00:00:00.000Hey all, Joe here and you are listening to Under the Influence. I'm so happy to be here
00:00:13.040with you today to talk about something that is maddening, crazy, and just, you know, one
00:00:19.600of the worst things that we have to endure as parents, like one of the worst mundane
00:00:25.460things that we have to endure as parents. Yeah, I'm talking about summer camp and summer plans
00:00:33.660and how most of us have to navigate this insane amount of time off that our kids have from school
00:00:42.320and also pay so much money just to keep them occupied and safe and also vaguely happy
00:00:52.540during the summer months. And, and how all of this emotional and psychological labor
00:01:00.920almost always falls on mothers. Summer, I didn't, I never thought about this. I really,
00:01:09.580really didn't. Summer is so tough for parents. When I was growing up, and I'm going to talk
00:01:17.100about this a little bit in the episode. When I was growing up, my mom was a teacher. She was a
00:01:21.260special ed teacher. And during the summers, she worked at a bunch of different camps. She worked
00:01:27.120at a YMCA camp. And then she worked at this day camp called Breezy Point, which is actually like
00:01:33.220kind of a cult, like Breezy Point kids stay Breezy Point kids until they're Breezy Point grownups.
00:01:39.080And I thought nothing of it. I was like, oh, my gosh, she's working at these camps because
00:01:43.580because it's fun for her. I never thought, oh, my God. First off, she's making extra money for our
00:01:50.280family but also it gives me a place to be during the summer right like I got a spot in camp even
00:01:59.980though 80 spots in camps weren't nearly as competitive as the crazy madness of getting a
00:02:06.480spot in camps today by the way spoiler alert I didn't get spots in any camps I was too late
00:02:11.660I didn't set my alarm correctly and now now we've got no camp spots no you know so so I'm figuring
00:02:18.640it out. I'm going to figure it out and it's going to be fine. And thank the Lord that I have
00:02:22.820a flexible enough schedule that I can, that I can figure this out. But yeah. And my mom got to send
00:02:30.000me to the camps for free, which again, I'm sure it was cheaper in the eighties than it is now,
00:02:35.180but that is no small amount of money. So that's what we're talking about today. We are talking
00:02:42.360to Catherine Goldstein. She is such a gem. I love her. She writes the newsletter, The Double Shift.
00:02:48.880She was also the creator of the podcast, The Double Shift, which I loved. Catherine focuses
00:02:56.040mainly on, you know, the extra work that women are constantly putting in, the double shift that
00:03:03.340we're all doing as professional women and also as women who stay at home and work within the home0.82
00:03:11.200with our children. But then we're putting in so much extra labor. Everyone is putting in extra0.99
00:03:16.640labor here, especially when it comes to figuring out the summer months. So that is what we're
00:03:22.300getting into today. Catherine is really great at giving the history of how this all happened,
00:03:27.220because it didn't have to happen. It sure didn't. It does not have to be like this. And, you know,
00:03:33.160surprise, what we're going to talk about in the middle of the episode is that it's not like this
00:03:37.820in any other country. It's not. Big sigh. Big sigh. And if you don't have kids that are that
00:03:45.640are in camp age, I'm just aging into this. Maybe maybe you want to skip this or maybe
00:03:51.540maybe you just want a nice preview of of what the what the hellscape is to come. You're welcome.
00:03:59.180Um, Catherine Goldstein, you are here today to talk about something terrible, just something
00:04:09.980awful, really, really bad. Today we are going to talk about the hellscape that is planning
00:04:18.300for our children's summers, the hellscape that falls mostly on mothers. Yes. And you've written0.95
00:04:26.560so beautifully about this. I want to just talk a little bit about kind of a historical overview
00:04:33.420of, you know, how did this come about? How did we end up with a system where all of a sudden
00:04:40.160it is completely, completely put upon women to figure out what to do with kids for about two1.00
00:04:46.800and a half months? Yes. Thank you for having me, Jo. This is a passion topic of mine, and this is1.00
00:04:53.880also a passion topic for my readers. I have been writing about this over the course of several
00:05:00.060years and it's like my most read subjects. So I know that it's on your sub stack, which is
00:05:05.480wonderful. Tell everyone what it is. It's called the double shift. And I but I think what the
00:05:12.440reason it resonates so much is that everyone feels like they're on their own to figure this out.
00:05:18.480This is a really difficult problem. And people really feel isolated with this very expensive, logistically challenging problem. And understanding that it is a larger social problem, I think, helps us feel some solidarity about how difficult this is.
