00:09:52.100And a lot of the verbiage and the action around that way of being was about good works
00:09:59.540and devoting yourself to people in poverty and stuff like that.
00:10:04.440And there just didn't seem to be any of that.
00:10:06.900And it's a vibe. It's a Christian vibe. Yeah. Like it wasn't about sacrifice. It was about
00:10:17.260being kind. Like there's so much focus on being kind, but it seemed like only to each other,
00:10:23.340right? Like within this world we've created. We should back up and say like, I mean,
00:10:29.480we'll say this in the intro, but you spent all this time interviewing and writing,
00:10:34.940interviewing people who involved with the camp and writing this piece and I was really struck
00:10:39.880in the piece about like I think about three-fourths of the way down you start asking people involved
00:10:44.820like what is the ministry yeah um the ministry isn't a word we used a lot in New England so I
00:10:53.420at least in my experience of like sanctimonious New England religiosity so I was like the ministry
00:11:00.080That's interesting. That to me would have been like the part where you are giving out scholarships to children who can't afford the $4,000 to come to camp. But people just seem confused when I was talking about that. It was, yeah, the ministry, according to the Aislinn brother I spoke to, was the activities that they do.
00:11:21.520well and it's just like being a person who is a mystic person in the world to me it reminds me of
00:11:28.980like some messaging that i did receive as a teenager which was like like we need to show
00:11:35.720god's love through like being a cool person essentially like people should be like we should
00:11:42.400be magnets for the world that people want to be like us because if they want to be like us
00:11:48.140then they want to be Christian. Does that make sense? I think that's their understanding.
00:11:52.540That does make sense. Yeah. I think you get it.
00:11:56.080Okay. So to backtrack a little, we're going to talk about Camp Mystic and about some of the
00:12:02.460discourses of camp and of girlhood and everything that's involved with it. But we want to also talk
00:12:09.140about what happened and why we're talking about Camp Mystic specifically. So for people who aren't
00:12:13.620familiar. Can you give us a refresher on what happened? I still can't believe that it was on
00:12:19.240July 4th, 2025. Yes. Early in the morning of this past July 4th, there was a historic flood in Hunt,
00:12:28.140Texas, where Mystic is located. And the camp was profoundly unprepared and delayed in evacuating
00:12:38.740girls to higher ground, and 27 of the very youngest campers, ages 8, 9, and 10,
00:12:48.920were swept to their death in the Guadalupe, which is the river that runs past the camp.
00:12:55.220It's a remarkable piece of reporting how you set out when the parents found out that
00:13:01.360their children were unaccounted for and what happened in the aftermath. It's just absolutely
00:13:08.680gut-wrenching. It's horrible. The communication was quite poor. It was like no one wanted to
00:13:15.520admit what was happening. And so they were, I mean, everyone understands this when someone's
00:13:21.700communicating to you only what they absolutely need to tell you. And you know, there's much
00:13:25.360more behind that. That was happening to these parents about the safety and well-being of their
00:13:31.020children. And so, of course, the parents, they're not in Hunt, right? They're in Houston, they're in
00:13:36.700Dallas and maybe it's not even raining where they are. They have no sense of the gravity of the
00:13:41.780flood. And so they were told, you should come pick up your girls at camp. They've been unaccounted
00:13:47.980for. And this becomes, these two words become incredibly fraught. What does that mean, unaccounted
00:13:53.820for? And so at first, many of the parents thought like, okay, this is just like an administrative
00:13:59.380issue. Like they just, you know, they're just very disorganized right now. They weren't ready for
00:14:02.820this. It took so long for the parents to understand that they might not see their girls again. And
00:14:10.620where they went after they were told to come pick up their girls was 20 minutes from Camp Mystic
00:14:16.880because the roads were impassable. And so that was something that really struck me when I went
00:14:22.380down to Texas was like, they couldn't even get close to the site of their nightmares, right?
00:14:28.320Like, of course, all you would want to do is speed off to where you thought your daughter
00:14:34.880was and they're being like corralled in this elementary school and, you know, fed little
00:14:40.980bits of information that are just like frustratingly vague for literally days.
00:15:45.440I could not believe the number of emails that I would send out.
00:15:49.760I was just scouring newspapers for people who mentioned having gone to Camp Mystic.
00:15:53.660Yeah. People just simply they would not acknowledge email. They would not respond to the point where you're like, am I alive? Like you like start to question your existence, you know, the the silence around what had happened was so striking to me.
00:16:11.460Yeah. I did find some people, but it took so much. And people had just decided after the tragedy, we're not going to talk to outsiders. You know, I live in Iowa. I don't live in Texas. The media causes divisiveness is something that people were saying.
00:16:29.020There's no benefit to speaking out because most of the people who had gone to Mystic were still supporting the camp but didn't want to offend the parents of the dead.
00:16:38.940So I've utterly failed at that, but it did allow time to pass.
