Kid Rotting and the End of Journalism

In Which I Attempt to Read The New York Times

File:... The Pecks in camp (1911) (14566724178).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

I know the wide world is on fire, and my private one is under foul water, to almost biblical proportions, it would seem, but have you thought about what children ought to do during the summer months? Of course, if you have children yourself, you have doubtless thought about it. Likely, in the usual way, you will truck through life either taking a break from school, if they are school-aged, and enjoying the slower pace, or sending them off to camp, or otherwise being a normal person. But seriously, what about the children of New York’s elite and highly anxious? What about them, you guys? What are they going to be doing this summer? Let’s trot over to the New York Times to find out. The piece is called “Is It OK for Your Kids to ‘Rot’ All Summer? Some parents are choosing to forgo high-intensity camps and activities for their children in favor of weeks of unplanned time. Call it ‘kid rotting.’” It’s by one Hannah Seligson. Let’s take a gander.

When Katherine Goldstein was a child in the 1990s, growing up in Atlanta, she remembers languid summers spent swimming and riding her bike around the neighborhood while her father worked full time and her mother worked part time from home. Many of the millennial parents in her orbit have similar memories. “Most of the people I know who are in their 30s and 40s spent July and August at a community pool, and there was not this sense that every moment had to be programmed,” said Ms. Goldstein, 41.

To say it another way, “Most People” have these memories. Most people in the world just get on with life because that’s how this works. You have to work and prepare meals, and keep a household running, even with children running around. For most of the world, all the months of the year are like this. I don’t know why I’m saying something that everyone already knows, except that the New York Times’ deathless prose has a sort of breathless feel, like they just discovered some shocking human condition that no one has ever considered before. With so many interesting things to write about, this is what appears when you scroll for less than 30 seconds.

I promise, we won’t go through every line and sentiment, because that would literaleigh kill us, wouldn’t it, so skipping an entire paragraph:

While many parents — particularly those with office jobs — may view camp as the ideal and often necessary way for a child to spend summer break, others see it as a dreaded four-letter word that is synonymous with hefty price tags and stressful logistics. What if, some are daring to wonder, my kid does nothing?

Call it kid rotting, internet parlance for indulgent lounging, or “wild summer.” This might sound anathema to those who subscribe to an ultracompetitive modern parenting culture, particularly in New York City, where signing up for camp is an arms race of who can remember to set calendar reminders months ahead of time. Some of the most coveted camps — like the ones offered by Central Park Zoo ($720 per week) and the American Museum of Natural History ($1,300 per week) — often fill up within minutes of opening registration.

I was brave and clicked the link about ‘kid rotting.’ It leads to an article called “How Long Is Too Long to Stay in Bed? Asking for a friend,” dated from February of last year. In it, the author, someone named Elizabeth Passarella, delves into the scintillating phenomenon of staying in bed for a while when you wake up instead of just getting out and going on with the day. Passarella interviews a sleep psychologist named Eleanor McGlinchey, who shares deep wisdom like “it’s important to set limits” and “plan ahead for how you want to spend your free minutes in bed.” “I tell people to do whatever they are going to do on purpose,” says this noted sleep psychologist, “give yourself a certain amount of time. Journal. Listen to music.” I know I’m putting you to sleep this very minute, but have you ever heard of “revenge bedtime procrastination?” This is “the act of staying up too long to make up for the hours you spent working or caring for others during the day.” The consequence of this is that you will “loll about in the morning,” which is “front-loading that ‘me’ time before responsibilities invade.” “Any parent,” laments Passarella, “can attest to how savagely the veil between sleep and packing lunches is torn.”

Anyway, back to the main subject, which is just as useless as how long you stay in bed in the morning. Should you let your children “rot” or should you spend $1300 a week? For me, as you might expect, the answer is clear—the children will do the math and spelling all summer. For this is how children ought to live their lives. But what about those in “affluent suburbs?” What will those children do? Back to the New York Times:

In some affluent suburbs, the cost of multiple camp tuitions is on par with a new luxury car. Hali Berman, the founder of the resale site for camp gear and décor called Recamped, is spending about $40,000 to send her two younger children to attend eight weeks of full-day camp in Bergen County, N.J., and for seven weeks of sleep-away camp for her oldest child.

That sounds awful. Really, those poor children. How lonely and miserable. I would much rather spend long days reading books or wandering around in the woods or cleaning the garage than spending even one cent on something called “Recamped.” So anyway, the Times found a person—not me, sadly—who figured out it would be cheaper to put her life on hold for the summer and just go to Europe with her six and nine-year-olds:

After discovering that a full-time babysitter was out of her budget, Ms. Weintraub, 39, decided to take a sabbatical from school. She booked a two-week European vacation and was planning to “cobble together” the rest of the summer with a combination of local activities, help from grandparents and short road trips. Ms. Weintraub says the entire trip to Europe will cost her less than seven weeks of camp for two children in Manhattan. Not to mention, she added, “I would rather spend my money on travel than a camp they don’t want to go to,” she said.

What a sensible lady. Apparently, what you do with your children is a “parenting Rorschach test.” Should you pad the darlings’ resumes? Or just “be chill?” One lady, a Ms. Pellicciotta, has children who speak four languages, and so they “can afford to be lazy.” Aimee Denaro Becker has discovered that boredom is good for her six-year-old. Ms. Becker works remotely, so she doesn’t have to pay anyone to look after her little preciousness. A “private school admissions consultant” “promotes a certain brand of summer boredom.” “I tell them,” the parents, that “their kid will be more ‘ahead’ with their own experimentation.” Don’t sign them up for STEM camp, in other words.

The problem, of course, is that if you don’t send your beloved offspring off to an expensive camp, you will have to steel yourself against their constant and probably anguished cries to watch movies and play games, the dreaded “screens” that is, quite literally, rotting the brains of America’s youth.

On the whole, New Yorkers are deciding to hire babysitters and then go on fancy vacations because it’s just cheaper. And I, for one, congratulate them. I guess. This summer we’re going to a massive house reshuffle. Matt and I are moving out of the attic and into our old room. The girls are moving into the attic. Emma and Rowan are switching. And I’m going to appropriate the tiny room as an office. And by the time we’ve done that, we’ll be exhausted and the summer will be over. And then I’ll trot over to the New York Times to see how I should be spending my autumn.

And the thing that really bugs me about this article is that it feels like the journalistic equivalent of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. With so many fascinating and shocking things going on in every city and town around the world, the frail web of human relationships pulsing with life in every place, the strange and inexplicable things that people think and do, this is what the New York Times chooses to spend its time on. It’s not the fault of Ms. Seligson. She’s just doing her job. But what on earth is it for? Why would she think this was a worthy career? What is gained by wandering around interviewing people about whether or not they’re sending their kids to a $40,000 camp this summer? Is it fear? Is it ennui? Is it a failure of imagination? Maybe they should all take a break for the summer, and lie by the pool, and try harder to think of something any of us should even care about.

And on that note, my dears, I’m going to Bible Study and then to once again, face the desolation of my basement.