Camping with kids

I bet Socrates was insufferable to be around. If you’re not familiar with the Socratic Method (named after the way Socrates practiced philosophy), he was basically a “Why?” kid. He’d find a willing participant to engage in debate and then he’d question their beliefs relentlessly until they came to an agreement on the nature of the thing, or until he got them to admit they didn’t know anything, which was more likely. I’d love to have lived back then so I could read everyone’s body language. I bet there was a lot of eye rolling and exasperated sighing. This guy! From what I’ve learned about Socrates, it seems that the other person in the conversation was the one carrying the mental load. It’s easier to find the flaws in a theory than it is to come up with one from scratch. I imagine that after more than a handful of questions, the interlocutor felt a bit like I do six holes and thirty strokes into a round of mini golf—I don’t care about this game anyway! He had the right idea though, it’s more effective to teach with questions then with explanations. I had the chance to learn that again on our trip last week.

Everything went smoothly. I’m a little astonished actually, it seems all my preemptive worrying paid off. On Monday we arrived at our destination—a small, rural town with a natural attraction and a booming “campground” economy. More power to them, fiscally speaking. Along the route, properties were selling home grown vegetables and bundles of locally-sourced firewood. There were long stretches of road with nothing but fields and then suddenly an intersection with a grocery mart, a bank, and a restaurant. We saw an operational Pizza Hut! It’s iconic shape took me back to the simpler time when salad bars were unsneeze-guarded and Book It pins adorned backpacks like purple hearts. Do Pizza Huts stand out because they are unusual or is it because everything else looks the same? Dare to be different, I guess. Even in death, the ghost of Pizza Hut is remembered fondly. I know I get a kick out of every red roofed bank or dispensary I come across. When we finally arrived at the campground, we were assigned to site #155. After meandering our way through the winding dirt roads, I backed our rig into our designated spot without incident. The kids did not shower me with appropriate amount of praise after this feat, but I know they meant to. To get the motorhome functioning more like a home and less like a motor, I hooked up our electricity and water. Again, there was limited fanfare from the children but in my mind a celebratory parade. Time to start camping.

I was pleased to discover the campground offered lots of events and activities to participate in and we took advantage. We made frogs out of paper plates, checked out the teen party in the adults-only pool, and played a cut-throat game of bingo as a storm rolled in over the pavilion. We paddle boarded among jellyfish, swam in several pools, and everyone got a turn driving the rented golf cart which turned out to be a highlight of the week. We did take a shuttle into town to eat at a restaurant once, so I could order something green. I was surprised by the limited salad selection given our proximity to so many crops. I got the caesar. I could feel my cells depleting on the diet of bread and cheese I had packed. We were busy, and when we weren’t, we were grateful for a rest.

During our stay, I challenged each of my teenagers to get our campfire going. I would teach them what I know about how to start a fire, and then they could take a crack at it. I would have liked to teach them the most basic fundamentals, like the physics of thermodynamics, but I don’t know them, so I had no choice but to skip ahead to the construction of the thing. Teaching teenagers as a parent is a delicate art. By this age you know their personalities well and you can start catering your lessons to each child’s specific needs, but you can also see exactly how your own weaknesses as a parent have manifested in your kid. It can be humbling.

My fourteen-year-old daughter, who never passes up an opportunity to use a lighter, appeared outside in the early evening on our second night, ready to try her hand as a fire starter. I could not have been prouder—I channeled my inner Socrates. What do you know about fire? What does it need? How can we create an environment for oxygen and heat that will last until the first log catches? My questions forced her to think about the nature of fire, to get inside it’s head. All this before either of us had picked up a piece of wood. My daughter was receptive to my line of questioning, she was eager to learn what she needed to know to succeed. And she did. With my help, she stacked scraps of cardboard and dried pine cones and surrounded them by some of the smaller logs in our collection. She made a few adjustments and then lit the center of the pile with the lighter. I held her long, blond hair back as she got down low to feed the flame with her breath. The pile caught. First try. She was elated and I was duly impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever started a fire on my first try. That night we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows until after dark.