00:16:44.960and by the time I was able to get in touch with the parents I think that they had moved to a place
00:16:51.880of frustration from a place of pure mourning and were ready to talk to somebody or at least some
00:16:59.100of them were yeah and I was extremely lucky to be connected to Matthew Childress who was in just an
00:17:06.400incredible storyteller like was just able to explain to me the experience of waiting in that
00:17:14.680elementary school to hear news of his daughter with such visual sensory detail that mostly I
00:17:23.380didn't even need to ask again which never happens usually you're going back to someone and you're
00:17:26.460like what color was it what did she say what did you say yeah and I didn't with most of these
00:17:30.000parents I didn't have to and I think part of that was they were traumatized like yeah these these
00:17:34.540images are seared into their memory it's not like they're struggling to access them they're like
00:17:39.780horrifyingly present yes well and i've i've had similar experiences reporting on tragedy where
00:17:45.740there is this this period where no one wants to talk to anyone and then it's like screw these
00:17:52.620people like someone needs to know what i experienced what happened and there was this
00:17:59.400real anger because it seemed like at that point had they officially announced that they were going
00:18:05.700to open the camp again yeah they had officially announced that they're open gonna open the camp
00:18:10.880again and certainly the the vibe among most mystic alum was like let's move on this was nobody's
00:18:19.380fault let's move on it reminds me somewhat of how people who are still very very close to
00:18:26.980sororities and fraternities um and i've done a lot of reporting on bammer rush and like
00:18:34.320the sororities and fraternities and some of the things that have happened there and i also
00:18:38.440was part of a sorority but not in a not in a super serious way is how i would put it
00:18:43.880so i would say i would talk to anyone about my sorority but if you still are invested
00:18:50.160in the way that you understand that sorority the way that it lives in your mind or fraternity or
00:18:56.440greek life at your school there i think there's a very particular stake involved in like
00:19:01.900not talking publicly to others about it and also not having your name associated with
00:19:08.480that sort of discussion because it's like you're talking essentially to an outsider
00:19:12.540like this is our private business and you are talking to someone who doesn't understand our
00:19:17.120business i mean and i completely understand that it's human right like um i don't love it when
00:19:23.680people come from the outside and write about Iowa City where I live, right? But I also think here
00:19:31.880there was this tension of like, I support the camp, but I don't want the parents to hear me
00:19:37.440talking about that. So even if you're giving me the opportunity to speak anonymously, I'm not
00:19:40.880going to do that. Yeah. And we should say too, that Camp Mystic has since announced that they're
00:19:46.340not opening the camp. Yes. So they were fully planning on opening the camp. And I talked to
00:19:52.740several legislators who were like, it's definitely happening because if the license is denied,
00:19:58.980Mystic will sue and we'll have grounds to sue because if they've met the requirements from
00:20:03.380these new safety bills, they have the right to open. But what happened was there were these
00:20:08.140legislative hearings after investigations that the state had done, and those went so poorly
00:20:14.100for Camp Mystic. I mean, the Eastlands seemed very unprepared.
00:20:19.460And the Eastlands are the people who run the camp and have historically run the camp.
00:20:23.540Sorry, yes, the Eastlands run the camp, the surviving Eastlands.
00:20:26.300And so the Eastlands withdrew their application to open camp this summer.
00:20:31.860What was the reason that families, the parents of these girls who lost their lives, like why didn't they want the camp to open?
00:20:44.540I mean, what they would tell you is that the Eastlands behaved so irresponsibly that no child will ever be safe in their care.
00:20:55.660I think it's true that the Eastlands have shown themselves to be, to have been, I don't want to use the word negligent, that's a legal word, but to have been very careless with the lives of these children.
00:21:15.160At the same time, over the months of writing this, I felt like there was some unnamed emotion here. And I think that the camp has failed to show any sense of shame over what happened.
00:21:33.700there has always been this sense from them that this is a biblical tragedy that we have all
00:21:42.140experienced together dick eastland the camp's patriarch died as well and so there's a sense
00:21:48.720that like wow that was awful like let's move on together um whereas the parents are saying wait
00:21:54.300you delayed hours in evacuating our children you had children sleeping in a floodway you you didn't
00:22:02.720have any kind of plan um and on and on and on and on and so you have these two divergent ways
00:22:10.040of thinking but i think i think just the speed with which they were ready back to business
00:22:14.800there was this absolute lack of the word that comes to mind is shame of of acknowledging
00:22:22.860that you are the cause of these deaths yes the messaging really seems like this was an act of god
00:22:31.920and we can't control god's plan and so all we can do is like continue with our ministry essentially
00:22:40.180right the ministry god has called us to continue with the ministry is what they have said
00:22:45.180and i do want to say like many people have said and are quoted in the piece saying that
00:22:51.200camp involves risk and i think that's true it's not that we want to move toward a place of
00:22:59.080safetyism where children don't encounter any risks and no camp will ever sustain any kind of
00:23:06.380injury. But I think in this case, if you look at the facts, like a regular person who is not
00:23:13.840caught up in the mystic legacy and mystique would be appalled by the conditions that
00:23:22.220girls were thrown into on July 4th. The detail that just sticks with me
00:23:26.580is that these cabins were in the floodplain
00:23:29.520and FEMA knew that they were in the floodplain
00:23:32.320and that the camp appealed successfully three times
00:23:35.560to allow them to stay in the floodplain.
00:23:38.920Yeah, so some of the cabins were in the floodway,
00:23:43.160which is like much worse than the floodplain.
00:23:45.080The cabins where the girls died were actually in the floodplain,
00:23:50.020but I think that's because they were busy evacuating the girls in the floodway.
00:24:34.460It just makes me think about the excuses that we make in so many different realms of our lives when it becomes something that matters to us, right?
