt. And I was ok. No one ever has been able to catch me. :D
 
No camp, but my parents had very good friends that had a actual log cabin with a nice creek that was deep enough to soak in. It was kerosene lamps at night. They had a huge deck with a waterbed that guest could sleep on. At one point there was a huge wooden tub that was configured to get hot water with logs underneath like a jacuzzi. We went fully stocked as it was quite remote. The adults hung together, and the kids all hung together, and we went several times during the summer months.
I was too protective of my daughter to send her to camp, however as a family we stayed on a dude ranch. She was able to feed a calf, and she loved that. And surprisingly enough, they even had a swimming pool.
 
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Aspychata said:
No camp, but my parents had very good friends that had a actual log cabin with a nice creek that was deep enough to soak in. It was kerosene lamps at night. They had a huge deck with a waterbed that guest could sleep on. At one point there was a huge wooden tub that was configured to get hot water with logs underneath like a jacuzzi. We went fully stocked as it was quite remote. The adults hung together, and the kids all hung together, and we went several times during the summer months.
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That sounds really nice!
 
I went to camp every summer and was a camp counselor one year. I liked camp although I remember being homesick the first night when I was about 12.

My autistic nephew used to go to a special summer camp for autistic children when he was young which he seemed to love. That camp has closed, which is a shame, after two autistic kids got into a fight with each other and the parents of one of the kids pitched a fit, filed a lawsuit against the camp, blah, blah, blah. Sadly, liability insurance is expensive for special needs camps.
 
Ironically, I went to a summer program that I thought was called a 'summer camp'. But it was just a place where we got dumped off by our parents to go be entertained, as far as I am concerned.

Even though we did go on a good few field trips.
 
Xinyta said:
Ironically, I went to a summer program that I thought was called a 'summer camp'. But it was just a place where we got dumped off by our parents to go be entertained, as far as I am concerned.

Even though we did go on a good few field trips.
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Yeah, I've seen several urban recreation programs claim to be "camps":rolleyes:
 
I hated cub scout camp since I was the pariah of the cub scout group my parents forced me to be a part of.

I also hated the Christian Nationalist camps my sister forced me to attend with her when I was in middle school. They literally had people worship a cardboard cutout of George Bush.

I loved the '80s movie, Sleepaway Camp, though it is problematic by today's standards.
 
Metalhead said:
I also hated the Christian Nationalist camps my sister forced me to attend with her when I was in middle school. They literally had people worship a cardboard cutout of George Bush.
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George Bush??? He wasn't Australian, and Christians wouldn't worship him regardless. What is that "Christian Nationalist" organization?
 
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