The next night I had to coax my sixteen-year-old son into the outdoors. It was his turn to build us a fire. He was not interested in hearing my Socratic explanation of fire and it’s properties, and opted out of any assistance from me. Honestly, I think I was sh*tty about offering it. I anticipated his rejection. We haven’t been connecting as well as we used to and I’m finding it’s easiest to give him space. While I consciously quieted my thoughts of misogyny, I reminded myself he is a child and it’s developmentally appropriate for him to want to separate from his mother. His opinion of me might have nothing to do with the videos he’s watching on YouTube. I sat back and watched from a distance while he struggled to light small scraps of cardboard in the wind. Should I insist on giving him my advice? Would he hear it if he doesn’t want to? When do I step in to help him? When do I take over the situation? Surely, it’s before he burns all of our limited kindling. I gave him ten minutes. “I guess I lost” he said as I approached. In his mind he was competing with his sister. It’s not about winning, I assured him, it’s about learning. But the damage was done. I walked him through the same advice I had given my daughter the day before but I could tell that every word I said landed as a criticism of what he had tried. We worked together to try and get it going, and in my frantic desperation to give him a win and salvage the situation I stopped teaching, by both question and lecture, and just started doing it myself. He stayed with me for a while, watching me arrange logs and blow gently on the small flame, suggesting we pull bark off the logs to use as kindling. After a few more failed attempts he declared it hopeless and went back inside. Not a minute later, a few pieces of bark added to the center at just the right time caused the flames to catch. I went to the window and knocked to get his attention and declared “I have made fire!” a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he finally succeeds. My son gave me a meager smile and a thumbs up. Then I remembered the night our family watched that movie, he opted to play video games with friends. He didn’t get the joke. To him, I had just taken all the credit.

There are moments in parenting when you know you have messed up. Sometimes it takes a while to realize it, but sometimes you know it right away. I knew that the attempt at the campfire merit badge had gone off the rails. I had made my kid feel worse, not better. I wanted to explain the scene from the movie. I wanted to tell him if he had just listened to me in the beginning he would have known what he needed to. I wanted to stress the importance of perseverance in the face of a challenge. If you had just stuck with it a little longer… I didn’t do any of those. Instead I sat outside by the fire alone, tending the flames and arranging the logs that fueled them. When he reappeared about an hour later, I let him know that it was the bark that had done it. He had the right idea.

I worry about how much the current contention between us is my fault. For a while now, I feel defensive around him. I’m in my head where I feel like I don’t do or say anything right, and I constantly want to scream I’m a person too! I’m trying my best! Maybe my attitude is preventing me from projecting the calm confidence I need to have for him to feel safe and loved. What if second-guessing myself feels like I’m second-guessing him? What if he feels like he lost? You don’t get to redo your parenting. They keep growing. How would Socrates have handled a failed attempt at a campfire? Should I have said all of those things I wanted to? Should I have questioned my son about what he thought went wrong? Did I sour the whole attempt with my preconceived notions about how my advice would be received? It doesn’t matter now. I can’t recreate it. It happened the way it happened.

It’s harder than they tell you. Everyone stresses the sleepless nights and busy days of raising babies and toddlers when you’re about to enter parenthood, but very few warn you what the teenage years are like. It’s a complicated dance of holding on and letting go while both of you are stomping all over each other’s feet. As the parent, it feels like my responsibility to smile and keep going as if it doesn’t hurt. But what if that’s not the right thing to do? What if that makes him think I don’t care about him? Isn’t part of an intimate relationship a mutual affect? If I act as though his behavior doesn’t affect me, will he think it doesn’t? Does overthinking my parenting make my actual parenting worse? How can I be a responsible parent without worrying about it? Are these the kind of questions Socrates asked? Did he have generalized anxiety disorder? Maybe the guy was looking for reassurance.

All things considered, the trip went well. I think the kids thought I was lame (I am lame to be honest) but we had fun together. We laughed and played games and, outside of the fire incident, my son and I got along well during this difficult phase of adjustment for our family. As labor intensive as it was, I’m glad I decided to take them out on my own. I think being in tight quarters where he saw me cook, and eat, and sleep was a good reminder that I am just a person. And seeing him splash, and laugh, and launch jellyfish out into the bay was a good reminder that he is still a kid.