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00:28:45.700off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession. Okay, for people who have not been part of camp,0.96
00:28:59.880I think that some of these justifications are very difficult to understand. So some of our
00:29:03.760questions today are really about what makes camp into this precious experience that becomes like,
00:29:10.300so important to protect. So let's start with a question that will take us to a different part
00:29:17.980of the country. This is from Jamie and Melody's going to read it. We are non-native New Englanders
00:29:22.960who now live in Boston. The summer camp culture here baffles me. I've lived in other East Coast
00:29:28.240states and in the Midwest, and this is the first time I have encountered summer camp as an identity.
00:29:33.260There is so much that goes into this. No one talks about how much these camps cost,
00:29:37.480but the quote-unquote right ones are exorbitant. Parents make sure to emphasize that their kids
00:29:42.340get real summer experiences, camping, hiking, swimming, etc. But these are all things that
00:29:47.220you can do and access for free and with relative ease in New England. And I do understand how
00:29:52.660special it can be to have time with kids and without parents, but also it is only certain
00:29:57.220kids who can access these types of camps. And for many kids, these camps take over their entire
00:30:02.120summer. Where did this culture in New England come from? Is it a holdover from boarding school
00:30:07.200scheduling? Is this what happens when lack of childcare and excessive generational wealth meet?0.72
00:30:12.600Is it just another social signifier to put on a kid's college transcript,
00:30:16.680counselor at elite summer camp? Also, is my kid missing out if I just send them to regular old
00:30:22.100week-long camps? So because you're from New England, I want to know, how did you understand
00:30:28.120what camp was when you were growing up i don't think i really thought about camp um it was just
00:30:33.860something that was inaccessible to me and i i didn't live up i didn't grow up in a wealthy
00:30:37.220community where like everyone was going to these fancy camps yeah yeah yeah um and so i don't know
00:30:41.880like the history of the camps of new england but what i can say is i think if you're coming at this
00:30:47.700from a place of understanding and compassion like how could someone send a child back to camp mystic
00:30:56.160for instance after what had happened I mean it is almost incomprehensible but the justification
00:31:01.420that made the most sense to me was it came from this one mother who said it is so important to
00:31:09.080me that my child have lifelong friendships and this is where those are going to come from yeah
00:31:14.420and I think a lot of us worry about our children having deep ties over time and she said you know
00:31:23.240it takes a village this is their village and they're going to learn all these this stuff at
00:31:27.240that camp like the camp also taught them like table manners and stuff like that they're going
00:31:30.660to learn all the stuff i can't teach them right yeah yeah um i mean presumably you can't teach
00:31:36.000them table manners but like the sense of i need them to have a community and this is the community
00:31:41.480that was the one thing that kind of resonated with me in terms of like why would you do this
00:31:49.240crazy thing yeah um and so i imagine that that's a lot of what's going on is like i'm giving you
00:31:54.760a network is you know um an adult word for it charged word right but we could also call it um
00:32:05.360friendships community you know people who will everyone would say about mystic well this is
00:32:10.880where you're going to meet your college roommate yep you know you're going to carry this through
00:32:14.620Right, which echoes a lot of conversations about, like, when you participate in Rush, whether it's at Bama or at a place like University of Texas, it's this is where you're going to meet, like, your bridesmaids, and this is where you're going to meet your husband, right?
00:32:31.780like essentially like this is where you're going to meet your your network the thing i you know
00:32:38.080when i was going to camp and even before that let's say like in the 1960s 1970s
00:32:43.560i think that there was this strong sense of like kids need to be with nature right like this
00:32:51.180anti-urbanism kind of right like we need to give kids a chance to commune with nature
00:32:58.440get kids out of your parents hair specifically even though I think like a lot of kids in these
00:33:06.600scenarios weren't necessarily from homes where both parents were working but still like it's a
00:33:13.880lot just to have your kid present all the time anyway like whatever your class it is a lot to
00:33:19.720have a kid present all the time during summer and I think that the other thing we haven't talked
00:33:25.620about yet is that these camps are also almost always device free spaces yes like no screens
00:33:32.260so they're learning to be with each other in an unmediated way that I think parents really value
00:33:41.360right now too so that's part of it and like the and you know have you heard like all the discussion
00:33:47.600about like give your kid a 90s summer do you know about this yeah like being like a 90s mom like
00:33:54.600basically kick your kids out the door and just like let them fend for themselves it's essentially
00:33:58.960camp right like camp is just a little bit more structured and presumably safe but like it is a
00:34:04.600privilege to make your kid fend for themselves in this capacity 100 and i absolutely feel that
00:34:11.240as a parent signing my kids up for a million camps it's like these this will be screen free
00:34:15.460time that's what i'm paying for do not show my child any like that's on on my time they watch
00:34:21.700screens not on your time right and it's in it's also a hack for having to deal with all of the
00:34:28.420like week-long camp scheduling which can be exhausting to figure all of that out and like
00:34:33.260some of them end at different times like i've just watched all my friends have to deal with that sort
00:34:37.620of like that jigsaw puzzle and this is just like my my friends in la call it producing summer yes
00:34:45.660and this is like one decision you're like you're going for a month yeah and then also you get the
00:34:52.940time as parents alone which is precious like you can understand why this becomes something
00:34:58.840that feels important but I think what this question asker is also getting to is even the like
00:35:04.080the like echelons of like the right camps and that sort of thing like if your kid isn't going