00:05:34.120So but I will start with the history. Yeah. Just give us the TLDR history first. And I will tell you, this is my first summer really diving into it because now Charlie is seven, B is five. Finding camps for five year olds is really hard anyway. And we do still still work with an au pair. But this is the first summer where things are bananas.
00:05:58.560Yes. Yeah. And I think that that this so many families have this eye opening moment where they cannot believe that this is the reality of spreadsheets and competing for slots and multiple camps and drop offs that make no sense and wait till you get to the packing lists when the packing lists start coming.
00:06:19.640You're going to lose your mind. So this all started, as most good tales do, with Richard Nixon.
00:06:26.720So Richard Nixon, our dear old friend, actually, there was bipartisan support for federally funded universal child care programs that really would have changed the course of American history in many ways.
00:06:40.420And Democrats and Republicans were both on board. But basically, Richard Nixon vetoed it in 1970 or 71, in the early 70s. And he basically, because he, Pat Buchanan, the famous evangelical right wing, early right wing political operative, basically wrote his speech about how this would destroy the American family to have all the subsidized child care.
00:07:07.560so that set us on this every family for themselves path with both child care from zero to five child
00:07:16.880care after school and also for summers i really i like the way that you describe that as every
00:07:23.120family for themselves because that's what it feels like it does and even though i haven't
00:07:28.420entered the summer camp conundrum yet i'm i've been in the baby you know thing for for the past
00:07:35.180eight years and it is such a massive portion of our income that we pay for early child child care
00:07:44.100and then we do some after school but mostly it's just i stop work at three o'clock right yes yeah
00:07:52.760and i think that um so i think that what has now happened especially around summer is that um
00:08:03.280You know, many people, you know, most Americans actually access public school for ages five through 18, but there are very, very limited public and almost no free options.
00:08:17.140And there might be some in individual cities, but basically the government has decided that they are not on the hook for three months of summer, three months of the year in terms of providing custodial care.
00:08:31.020So this, as we know, so many parents, there are so many single parents who work. There's so many two-parent households. So this is just like a bizarre acceptance that the government has no responsibility during this time. And so everyone has to shell out for care if you want to work or continue on whatever your normal life path is on the other nine months of the year.
00:09:01.020Which is just just amazing because, no, we can't just check out for the summer.
00:09:07.280Even me with a very flexible schedule, despite I mean, I have five jobs, but I get to choose when I when I do those five jobs.
00:09:16.060I can live in the American dream, Joe.
00:14:33.960at camp at camp a party with two families i didn't know very well and both of the couples
00:14:39.680had met at overnight camp and i was like falling over it was amazing yeah yeah i mean but that
00:14:45.180seems more common than day than like loving day camp so yeah that's true that's right yeah yeah
00:14:51.260but they got married at the camp but i think they're dad they have three kids uh so and and
00:14:56.240i think he still works at the camp yeah but but i just never thought about my mom doing that and
00:15:03.120having to do that right to be able to pay um and make sure that i got into the camp right and you
00:15:08.980had an enriching experience and it was probably additional income for her etc exactly exactly so
00:15:13.980that i mean that was that was great right well i think that this also brings up um some important
00:15:21.100points about how norms around how kids spend their time have dramatically changed in one generation
00:15:26.980So I think one of the reasons camps are so competitive is that we are now much more into supervision and hypervigilance around kids for longer and at older ages than we were when you and I were growing up.
00:15:51.720And I think also we've closed off public spaces to kids like at one point when I've been writing about summer camp, like I wrote about my brother's best friend, Patrick, growing up and starting at age seven, like he passed a swim test and he was like a well-behaved kid.
00:16:07.040And so he was allowed to just go to the community pool by himself all day and come home at dinner and he would just hang out with the lifeguards.
00:16:13.480And he had like money to buy not those like gross nachos.
00:16:19.420And he was able to do that starting at seven, like at age seven, when both of his parents worked and his mom was a doctor.
00:16:26.960So that is not available really, by and large, in America anymore.
00:16:33.460So that creates a lot more demand for camp.
00:16:39.980And even, you know, when you get to tweener ages and preteens before they can work.
00:16:46.020And I've heard this is another big part of the problem with summer camp.
