Summer Camp's Life Lessons

What fifteen 6-year-old girls taught me about being a woman

Summer Camp: Girl Running
Norbert Schaefer / Corbis
Last summer, after my sophomore year in college, most of my classmates embarked on semiprofessional endeavors — internships at the State Department, intensive language courses in Moscow or Madrid. Although part of me was jealous, or maybe intimidated by the idea of running the government, mostly I just wanted a break, a simple summer, complete with swimming, sunshine, and lots of ice cream. And so as everybody else headed off to Congress, I signed on as a counselor at a summer camp in Clarksburg, New Jersey, near my hometown.

A waste of 8 weeks? Hardly. Two months later I realized I'd learned more success secrets than I would have from any research fellowship in Rome. The fifteen 6-year-olds put in my charge showed me the power of the inner girl.

A girl's gotta dream.

One day, over a lunch of chicken nuggets and bug juice, the girls and I got to talking about career aspirations, and my new 3'4" friend, Olivia, pulled on my sleeve to inform me that she was going to become a veterinarian, Olympic gymnast, astronaut, and first-grade teacher — or, if all else failed, a pop star. I laughed at first, recalling my own plans to be a Grammy-winning marine biologist with a knack for competitive figure skating. But slurping down a slice of watermelon later that day, I suddenly got annoyed by the way I had dramatically scaled down my ambitions since girlhood. Of course, as we get older and achieve a more accurate understanding of our abilities (or lack thereof), our goals become more realistic. While this saves us from recklessly pursuing unrealizable dreams, it also allows us to settle. Whether Olivia actually believed she would ever be able to do a perfect dismount from the uneven bars, I don't know. She seemed more concerned at that moment with french fry consumption. But by daydreaming of life as a gold medalist, she gave herself permission to be accomplished, athletic, successful, and strong. It's only by thinking really big that we can hope to achieve anything wonderfully small.

A girl's gotta savor.

Far more important to any 6-year-old than what's for lunch is what's for dessert. One Friday afternoon before dismissal, I overheard the girls reminiscing about the Rice Krispies Treats served the previous Tuesday. They were dissecting these delicacies — how wonderfully "sticky" they'd been and how jealous their siblings were when they heard tales of the treats later that night. What struck me was that these girls weren't lamenting lost color wars or misplaced goggles, but enjoying with friends the memory of 5 minutes when the world had tasted just right. Now, our impulse is to say that we grown-ups don't have time to reflect on yesterday's pastries. But by the same token, the secret to surviving life's stresses is to enjoy its small pleasures, whatever they may be — the thrill of a 3-day weekend, the hum of a summer night, the taste of a Twinkie in the late afternoon.

A girl's got a body.

"I bet you can kick the ball really far," Alyssa said on the soccer field one day, gazing admiringly at the legs I'd come to regard as stocky and too short for my size. "You're lucky," she added before darting off into the midfield scramble. Watching her lean body move across the field, I realized that somewhere between camperhood and counselor status I had lost the ability to appreciate my body. Like many women, I had learned to hate the jiggle of my thighs, the protrusion of my tummy, the fullness of my face. Six-year-olds, on the other hand, treat their bodies as tools with which to grow bigger and stronger and do things they couldn't do before. They've got it right. Our bodies are great machines, and working them makes us healthier, more energized, and better fit to meet the challenges of everyday life.

A girl's gotta win.

When my group won first prize in the all-camp sandcastle-building contest, you would have thought they had a million dollars coming to them. The kids screamed like wild animals when the winner was announced. Driving home, I imagined them regaling their families with stories of that day's victory, how stiff the competition had been, and ultimately how well deserved their triumph was. But it troubled me to realize that while boys grow up and maintain their ability to describe their successes in minute detail, as girls become women we minimize our achievements. We ace tests because they were easy, not because we're particularly smart. We get promotions because our bosses like us, not because we're really good at what we do. When my girls returned the next day, they were sure we were going to win the next competition, whatever it might be. The way they saw it, our group was just plain good at competing. They understood that taking pride in an accomplishment gives us the confidence to accomplish more.

A girl's gotta strut.

A favorite camper of mine, Ally, with curly dark hair and dimples, once reported that the model rocket she'd built and launched at camp had traveled about 3 miles into the air before making its way back down to earth. Another — Emily, redheaded and freckle-faced — told me about performing her latest dance recital in front of about 5 million people in her school cafeteria. The point is not that the girls had less than impressive estimation skills, but rather that they didn't let the greater accomplishments of those around them minimize their own. Too often we think we're only as smart, successful, and skinny as the people around us are not. Ally didn't notice that her model rocket went about half as high as the boy's next to her. All she could see was her handmade creation soaring into the air.

A girl's got right now.

The only concern for the young girls in my group was the here and now. Of course, this often amounted to a certain degree of impatience and impoliteness I could have done without. But it also gave our time together a sense of importance you might not attribute to an 8-week stint in the summer sun. While I fretted over the end of yet another summer, they were blissfully indifferent to the passage of time. It wasn't that they weren't sad when camp ended. They were. There were long embraces and the most meaningful words their little hearts could muster. But they didn't bother bemoaning the end of camp until they had actually arrived at their last day on the grounds — and even then, they packed the day full of all their favorite activities. They understood that life is best lived as a series of right nows, individual moments that somehow, someday add up to something bigger. Seeing the girls onto their buses that final afternoon, I felt surprisingly upbeat. I had learned from them that each day carries with it a shining possibility entirely distinct from the one before it.
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