00:35:10.640to the right camp and you did a little bit of like understanding that in terms of these different
00:35:15.820camps in the hill country what did you find there i found that parents who were sending their kids
00:35:23.280to mystics specifically were looking they were interested in tradition and like carrying on
00:35:29.120tradition and um i think there was this idea of like southern ladyhood um tweedy who what tweedy
00:35:39.280eastland who was the matriarch of the camp um everyone said she would teach you how to be a
00:35:43.700southern lady she would come to your cabin and read devotionals with you and um everyone wanted
00:35:49.540to be like her and they would girls would follow her around the camp and then there were all these
00:35:54.780stories about you know and then these women would become adults and age and tweedy's in her 70s now
00:36:01.240and maybe somebody would get breast cancer and like tweedy would appear with the right thing to0.50
00:36:05.900say and someone's husband would die and Tweety would appear she was like deeply in the lives
00:36:11.980of these women um and there's something about like they're creating a community that revolves
00:36:22.100around them but they're doing so through like real sustained connection yeah and some of it
00:36:29.500i think is actual acts that she's doing but some of it is also like almost like this mythical
00:36:35.820understanding of these camp leaders who love us right yes who care about us who cherish us
00:36:43.760and who are not our parents yes and i and also there there were all these incentives
00:36:52.480I can't mistake like you might be a cup girl it was called yeah what is that can you explain this
00:37:00.600I can't know um I know they're really big honors especially cup girl I think um um to the extent
00:37:10.420where I've seen videos of people receiving cup girl and they're flipping out right they're so
00:37:15.160thrilled their girls are like hugging like running up to each other and jumping and hugging and um
00:37:20.060Is it like head girl in boarding school or something like similar to that?
00:37:23.960It's like a deeply meaningful honor that the Eastlands bestow upon you.
00:37:29.320And also you're broken up into two teams, both of which.
00:37:37.320So there's a lot of like Native American education here.
00:37:49.840There is a way in which they were cultivating a kind of loyalty so intense.
00:37:59.160And I think it is connected to these little honors that even after 27 girls perished at this camp, people will still say, I want my daughter to go to this camp.
00:38:13.580I don't think you use the word cult, but you quote someone who uses the word cult.
00:38:18.200and that word has you know legal implications but i think we can identify that like some of
00:38:24.040the behaviors in the way that like like through ritual through the the longevity of the camp
00:38:32.400through like generations all of these things it becomes something that like you become dedicated
00:38:37.160to the idea of the thing more than the thing itself yeah i mean i think the eastlands were
00:38:45.680genius at creating tradition and ritual and often that was very self-serving like oh it's not
00:38:53.820traditional to have walkie-talkies in the cabins right right it's not we can't have cell phones
00:38:59.160even though that would have saved lives it was also like very economically expedient not to
00:39:04.540change anything yeah right right well and this gets to my like anger about my camp from when
00:39:10.880I was growing up being fancy now I'm like well part of the the thrill was that there were squirrels
00:39:16.100in the freaking bare bones bunk houses where we like slept on tiny little mattresses on the ground
00:39:21.180or like that the shower was just like disgusting like part of it that was part of the bonding was
00:39:27.820how yes simple things were and I'm sure too like when these campers talk about their memories like
00:39:34.080and having lived in Texas trying to sleep at night with no air conditioning is a particular
00:39:40.460sort of memory right it is different from your everyday life like it it underlines that this
00:39:46.180is a place where things are different i do think there was this sense of like walking into a
00:39:50.960fairy tale yeah like is this real someone who taught there for many years who is a counselor
00:39:55.660there told me they would play this game like is it real in here or is it real out there
00:39:59.780yeah cults do create relationships totally i think about this all the time my best friends
00:40:06.200are from my sorority like yeah like they are they are some mechanisms and there's always there's like
00:40:13.300a there's a fine line between a societal organization and a cult yeah it's yeah it's
00:40:20.220not as like clear as some people think right and I think some of it is when wrongdoing happens how
00:40:26.540do people react yes exactly okay next question is a little bit about uh money in these camps
00:40:34.440this comes from gabrielle our family owned and operated summer camps just another form of
00:40:39.480nepotism and a place where kids of rich families get away with stuff i've gone to and worked at a
00:40:44.540lot of camps over the years and i experienced this at a very wealthy family-owned camp where
00:40:49.300i believe running the camp is inherited rather than a position earned and the legacy families
00:40:53.960seem to get away with so much that non-legacy campers and staff can't or don't this is so0.93
00:41:00.220this is totally outside of my experience because like we just no one could fuck around like there0.84
00:41:06.440was no misbehavior um wow yeah i mean there's a lot in that question i don't personally see0.93
00:41:13.320any problem with having a family business right passing it on to your family this was certainly
00:41:16.760this was a family business um but this idea of legacy organizations getting away with stuff
00:41:24.600other camps couldn't i did talk to someone from a who ran a rival camp who was very sympathetic to
00:41:29.360what had happened at mystic but she said they're not accredited and we could never get away with
00:41:33.200that mystic was just so they're not accredited they're not accredited i'm not sure i talked to
00:41:39.600the accreditation agency and it actually didn't sound like accreditation was i'm not sure that
00:41:44.960that would have changed anything right that's what i'm trying to say right but most camps aren't
00:41:48.520accredited um but she was like they can get away with stuff we can't get away with they're like
00:41:53.060deep inside the fiber of this town and the state everybody knows them and that's part of the thing
00:42:02.020Like, you would – I think it's a totally reasonable assumption that this camp that existed for 100 years without any deaths, that your child would be safe there.