00:16:49.420summers, which is, you know, neither of us are quite in yet with our ages of our kids, but
00:16:53.820they start to age out of summer camp and there's nothing for them to do. Like, because they're,
00:16:59.060they don't have public transportation to go somewhere. Places don't allow kids to be by
00:17:02.880themselves unless they're over 18. You know, all these things like, like there's strict rules on
00:17:08.100the number of kids that can be in a mall together. Like we, as a society, don't want there to be a
00:17:15.000parent supervising children at all times. And we have not set up things to help give kids
00:17:21.380independence, which I think is a larger social problem, but it also creates these huge child
00:17:26.100care burdens. Exactly. Exactly. So much to dissect there. You know, when I was growing up and there
00:17:33.260were gaps between the camp, I just ran crazy in our neighborhood until dinnertime. Right.
00:17:40.140And there were other kids around, probably.
00:17:42.380And there were other kids around, and, you know, there was no expectation that I was going to be entertained by grownups.
00:17:52.040You had to find your own fun, and we're not being enriched by a marine biology exploration enrichment experience or whatever fancy theme there was.
00:18:04.980um and and also i think i think there's a couple reasons that one we don't let kids do that as
00:18:11.580much anymore i think people and then we are because of the way our neighborhoods are set up
00:18:16.360because we trust our neighbors less and also because of the culture like were you to do do
00:18:21.820that today in some neighborhoods there aren't going to be any kids around because they're all
00:18:25.620going to be at camp yes yes that is a very very true thing no one was at camp when when i you
00:18:32.120know those couple of weeks and even when i was in the camp i remember the neighborhood was still
00:18:36.940crawling with kids yeah all the time the camp was just not a standard thing when we for the past
00:18:43.500couple summers we created something called camp independence up in the catskills oh i love this
00:18:48.760um so it was my husband nick and our friends casey and steven who own the spruce and in the
00:18:54.520Catskills and you know one parent took every day and so what and then the other three got to work
00:19:02.880for you know most of the week right and so one parent took every day and did like they taught
00:19:08.220them something Stephen's an artist he does he did all kinds of art classes Casey sometimes had them
00:19:13.440clean out the hotel rooms and empty the trash bins uh which they got a badge for I will tell you um
00:19:19.260and you know Nick had them blaze trails and taught them how to make a fire and I taught them to write
00:19:23.940things. It was awesome. We could also only manage it for like two weeks because even that was
00:19:28.300exhausting. Yes. But that's a sort of collectivism where if you were if you said like to me,
00:19:34.040Catherine, you got a you got a group of kids and you got to think of a great one day for them a
00:19:40.420week. That is so much more doable than you are on your own with your children. And you must think
00:19:45.080of that great day again and again and again and again. It was Groundhog Day. OK. You're right.
00:19:52.260Right. So that, but I think working together, and that's actually one of the kinds of solutions that I propose for how to try to break out of some of these, this idea. And I think that, you know, another thing about this sort of competition between parents, like, so my family is not doing any American summer camp, and I'm happy to share how we have come to that.
00:20:16.300Yeah, no, we're going to get to that. I want to hear all about that.
00:20:18.280But, you know, I had a bunch of friends who were all trying to get into the Jewish Community Center award winning camp, which is a lovely camp.
00:20:30.660And they're all texting me about how they're on at 2 p.m. on Sunday and like how they're all, you know, trying to get that slot real fast.
00:20:37.740And it's just it made me so sad to think of my friends all at their computers who are basically trying to get in before the other one, even though that's not like their intention.
00:20:47.460But like that we've normalized, like the idea that we have normalized this as a way to be able to go to work is, is an amazing, is an amazing form of subjugation in my opinion.
