Community Magazine May 2021

28 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Still, parents enjoyed the break after months of being quarantined with their children, and ended up paying less than half than what they ordinarily pay for camp. Many parents organized a “round robin” system, whereby each parent took turns entertaining all the kids in the group. This was basically free, other than the cost of supplies and lunch. However, many mothers found this arrangement very difficult. Another option, of course, was keeping the kids home. For working parents, this wasn’t ideal, to put it mildly, but still, many people did what they had to do. The summer of 2020 was the first summer when you’d regularly catch our community’s children on the beach at any hour of the weekday. Parents started to take full advantage of their pools and local parks (the ones that were open) to keep their kids busy. Dispensable or Indispensable? No matter how, or how well, they managed during the summer of 2020 without camp, the experience has left parents wondering whether traditional summer camp really is the only option. Given the high cost of camp, which – we may assume – cannot be lowered (the government does not regard summer camp as an essential service which could ever be deemed eligible for public funding), and seeing that we went through a summer without it, should it continue being the standard norm? Unlike school, summer camp is not, fundamentally, an educational framework. Missing summer camp is not likely to lower a child’s chances of professional success like missing school would. Should a young family with a stay-at-home parent and little children be expected to shell out thousands for summer day camp when it’s technically not necessary? Are there acceptable solutions or alternatives? Of course, each family and each child is different, and a variety of different considerations are at play. When kids reach a certain age, social pressure becomes an important factor. They will feel left out if their friends are attending camp and they aren’t. The parents, too, might be asked uncomfortable questions by other parents who hear that they are not sending their children to camp. And, for families with two working parents, the financial burden of camp is likely offset by the double income that necessitates a full-day framework for the kids. As a fulltime photographer, I need my kids in camp, as the spring and summer months are, baruch Hashem , filled with parties, events, and photoshoot opportunities. Last summer was one of my most difficult summers, as I needed to schlep my kids back and forth to backyard camp, which operated for a relatively small number of hours, while juggling photography work and housework. The financial advantages weighed heavily – but not heavily enough for me not to enroll them in camp this summer. (They’re already enrolled, and I’ve been sending small payments to the camp whenever I can so the expense doesn’t hit me like a brick right at the start of summer!) With all these thoughts circulating through my mind, I set out to find out what some people in the community think. “In My Book, It’s a Right” Abe Manopla (aka Mexican Pacino) is well-known for the attentionhehelpedbring to theplight of agunot (“chained”women whose ex-husbands refuse to grant them a halachic divorce). His Instagram live interviews had many people captivated and had a significant impact. He has since moved on to other important community topics such as the tuition crisis, so I figured his voice would be an important one in the conversation surrounding the dispensability or indispensability of summer camp. Most of my interviews are done via telephone, but in true Pacino fashion, Abe suggested a live interview and welcomed the rest of the community to listen in live and weigh in via comments.  We began discussing how last year’s closing of summer camps suddenly made it acceptable to keep your kids home or find cheaper alternatives. “It was a gorgeous monetary break,” Manopla said about his family’s experience in the summer of 2020. “I enjoyed it. I was even able to buy a house with that break, by the way.” He explained, “I have a family of four, three of them are…[camp] age. It’s a $10,000 bill right there for this coming summer, and it does hit you from nowhere.” That’s not to say that Abe opposes summer camp. He clarifies that he’s “not against it,” and that camps “provide a very good service.” Moreover, when asked if he thought camp is a privilege or a right, Abe emphatically replied, “It’s a right! In my book, it’s a right. I work, my wife works, and we have no choice. In our community, it’s a right, bottom line.” Many of those with whom I’ve discussed this topic have expressed the same sentiment – that in our community, camp is a right, not a privilege. In my interview with Abe, we discussed the added financial pressure involved in summer camp, and how exacerbating a family’s economic burden can have deleterious effects onmarriage. Abe also took this opportunity to publicize his cheaper camp alternative – Surf and Study, a surf camp for boys that keeps the Torah fresh in their minds throughout the summer while keeping them active in the ocean.  Should a young family with a stay-at-home parent and little children be expected to shell out thousands for summer day camp, when it’s technically not necessary?