00:42:11.840There's a detail in the story, too, where one of the parents – I can't remember who – as he was driving from Houston, I believe, because his daughter was unaccounted for, he called Ted Cruz.
00:42:24.740That was something that was so interesting to me, the way that these parents were powerful people. They know how to use the mechanisms of law and money to get what they want, right? They're not powerless, but they were like unbelievably powerless in this situation.
00:42:44.960And there was little they could do to convince Hunt to conduct its own investigation. Like there was this kind of small town, Texas power structure that just like wasn't affected by the big Houston law firms. And that was surprising to me.
00:43:03.340Right. And this is the like, this falls apart when it gets to the local level too.
00:43:07.700Yes. Yes. I think the Eastlands were really genius at that level, right? Like they knew
00:43:14.380everybody in town. When Dick Eastland underwent therapy for cancer and he lost his hair,
00:43:21.920like a bunch of people in town shaved their heads in order to show solidarity. Like these people
00:43:27.520were deeply deeply loved and it was just a completely different vibe than all of these
00:43:34.400parents who are lawyers and doctors and exist in this like world of rules and legal structure
00:43:41.100right it was just like very much about this is what we've always done this has always worked
00:43:45.180everybody loves us yeah and that's part of the appeal right of the camp is that like it's this
00:43:50.040very local like non-lawyer and doctorly like it's not a bourgeois it's not ostensibly a bourgeois
00:43:56.420organization well i think it is right because all the other girls are lawyers and doctors
00:44:01.780no totally it is but it's like it's it's like cosplaying it's not do you know what i mean
00:44:06.640like right right right we're gonna we're gonna we're not gonna have air conditioning we're going
00:44:11.060to swim in this like kind of dirty lake and this is the thing about the river is it is not a good
00:44:18.780river like people the the way that people talk about like swimming in this river maybe it's just
00:44:25.740you swim in whatever river like whatever body of water is your body of water becomes precious to
00:44:30.580you but it just comparatively it is not a nice body of water i'm just gonna say that yeah i think
00:44:36.740that that's part of what's interesting though like the way people would talk about how beautiful it
00:44:40.180is yes and it's like that i call it in the piece a strenuous active collective imagination like i
00:44:47.300believe you right but it wouldn't be it's not obvious to you and me because we're not under
00:44:51.600the spell, but the spell is real. The Culture Study podcast is sponsored by Honey Love. So
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00:47:11.020Today's episode is sponsored by Biologica. You know, I turned 45 last week. I'm in my mid
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00:48:49.100up to 32% off their purchase. Again, make sure to go to biologica.com slash culture and get up to
00:48:56.42032% off your first subscription order today. This next question gets to some of the parents
00:49:07.520thinking about the importance of camp, and this one comes from Kristen. Right now, I'm thinking
00:49:13.040about how, as an adult, I'm really jealous of people who had that sleepaway camp roughing it
00:49:18.700nature experience, because it seems like they have this way of life that's just lower stress
00:49:24.580or somehow more fluid than my own. I feel like the people I know who went to camp live more
00:49:30.500effortlessly than I do now, and I just ache for that effortlessness. I'm also already thinking
00:49:36.180about how I want my son to have that experience, even though he's only five and it's way too early
00:49:40.900to be worrying about sleepaway camp for him. But what's sort of wild to me is that I very much
00:49:46.660could have had that experience. But I was a deeply interior child who just hated the real
00:49:52.920day camp that I went to one summer and absolutely loved my arts and sciences day camp. If my parents
00:49:59.460had sent me to the sort of sleepaway camp that I'm now envious of, I know I would have been
00:50:03.320miserable. I don't know exactly what my question is beyond why do I feel this way? And what should
00:50:09.120I be thinking about for my son, even though I know it's yours in the future? I love our listeners.