00:21:03.760It really is. And in your experience, is it almost all moms?0.97
00:21:06.940yes in my experience i don't know i know that there are dads who are in charge of the camp
00:21:17.860spreadsheets in my experience i think it's overwhelmingly moms okay yeah why do you think
00:21:24.800that is i mean i have a i have a lot of obvious thoughts but i'm curious yeah i think that
00:21:31.200I do not think it's because women are born with the intuitive ability to set an alarm
00:21:39.180for the 8 a.m. No no no I don't we are women are not women are not better at this we are not just
00:21:44.140naturally better at this I think that it has to do with who probably first sets up your very first
00:21:52.440child care arrangement and who then has the babysitter contact list and who then knows about
00:21:59.920what camps and who vets the day carers and that all leads up to school age camp stuff
00:22:08.520um i would say i my husband and i are ongoing practitioners of equal partnership which is an
00:22:15.720ongoing process it is not nope nope does it does it does not end it doesn't you don't reach the
00:22:22.340mid perfect status and then you're there forever but in our relationship child care logistics has
00:22:29.220generally been mine um but been sort of in my domain although recently and i will just for a
00:22:37.920shout out to my husband he took over um holiday gifts completely interesting first i have not
00:22:46.040every friend i told about this like really could not believe this and i have not encountered another
00:22:51.500like married straight family where the dad solely does the holiday gifts um and everyone was like
00:22:57.520just shocked that i like would turn this over so i'm all for for dad's um taking over summer camp
00:23:07.040spreadsheet if that is on the docket for anyone's family yeah and we've we've recently tried to do
00:23:14.100a switch where nick is in charge of child care and that means being the person to manage the
00:23:21.740schedule for the week um and then i've been trying to have him manage summer uh right now
00:23:31.120we're not doing any camps as of right now uh and so i want to hear what you're doing
00:23:35.420uh and then i'll talk about what i'm doing but a he's not working at a job outside of the home
00:23:43.640right now yes um b one problem that i've noticed is he's not on the same texts about the camps
00:23:53.520right so my mom text groups get things like oh the gymnastics camp opens next week and that's
00:24:00.440the same thing for the after schools right and so it does become a lot of me then passing it on to
00:24:06.820him which is also kind of annoying totally and i think that they're i mean this is another problem
00:24:13.260with like this privatized word of mouth system is like, ooh, who told you about that camp and
00:24:19.140what day did it open? And this is actually why I think I really support like some of these like
00:24:26.040local Facebook groups being for all parents and not just for moms. Like I feel like we need to
00:24:30.420invite dads into the information ecosystem. And, you know, and if the people who mostly hold the
00:24:38.920information are not, you know, the dads are not texting about that. I think we still need to be
00:24:45.540sure that mothers are not inadvertently gatekeeping around some of these important child care
00:24:51.140logistics. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's such a good point. And I recently looked at the WhatsApp group
00:24:56.320for my daughter's preschool class and it's 80% moms. Right. So there's also, they can just join
00:25:02.920the WhatsApp group of the preschool class. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So there do seem to be a
00:25:11.260lot of individual barriers. There are structural barriers. It's not as easy as saying, let your
00:25:17.920husband handle it. Oh, no, no. And I think that also, you know, really minimizes just saying,
00:25:22.920like, why can't you just let your husband handle it? Minimizes the historical and intellectual
00:25:31.480labor that has that comes from all of the nuances of how to do this like it's not that no one can
00:25:38.000learn but I had to learn the first year how to do it and figure out the spreadsheet and now I know
00:25:44.220like this our kid like this camp and they register really early and like that's all important
00:25:49.900information that you do have to share and pass on that is hard to just build from scratch it's not
00:25:56.480like learning how to take out the garbage which is like should not take more than 10 seconds to
00:26:03.460explain to someone who's never done it before exactly exactly it's a lot of stuff that just
00:26:07.720like lives in your brain i mean it's one of the reasons that i haven't been able to pull off
00:26:11.200having an assistant to be honest uh and i know that this is something that i could do and it may
00:26:19.860end up being helpful but i'm also exhausted by the idea of training someone yeah and that i think
00:26:26.500that's very real and i think this goes at this summer it gets at similar to like the holidays
00:26:34.080which you've written about really well but this similarly gets at the sort of why the mental load
00:26:40.700becomes so difficult and how it's not so simple as like oh just delegate it is such a more complex
00:26:47.880nuanced situation and we see this with summer and you know then then another part of this which you
00:26:53.920will probably experience soon is that then the person who signs up for the camps are the one
00:26:59.200that gets the emails that are like yes we yeah we have that we have that paragraphs long about what
00:27:05.420you should and shouldn't do what the handbook you need to read every week the the group the kids are
00:27:11.340in the 14 individually wrapped snacks they have to bring they have no peanuts in them or whatever
00:27:17.280which is more complicated than regular school and so then that goes to the person who signs up which
00:27:23.340then creates more mental load for the summer and the cycle continues yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly
00:27:29.460and it is all about this mental load you know and another part of it is also the friend part of it
00:27:36.960so we want to make sure that you know charlie's little friend his best friend is in the same week
00:27:42.160of this basketball camp that he is so then we have to text his mom's and find out you know like
00:27:47.280so many different things that it's just it is it's hard to delegate it is hard to pass on
00:27:52.740uh because the knowledge becomes yours even though it for no other reason than it became
00:27:59.980yours first right exactly and i do think it's possible to switch and i do think there's certain
00:28:05.160taxes things sorry i do think there's certain things like for example for a long time i was
00:28:10.360in charge of like gathering the stuff for our taxes to get to the um to give to the accountant
00:28:15.580but because child care logistics was so challenging my husband took that over and so is mine so is
00:28:21.080mine and and and he has taken over the massive task of organizing my expenses right so there's
00:28:27.460certain things like that that no one's like a man can take over taxes i can't believe he has the
00:28:33.420bandwidth and intellectual capacity to do that do the taxes yeah same with child care i mean it is
00:28:40.220the same yeah my taxes are also a spreadsheet yeah friend same thing same same all right let's
00:28:48.340take one more quick break and when we get back i want to talk about what you're doing for this
00:28:51.220summer okay we're back lay it on me how are you dealing with the summer okay so the very quick
00:29:05.860backstory is that in my endless quest to understand American summer, I asked a bunch of people from
00:29:12.740other countries how they handle summer last year. Yeah, I love this. This is a great post. I'm going
00:29:18.520to put it in the show notes. So I asked people like from Iceland and Portugal and where else?