00:50:13.560this is such a great question I love this question I don't know what to say but I I find it a very
00:50:18.600endearing question I think that like what I see in the first part this like it seems like they
00:50:23.780move more effortlessly through life than I do and she talks about like camp roughing it nature
00:50:29.240experience like at least when I think about a camp like mystic these places where you make friends
00:50:34.060like what she's talking about is like you learned how to be with other people for long periods of
00:50:39.400time you learn how to like socialize and how to network and then that also offers entry right like
00:50:46.220yeah wherever you go you're a mystic girl and you'll find even new york city like i've talked
00:50:51.260to a bunch of mystic girls in new york city right like you have that connection and that no one else
00:50:55.700can really ever understand yep and that but i also i also wonder like i do think people idealize
00:51:01.900these camp experiences so much oh totally it's impossible it's impossible to tease apart like
00:51:06.180what's real and what is you imposing some idea of camp over it well and what's fascinating to
00:51:11.160me is that there are certainly girls who had horrible times at these camps yes who were
00:51:17.100incredibly homesick who felt excluded who like were the only person of color like maybe in the
00:51:23.960entire camp at the time that they were there because it's not like they're explicitly an
00:51:28.980all-white camp but it is a very very very white camp um what if they weren't christian or like
00:51:34.800felt like they had different beliefs uh there's just a lot of ways that you could have a bad time
00:51:41.040yeah and there are some stories from early mystic like before the eastland well dick eastland
00:51:48.880inherited the camp from his grandmother but they're you know in the earlier iterations of
00:51:54.260camp mystic there are stories of girls crying all night because they're they're homesick and then
00:52:02.300the camp administrator will invite the parents to come and the kid will get in the car and they'll
00:52:08.620drag the kid out at the last minute and the parents will drive away and because it was like
00:52:12.860this sense of tough love like you make it through a week and and then you know of course later that
00:52:17.520child is like i'm so glad that happened because i went back for 13 years you know i also i will
00:52:23.680say that i write letters to like all my friends who kids who go to camp because i just remember
00:52:28.020how much like what a joyful experience that was but i always have to remember that like when i was
00:52:33.180a counselor too there were people who had a miserable time because they're it's not an
00:52:38.480experience that fits with their personality for whatever reason there can be so many reasons for
00:52:43.000that but totally you can't like that descent doesn't work with the narrative yeah i know i
00:52:49.660talked to so many girls who were like i would count the days to camp and it was the entire year
00:52:56.120was just waiting for camp and then I would talk to other people who were like I mean I liked camp
00:53:00.280but I wasn't one of those girls yeah oh that's a type of girl right type of camp girl it's like
00:53:04.820horse girl right it's like a type of girl 100 percent uh the other thing that this is making
00:53:11.200me think of is you quote uh someone who went to camp mystic who wrote a sub stack post which as
00:53:17.140far as I can tell has now been deleted um where she taught I went looking for it today and there's
00:53:23.240part one but then part two is gone um but basically she seems to reference what did she say
00:53:29.580like the whiteness encroaches so gradually that like you don't even notice it something to that
00:53:35.520effect that was alexa fleet who um was so useful to talk to because she's a mystic alum who's
00:53:43.120just finished her sociology phd so she had a lot of thoughts yeah and i'm sure and i think that that
00:53:51.560like this is the ease as well right is that like you're operating in this space of whiteness where
00:53:58.520you can like you no one's complaining that like there's tribes that you're a part of
00:54:03.160yes and she was really great about being like it's true that this is a place where i was able
00:54:12.860to be my authentic self in a way that was very hard when i was surrounded by boys and also
00:54:18.360she called it a place where white supremacy is inherited gently yeah I mean there's this is
00:54:24.600networking these are going to be the people you turn to in your professional and personal life
00:54:28.840and they all look the same yeah so that's the other reason why camp might be a place where0.50
00:54:37.020some people both like the ease of whiteness is desirable but also when you look at it you're
00:54:46.800like but I don't that also is also a space that wouldn't accept me or that my like I wouldn't feel
00:54:52.640accepted and it wouldn't so I think that that like that duality and this comes you can talk about
00:54:58.400this with class you could talk about it too with like with sexuality which doesn't seem to come up
00:55:03.800here but certainly there are people who are lesbians who have gone to this camp right and
00:55:08.600so like how does desire work in these spaces um and in religion as well that there is this duality
00:55:16.320of wanting to be a part of it but also feeling very uncomfortable with the hierarchy it suggests
00:55:22.400if that makes sense yes and um i think so much was just assumed at mystic it was a place that
00:55:30.620valued tradition it wasn't a place that was like what's next right yeah how can we change how can
00:55:35.760we become more inclusive you know it was um yeah it was a place where the entire idea was we're
00:55:42.140going back in time right right it's like make america camp again um but not any real any real
00:55:49.020kind of history right like right just this invented history that we've created together
00:55:53.320right okay next question i love because it gets to i think the the performances of girlhood and
00:56:00.560authentic self that we've been talking a little bit about this entire episode um this comes from
00:56:04.960andrea i grew up going to a secular girls overnight camp in the midwest not specifically jewish but
00:56:11.200largely attended by Jews, and was always shocked going to the reunion in the fall when I saw how0.62
00:56:16.800different so many of the girls from the Ritz-Year Chicago suburbs looked, dressed, acted at home0.98
00:56:22.500versus at camp, like they were trying out being chill tomboys for the summer only. How much of
00:56:28.640these Texas camps are about getting out of the performing feminism grind and being rugged and1.00
00:56:33.600chill, or how much femininity is still being performed every day at camp because of the
00:56:38.780status of these camps yeah what do you think of this yeah i mean we've talked about this a little
00:56:43.960bit but interestingly i talked to someone who had been at the camp in the 70s and she had been back0.92
00:56:51.360recently and she was disappointed because the camp she remembered was rugged it was like girls
00:56:57.840in like torn jeans and like mud on their faces and she was like all the girls are wearing makeup and0.61
00:57:03.400their hair looks perfect right there's like girls have this pressure i don't know i don't want to0.94
00:57:08.120make it sound like it's totally imposed from outside but like girls are presenting more clean
00:57:12.720than they did in the 70s there wasn't less of this like tomboyish vibe and she was sad about that
00:57:20.560yeah um but yes certainly i think and and i think it's healthy i think it's like great for a kid to
00:57:26.700go to camp and be like i'm going to try to be someone else for a few weeks right um i do think
00:57:31.620there's a lot of that like play going on and that's part of the reason people value it so much
00:57:36.160the opening image from your piece and then like talking about this place where you could go away
00:57:43.540and where it's quiet and where it's safe and like pure like there's this real sense of innocence
00:57:49.440and almost like purity right and this is this connected to some of this conversation about
00:57:57.060like the gentle inheritance of white supremacy but it's like a place where they're like where
00:58:02.600sex doesn't exist almost does that make sense yeah i think that's right i mean i think there's
00:58:07.220this idea of like pure texas girl yeah which isn't yes it isn't weak right like it's about
00:58:14.660i mean the i think some of the people who felt left out at mystic were it was because they
00:58:20.820weren't like athletically superior right like it's it was a camp where like they really valued
00:58:27.080strength and rowing and like who was the best at soccer or whatever yeah um or archery tennis or
00:58:35.160yes exactly thank you um and maybe you felt left out if like your talents were quieter yeah um or
00:58:43.060more artistic but there was this idea that you're cut off from the corrupting world yeah right and
00:58:51.160i think this is where the like loose christianity comes in too right is that this is a place that's
00:58:57.040away from the corrupting forces of secular society and yeah there's one there's one guy
00:59:03.820at the camp and he's the he's a good guy he's like the the dad guy he's someone that everyone
00:59:10.140feels comfortable he's gonna teach you to fish yes he's gonna teach you to fish and not feel
00:59:13.720gross about like touching the fish which is a story that everyone tells yes um in some ways
00:59:20.640it's like oh this is like this lovely space where you're away from their performance desires of like
00:59:26.260the the male gaze for real I mean that that's a big part of it yeah but also like I think like say
00:59:34.120like on the understanding of what girlhood must be is also complicated like this very
00:59:38.600very rooted in purity is how I well they yeah I mean um I did see an application
00:59:46.340for being a counselor there and it's specifically there's something on it that is about not
00:59:55.620being LGBTQ what really yeah I wish I could remember better but yeah specifically you had
01:00:03.980to like forswear those kinds of desires yeah and in these pictures I should say like of the campers
01:00:09.400like the gender presentation is pretty normalized in terms of like yes like girls have long hair
01:00:16.080um it reminds me in some ways like of this very different like low-key understanding of
01:00:22.540at sororities you're not supposed to leave the house without having two of three done and by
01:00:27.720that I mean your clothes your face and your hair two of the three must be quote-unquote done like
01:00:36.380paid attention to in order to leave these houses and this isn't every house but this is like
01:00:42.060top houses at a lot of the major schools but then at the same time this particular like tomboyish
01:00:49.200understanding of of what girlhood looks like reminds me too of the top tier houses at alabama
01:00:56.740are not like these are not tiktok girls who are in these fancy houses they like interesting too
01:01:03.500much makeup is very garish they do not look like they have had baby botox like they are not they're
01:01:11.600not on tiktok at all wow and so there's this real understanding that like class is something
01:01:19.860it's it's much more subtler performance and much so it's counter signaling right and some of that
01:01:27.740i think could be something that you cultivate and hone at a camp like this one where you're
01:01:33.740simultaneously like being a tomboy but also learning table manners right yeah you're getting
01:01:40.220off your horse and then winning best manners and i do think there's something about being a texas
01:01:46.200lady yes that is about excelling in all of those domains totally it's yeah which is different than
01:01:52.940alabama i think so a texas lady is like this combination of laura bush and like ann richards0.97
01:01:59.420right but not short hair like ann richards um but you could be a leader in that way so interesting1.00
01:02:26.160I have sent my now 11-year-old son to various summer camps, ranging from one to two weeks since he was about six.
01:02:32.080I prioritize spending his time and my money on camp specifically because it encourages independence and gives kids opportunities to take risks in ways that modern American parenting norms typically discourage.
01:02:43.940My question is, how do we evaluate risk, safety, and camp attendance in this light?
01:02:49.020The extremes are easy. Don't let the kids decide whether or not to evacuate in a flood scenario.
01:02:53.820Do let the kid decide whether or not to eat a snack before a long hike.
01:02:57.300But what about in the messy middle? How do we evaluate safety in this context?
01:03:02.080I just keep thinking about all these other camps that are also along the river.
01:03:07.720Yeah, I mean, I've obviously thought about this.
01:03:11.320I've struggled with this a lot, writing this piece as a parent.
01:03:15.040First of all, I just want to say I don't think the parents of the 27 girls who died did anything wrong.
01:03:22.780And I say this because I've seen comments on Facebook that are like, you signed her up when she was born.
01:03:27.060You had eight years to review the evacuation plan.