00:29:27.000Germany. And I did I asked someone from Nigeria wasn't just like Western wealthy countries. But
00:29:33.480What I did learn from that is that America is the only country that has sort of this toxic combination of very long summers, no subsidized care, no paid vacation, and a high supervision culture.
00:29:50.040Like, no other Western country has all of those.
00:30:02.540clarifying why this is such a bad problem and how it doesn't have to be such a bad problem it is a
00:30:08.860bad problem as a result of policy choice so other countries like maybe um their camps aren't quite as
00:30:17.140you know maybe their camps um you know they still have to compete for camps like a little bit in
00:30:22.320canada but they have a better culture around supervision and kids are allowed to play outside
00:30:26.360more by themselves or whatever like there or you know their summers are only really six weeks long
00:30:32.640or there's like a bunch of different things that just make things much easier for families so
00:30:37.540armed with this knowledge from last year i knew i was entering a new phase this year because we
00:30:44.340are aging into summer camp for all three kids yeah oh well remind me how old yours are well
00:30:49.160my twins um to today's that we're recording is february 12th they are turning five today
00:30:54.300oh my gosh okay yes yeah because they're pandemic babies like they're pandemic 20s and they're five
00:30:59.540today which just we can all just marinate on that five-year-old pandemic twins and then um i have a
00:31:06.060nine and a half year old so they are all in the summer camp age and then once we started to do
00:31:12.160the math on how much it was going to cost for them all to go to summer camp i started to just get
00:31:17.420really mad um basically yeah i was like it's one thing to spend a lot of money on really um
00:31:28.120enriching uh life-giving experiences for your family it's another thing you spend a lot of
00:31:34.120money so you can sit in durham north carolina where i live where it's 100 degrees and sweat
00:31:38.860while your kids go to camp and then start to complain about it just so you can work1.00
00:31:42.580and then like be done at three o'clock well that's the other thing my kid's gonna bitch0.99
00:31:47.300okay like i put him one year i put him in a circus camp and this kid jimmy called him a dumpster0.99
00:31:53.060and we still talk about that all the time i'm like remember when jimmy called you a dumpster
00:31:57.660um but he hated it he just hated this camp okay and then i'm like i spent all this money for this
00:32:03.060camp you hate it yeah um and everyone's miserable and then i feel guilty right yes so what i did
00:32:10.500was i calculated how much we'd have to spend for camp for um i believe it was nine weeks of the
00:32:17.620summer and then um which was and then i which was a total of ten thousand four hundred dollars
00:32:26.260um and then i added if we budgeted for a modest one week vacation like close to home like north
00:32:35.940planator with like at a condo like no not fancy driving distance no planes and i budgeted i think
00:32:44.760i budgeted that was going to be five thousand dollars also not cheap but not not a lot of money
00:32:52.580for an unextravagant week right um and so then what i decided to do was think of what could i do
00:33:01.200with fifteen thousand dollars as a pool of money i like this i like this okay so this was my like
00:33:09.180instead of thinking of how much camp costs i was like what if i took this amount of money and said
00:33:14.240how do we want to spend this money to have a meaningful summer so i like the idea of calling
00:33:20.140it a meaningful summer yeah it's not gonna probably not gonna be easy no no okay yeah totes
00:33:26.260okay gonna be memorable it's definitely right yeah so um i so thinking this through decided to
00:33:36.540break the summer up into two parts so the first part of the summer my kids are going to be with
00:33:42.580our longtime caregiver for like basically full-time hours um and they are uh gonna go to
00:33:53.280of the YMCA pool. They're going to go to the Children's Museum. They're kind of going to
00:33:59.880entertain themselves. Like, so my twins can kind of play with each other. And then my older son,
00:34:05.520some of the weeks are having a friend come in what we're calling Camp Asher. So the friend is
00:34:12.340coming and the friend's parents is supplementing the caregiver's money. And so he has a friend to
00:34:18.840have at the pool so that's but that's for five weeks instead of the whole summer so we're doing
00:34:23.620that um and not being involved in um not signing up for summer camp and then the second half of
00:34:30.460the summer we're taking the rest of the money and we are going to costa rica all right so how long
00:34:37.660is that so we're going to be in costa rica for another five weeks um we are going to do one week
00:34:44.820of like travel kind of vacation in costa rica and then we are renting a house and we are sending
00:34:50.520them to an extremely affordable free-rangey summer camp in costa rica okay i love this yes i love
00:35:00.660this and part of what works about this is kind of the economy of scale like for example like it's
00:35:08.940cheaper to rent a car for five weeks than like it's way cheaper like per week to rent it for
00:35:17.380five weeks than if to rent a car there for you know one and a half weeks or whatever so like
00:35:21.960right right it's actually cheaper to rent an airbnb for a month sometimes than it is
00:35:27.460a month-long airbnb and you know we're gonna use air um we're gonna use credit card points for the
00:35:34.300flights and so in some ways not like wildly more expensive than if we went to costa rica for like
00:35:39.900two weeks right right yeah that means that means that that makes a lot of sense yeah but also this
00:35:45.860is still going to be a lot of labor on you yes so definitely a lot so i basically the the whole
00:35:53.820trip is like already planned and booked and i found it way more enjoyable to do this than
00:35:59.220like it's fun for me to like look at airbnbs and like totally oh yeah of course then to set up
00:36:04.960camps then like set up camps so that part and i did it like kind of well in advance so i didn't
00:36:09.900feel like a kind of time pressure um so so that part is already done um and so uh and then you
00:36:19.020know we've gotten the i mean basically how i did this was i through just internet rabbit holes found
00:36:24.380this camp and then plan the rest of the trip around the existence of this camp that was around
00:36:30.360the camp okay yeah it's affordable um I think it is gonna I think our kids I think I don't know
00:36:36.960we'll see if they like it but it's like the activities are like cooking bouncy houses surfing
00:36:45.300and like being in a rock band so like that's and they're like every time they share pictures on
00:36:53.360they're like a whatsapp group like the kids are like not wearing shirts and not wearing shoes
00:36:58.220great that works for our family that would not work for everyone's family um but well because
00:37:04.500also you you work really hard but you are your job can also be flexible yes and this that's another
00:37:10.400huge part of this is your husband's job flexible yes we both have flexible jobs and so we are able
00:37:16.000this is part of like we're able to do this um uh like we're able and a lot of people don't have
00:37:23.600you know they have some flexibility in their jobs but they do still have to go in sometimes or you
00:37:27.940know like a lot of people don't have this level of flexibility i would i would say that you know
00:37:32.360most people most people don't have this level of flexibility yeah so we're really taking advantage
00:37:38.100of that level of flexibility to make this work and I mean this is so my husband and I are both
00:37:46.760like very experienced travelers we're not very experienced travelers with our children our
00:37:50.580children have never left the time zone like we've been afraid to take our twins anywhere because
00:37:54.900they were twins and it was very hard so that's fair that's okay so it's not like so there's
00:38:01.160definitely gonna and I haven't been on a trip this extended in decades um so certainly this is
00:38:07.500going to challenge us and be out of our comfort zones and there's going to be unexpected ups and
00:38:13.940downs I am sure but we did we do have another family from Durham who is going to also do this
00:38:22.020so they have they are renting their own house but we will have some people that we know there
00:38:27.260so that's going to be very that's a huge added bonus yeah that's great that's great I will I
00:38:33.720will say i think you're creating a meaningful summer it's going to be definitely harder in a
00:38:39.180lot of ways and also more awesome in a lot of ways my really good friend reagan who is a travel editor
00:38:44.440and writer and i talk about her a lot because she created the awesome platform saltette which is a
00:38:50.200travel guide written by actual experts and not ai uh wood yeah yeah yeah and and and it pays it
00:38:57.180pays real writers to do real things it's amazing she's magic and she did the same math right so
00:39:02.800she did the math she's like she's got three girls and she's like okay how much is summer camp going
00:39:09.100to cost we could go to europe for that amount yes and my husband and i can trade off child care
00:39:17.080there we can pay for babysitters while we're there but the kids will be in europe so they'll1.00
00:39:22.680be getting you know a much different experience her girls are older than my kids uh and she's1.00
00:39:28.500done it for the past three summers. Yeah. And, you know, I did something similar when I went to1.00
00:39:33.620Sicily to finish up Sicilian inheritance and then report on the podcast. We were in Italy for a