01:03:29.420we all of us we trust other people all the time like I the the random camps I've sent my kids to
01:03:38.600I'm not looking at the evacuation they're like at some camp like by a cemetery in someone's messy
01:03:42.880backyard like making puppets you know like I don't know what the evacuation plan is and you know
01:03:49.260there I live in Iowa there could be a tornado is anyone plan for that no like I think that a lot
01:03:54.280of it is just trust we hope that there's like under that there's like basic legal underpinnings
01:04:01.560but I don't think we can live in a world where we put on parents the like the responsibility of
01:04:11.220reading you know 100 pdfs before you send your kid to camp to make sure it's not in a floodplain
01:04:16.040the parents of particularly Matthew Childress and other parents as well of the girls whose
01:04:24.060lives were lost at Camp Mystic have been passing all of these very reasonable camp safety bills
01:04:30.280all across the country. So things like there have to be evacuation plans and people need to be
01:04:36.620licensed and have special training, et cetera. And I think that's all very healthy. But at the end of
01:04:42.040the day, I just think we live in a society where you find a babysitter on care.com, right? You're
01:04:46.760taking a risk. And it's something that we live with. I think one of the things or one of the
01:04:51.640reasons why we're seeing the reaction that we're seeing is that like camp mystic and other well
01:04:56.800established camps like this like they are institutions right and we are at this moment
01:05:00.860of really distrusting institutions and this something like this just like gives you more
01:05:07.220reason to distrust an institution and what we see from the people who want it to continue to work
01:05:13.000is like no there's actually no reason to distrust this institution this was an act of god and you
01:05:20.360point this out in the piece so deftly that like there is a place in this messy middle where you're
01:05:25.800like we don't have to have everyone you know read 27 pdfs before signing up their kids but also
01:05:33.020there should have been such smarter thinking about what to do when this rain started right
01:05:38.080and the alerts that actually went out yes i guess i think that the situation at mystic was so
01:05:44.340egregious yeah that it is in that way particular to mystic right right right right but i you could
01:05:53.580easily you know point to examples of other camps that people say just got lucky right like they
01:05:58.220just weren't hit as hard and they were also not prepared it's obviously difficult to navigate but
01:06:04.740i also think there was such a the particularity of mystic was related to it being a camp that had
01:06:11.780existed for 100 years was reliant on tradition hadn't had no interest in rethinking anything
01:06:17.600that it was doing and clearly wasn't like worried about the legal responsibility of being responsible
01:06:24.940for like 500 girls right it seems to exist in this other world where we just all trust each other
01:06:31.620and things will be fine because they were fine previously and so one of the things they would
01:06:38.060argue is like well there were other floods and it was fine right whereas from the parents
01:06:41.460perspective it's like there were other floods so why didn't you put walkie-talkies in the cabin
01:06:45.440right or there were other floods and at another camp when they were trying to evacuate that's
01:06:50.680when the kids died during evacuation yes so like that's not a solution so what are we supposed to
01:06:56.540do yeah but the the fact remains that there were hours in which someone easily could have taken
01:07:04.780those little girls and walked them literally to a two minute walk or less yeah I think significantly
01:07:11.760less than two minutes up a hill um or to a rec center like it was such a dereliction over such
01:07:19.840a long time span that it's almost hard to fathom and everyone talks about that when they go to the
01:07:25.320camp a week I can't believe how close they were to safety yeah it was so close you know they
01:07:30.320And so in that way, to me, it almost, maybe it should, but it almost doesn't generalize because it's so astounding.
01:07:38.020What does this make you think, too, about our larger response to intensified weather events?
01:07:44.360Because I see similar conversations that happen around hurricanes and flooding that we recently had here in the Pacific Northwest and wildfires and evacuations there.
01:07:55.000like when the like when all of the precautions happen or the forced evacuations happen
01:08:00.340and then there's like this well it wasn't as bad as you guys said right instead of like thank god
01:08:08.620that it wasn't as bad as you said and it might it'll be worse next time maybe it'll be worse
01:08:13.280next time but it it does strike me again as this like simultaneous like trust and distrust
01:08:19.940and what people tell us to do like in guidance right like yeah tradition here spoke louder than
01:08:28.640guidance louder than safety yeah I don't think anyone was thinking about climate change
01:08:34.680that was on the agenda um but you know I um I was in LA for the fires um I had to leave because of
01:08:44.780the air quality and it's been interesting to me how much like change really depends on the
01:08:50.340insurance industry right like right um right right it's like people make changes when those changes
01:08:56.000become like economically necessary yeah when i think about this with camp like to be insured
01:09:03.600like there are certain things that you have to have in place to have insurance as a camp
01:09:09.020and the insurance costs rise but the thing about a camp like camp mystic is that they can absorb
01:09:15.780those rising insurance costs whereas other camps not insure certain buildings yeah really they
01:09:22.220just didn't insure like buildings themselves instead of like the entire operation i've heard
01:09:27.340people speculate that i don't have a definitive answer but yeah because all that's what the fema
01:09:33.020maps are for they're for insurance purposes so people know how much you should pay
01:09:38.040i love that that's what the fema map is for is for thinking about how much you should pay
01:09:44.620not like actual safety um but yeah but in terms of like what you know people are doing going
01:09:51.760forward like i did my the crazy thing is that for the first time my own child is going to sleep away
01:09:58.540camp this summer wow my older child and he's 12 and um i did look at the fema map and i
01:10:08.460had a friend's parent confirm it's not in the floodway and that's all i did i i know that
01:10:15.980there's risk in this decision i know it very well right but it's one of those things too where like
01:10:21.480there's more risk and like them being on the school bus every day twice a day all the time
01:10:25.780right? Like statistically, and evaluating those risks is very hard. And I think just like
01:10:30.460parenthood right now, just feels like so overburdened with risk calculation. It's so
01:10:37.400fatiguing. Yeah. And so much of it is just a different kind of risk or risk of being on a
01:10:43.000screen all day. Yeah. And so I can empathize with these parents who are just like, I do still trust
01:10:49.160this organization. This is still a place that I want to send my kids. Allow me to make that
01:10:55.120decision yeah so you spent six months reporting this story what what is the thing that's going
01:11:03.080to stick with you oh man um there's a little girl in the story whose sister was also at the camp