00:39:38.560month. Yeah. And this summer is going to be pretty similar. We're we're actually inheriting a camper
00:39:46.240van. A VW camper camper van that is on its last legs. But I think that we're going to we're just
00:39:54.560like paying a very nominal amount for it um to a friend who's getting rid of it and i'm like you
00:39:59.740know what i'll bet we get like five to ten vacations out of this and that's amazing right
00:40:04.320so it's a good starter camper van we're gonna go pick it up in oregon or yeah in portland um
00:40:09.680it's portland oregon my brain doesn't work uh so we're gonna go pick it up in portland uh the day
00:40:19.220after school ends okay and then drive it and meet friends in glacier national park the kid the big
00:40:26.660kids are going to do a two-day dino dig camp okay where they're going to dig up fossils we may or
00:40:32.780may not bring our au pair with us okay she does not like the outdoors so this is what to stay with
00:40:38.900you in a camper van because that's that that is also we also do not know the answer to that question
00:40:42.560these are things that we are figuring out right now um that said she may like it for
00:40:50.040three to four days and not like the entire experience of which maybe she comes for part
00:40:55.160of it and it's something interesting and eye-opening right yeah this is a whole discussion
00:41:00.940and then we're gonna leave the camper van in milwaukee where nick's parents are and fly home
00:41:09.000and we'll get the camper van later in the summer when I'm on book tour this sounds honestly
00:41:14.200way more adventurous than our trip to Costa Rica well yeah no it is but essentially we're taking
00:41:21.640off that's the thing like I'm not I don't think I'm I we are both I don't know what next job
00:41:27.880situation is gonna be but like also I don't know how much work I'm gonna get done on this on this
00:41:35.100leg realistic about that for sure totally and that's what reagan said about europe she's like
00:41:39.920i got way less work done than i thought i was going to a lot of the child care fell through
00:41:43.480like you never know what's going to happen so am i going to bank on big deadlines this summer
00:41:47.460absolutely not it's just i can't i'm not going to be able to do it but also yes but also like i feel
00:41:54.340like i feel like the summer is always less productive because i'm dealing with like these
00:42:00.120pickup times and the kids getting out early and you know like i if we just accept summer is going
00:42:06.660to be less productive but like why don't we make it less productive in more interesting ways that
00:42:11.440that's what i really liked it when you said how can i make it more meaningful right like summer
00:42:14.660is going to be less productive so how do we make it not suck yeah and i think that we need to take
00:42:19.080this consumer basically we're we're asked to be consumers and pay top dollar for for child care
00:42:27.380in the summer so I think we need to take that consumer mindset like all the way and be like
00:42:31.860this is we're we are not prisoners if you have if you are fortunate to be able to budget
00:42:37.54010 grand you are not a prisoner you have choices and like I think that we have to just and you know
00:42:45.740what are the ways we can work together with people and like neighbors what are the ways we can try to
00:42:52.040have different kinds of experiences like i just want to like take the consumer mindset all the way
00:42:58.000about what you can buy that is actually worth the money yeah exactly exactly uh and and to create
00:43:06.320that meaningful experience yeah i mean we'll be back um in early july and it will be two weeks
00:43:12.700of then the kids being with their regular caregiver um and they'll figure it out they can go the
00:43:17.600neighborhood pool yeah yeah they can like there's there's lots to be done they can they can go mix
00:43:22.840and mingle with the recreation center camp kids uh and then i'm on book tour for two weeks right
00:43:30.080uh for everyone is lying to you has everyone ordered it because if everyone listening right
00:43:34.140now orders this book right now then we're in good shape people let's go i'm gonna order it right now
00:43:39.160you're gonna order it right now everyone is lying to you yeah it's it's in all the places where all
00:43:43.380the books are sold and so they're gonna pop in for the tail end of that and meet me in milwaukee
00:43:51.460where nick's parents are and then we'll drive the camper van back and then do a camper van
00:43:57.320last week book tour through virginia and the virginia bookstores that i love
00:44:02.340ending in crozet and going to shenandoah amazing and we're gonna wrap the camper van
00:44:08.980in the cover of everyone is lying to you my god you are not that is i am i am i'm no i'm going
00:44:13.760balls to the wall man i can't wait well i'm not on instagram anymore so i hope you put this on
00:44:19.140your sub stack i'll put it oh please i'm gonna put it in all the places all the places yeah and
00:44:26.620then and then we'll go to the cat skulls we might do a little more camp independence and that will
00:44:30.300be a mix of um our caregiver being there my mom being there and us doing it on our own
00:44:37.460i i i love i love that you were thinking about creative ways and i think that part of this is
00:44:44.300that we need to like acknowledge both you and i like both of our solutions are not like systemic
00:44:50.600solutions and they would and they're not at all exactly like i'm just i'm throwing this out there
00:44:54.780because when i heard what reagan was doing i was like okay cool like i just want to hear other
00:44:59.200models but this is not systemic like this is not possible for 99 of people and this is a one-time
00:45:05.760And so, you know, like this isn't like we'll do this every summer.
00:45:08.540This is like a really specific time and the book and, you know, these sorts of things.
00:45:12.620So I think that I think but what I do want to encourage is not to say like, well, why can't you be like us?
00:45:18.720I think that what I want people to encourage is just think outside the box and not feel that they have to participate in these systems.
00:45:25.940And when people don't participate in these systems like you and I are not this year, that actually does free up other slots for people.
00:45:32.740we are less people competing in the camp madness. And that does have a tiny, tiny positive impact.
00:45:39.000Well, and especially for the really affordable camps, which I think about a lot, right? Because,
00:45:43.620you know, these rec center, there should be more of these rec center camps that are affordable.
00:45:50.420And there's also a lot of people that really, really need them.
00:45:53.740Yes. That really, really, really need that affordable option. And so by taking myself
00:45:58.060out of that situation, it's freeing up a spot for someone who absolutely really needs it.
00:46:02.740And, but I do. All right, let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, I want to hear about the systemic things that can be done, that can be done to fix this.
00:46:12.600okay we're back what can actually be done to fix this what changes could be made i mean i don't
00:46:26.700the current administration isn't going to do anything because they think that grandparents
00:46:29.600um that post that menopausal women and post menopausal women are they are are their only0.85
00:46:35.040use is to care for our children in the summers uh yes we just had a jd vance mother-in-law1.00
00:46:41.980We'd all just do that. I yeah, I from to put on like my public policy hat for a second, I don't think that there's anything major at the federal level that will be happening anytime soon related to subsidized child care.
00:47:00.840But that doesn't mean that we can't that building momentum for change happens all the time, even under unfriendly administrations.
00:47:09.960Unfriendly is the kindest word I could possibly use for this.
00:47:14.720So but what I would say is that, like, there are a lot of different efforts that have happened at the state level.
00:47:23.060People's cities and counties can invest more in affordable summer options.
00:47:27.500so understanding what the landscape is not just like what camp should I sign up for but like
00:47:32.120understanding you know what public or affordable options there are are there ways to advocate for
00:47:38.020expanding that if your parks and rec department has that like you know making sure advocating for
00:47:45.360additional slots if your public school district does that trying to advocate for more of that I
00:47:52.400I mean, those are the sort of and then, you know, there's other places like in New Mexico, Portland, Oregon, that have done really interesting stuff with like like zero to five universal child care access.
00:48:03.140And there are ways to do like put ballot initiatives for child care funding and stuff.
00:48:09.260So depending on where you live. So it's not that it all has to come from a top down stuff like governments and local governments respond to what their constituents want in a way that the federal government doesn't.
00:48:21.460And so it doesn't mean it's hopeless in terms of making change at the local level.
00:48:26.700And I really like what you said about how just because we have a hostile administration right now doesn't mean we can't plan.
00:48:35.120Because, frankly, the right has been planning for 10 years for this moment.
00:48:43.920And so the movement building can absolutely happen right now.
00:48:49.320It actually has to happen right now because when we have a different government makeup, which we will, we have to be ready to be sure that these are issues that are front and center and they don't get pushed down because other people are better organized.