Speaker 1: Ah, summer camp for kids, it's the dream of fun
Speaker 1: in the sun, no homework and no parents lurking over
Speaker 1: your shoulder. How many movies have tried to capture that feeling? Ah,
Speaker 1: your head counseler hoping to make your summer camp experience
Speaker 1: the best available in this price rate or lampoon it
Speaker 1: the scent of pine Wednesday. Look at all the other
Speaker 1: children that freckles.
Speaker 2: Their bright little eyes, Their eager, friendless minds.
Speaker 1: Helped them. But for many parents, summer camp is anything
Speaker 1: but fun. All the cost and stress of finding childcare
Speaker 1: with added expectations and social anxiety tossed in.
Speaker 3: January is not a time that I think anyone really
Speaker 3: wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying to map out
Speaker 3: the whole summer, spend money for deposits, and that's what
Speaker 3: parents are forced to do in this particular system.
Speaker 1: That's BusinessWeek contributor and summer camp parent Lydia Keysling. She
Speaker 1: dug into the archives to trace how the idea of
Speaker 1: summer camp and how it's been portrayed has changed over
Speaker 1: the decades, and Bloomberg reporter Claire Suttith is also here
Speaker 1: to talk about why summer camp really is just another
Speaker 1: way to say childcare and has a lot of the
Speaker 1: same problems.
Speaker 2: Whenever you look at sort of the inequity in child'scare.
Speaker 2: The harder you make a process, the more people are
Speaker 2: going to fall through the cracks.
Speaker 1: I'm Wesksova today on the big take, How did summer
Speaker 1: camp become such a struggle? Lydia? A lot of us
Speaker 1: have fine memories of going to summer camp. For parents
Speaker 1: not such a great experience.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's certainly true for parents.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I knew anecdotally before where I began writing this piece
Speaker 3: that parents were just mostly moms. I really need to
Speaker 3: emphasize that we're freaking out about how to manage summer childcare,
Speaker 3: and camps seem to become sort of more of an
Speaker 3: arms race in terms of when you can register, when
Speaker 3: you need to register, and yeah, it seems like people
Speaker 3: are suffering.
Speaker 1: So how many kids are going to summer camp in
Speaker 1: the US now?
Speaker 3: So the numbers that we have generally come from the
Speaker 3: American Camp Association, that's an industry group that does a
Speaker 3: lot of record keeping. Their estimate was roughly twenty six
Speaker 3: million kids were estimated to be in camp of some
Speaker 3: kind for the summer of twenty twenty two. That's based
Speaker 3: on many different kinds of camps. So I think the
Speaker 3: numbers are a bit nebulous, but it is a huge,
Speaker 3: huge industry in America.
Speaker 1: And when you think about summer camp, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us think of, you know, your kid goes
Speaker 1: to summer camp for maybe four to six weeks, or
Speaker 1: if it's a day camp, they go in the morning,
Speaker 1: they come back in the evening. But in your reporting
Speaker 1: you show that that's really not the case, that it's
Speaker 1: so much more complicated for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It is a vast and gnarled network of private, public,
Speaker 3: nonprofit religious entities offering many, many different kinds of camp.
Speaker 3: So there's yeah, that kind of idealized like sleep away
Speaker 3: canoe situation, which does still exist, but then more often
Speaker 3: with parents I know and in my own life, it's
Speaker 3: something that's happening for the day, and the day can
Speaker 3: take so many different shapes and there are so many
Speaker 3: different forms of what we things that all get lumped
Speaker 3: in under that term summer camp.
Speaker 1: And Claire Lydia said something important, which is that summer
Speaker 1: camp has kind of really become an extension of childcare.
Speaker 1: And that makes a really big difference when you think
Speaker 1: of it that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, think about it. Your typical job in
Speaker 2: the US, you are working in the summer. You don't
Speaker 2: get summer breaks from our jobs, unless perhaps you work
Speaker 2: as a teacher, and even then it's like a little questionable.
Speaker 2: But kids are off school. So the same needs that
Speaker 2: you have in March for childcare, you have the same
Speaker 2: needs in July. It's just that if your kid is
Speaker 2: in school or of school age, then you have to
Speaker 2: come up with a solution for that. And the hodgepodge
Speaker 2: network of after school programs, daycares, nannies, et cetera that
Speaker 2: parents have to navigate during the school year is exacerbated,
Speaker 2: I think in the summer because they can still largely
Speaker 2: rely on some sort of educational program that their kid
Speaker 2: is in. And you take that away, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well what do I do instead of trying to fill
Speaker 2: the hours from like three thirty eight to six, Now
Speaker 2: I have to fill nine am to six, and summer
Speaker 2: camp is maybe nine to noon or noon to three,
Speaker 2: and it's only for two weeks, and then I have
Speaker 2: to come up with this other one, and so it's
Speaker 2: a sort of like patchwork system on top of an
Speaker 2: already existing patchwork system.
Speaker 1: And Lydia, You've done a lot reporting on just what
Speaker 1: that patchwork system looks like. Can you describe kind of
Speaker 1: you have a typical working parent needs to find a
Speaker 1: place for their child to go during the day while
Speaker 1: they're at work. What do they have to do to
Speaker 1: fill those hours?
Speaker 3: So, you know, it depends on whether you're talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, the rest of the year or the summer.
Speaker 3: I think parents who have kids in America, it's funny.
Speaker 3: I'm plattered to be considered a reporter in this case.
Speaker 3: Usually I feel like more what I'm doing is just
Speaker 3: ranting about my own experience with childcare. I have an
Speaker 3: eight year old and a five year.
Speaker 1: Old, so you're in the thick of it when it
Speaker 1: comes to.
Speaker 3: This, Yes, absolutely, And you know, starting from pregnancy, basically,
Speaker 3: it's just like a series of one betrayal after another.
Speaker 3: I got through the preschool era of kind of scrambling
Speaker 3: to find that care for you know, an infant or
Speaker 3: a toddler. You get through that, you get to the
Speaker 3: elementary school era and you think, oh my god, finally,
Speaker 3: like I don't have to pay so much and scramble
Speaker 3: so hard to find these spots, and then you realize,
Speaker 3: you know, the school day lasts, My school day last
Speaker 3: eight to two fifteen, So then you know, that sets
Speaker 3: off another scramble, and then I remember the first summer.
Speaker 3: Now that we're really into the swing of things, I'm finding, oh, well,
Speaker 3: these camps are opening their registrations in January, some of them,
Speaker 3: or February, and then the ones that are less expensive
Speaker 3: are opening their registrations at the end of May. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm coming at this with a lot more privilege than
Speaker 3: many people who are navigating this system. I am a
Speaker 3: freelance writer. I do have just sort of built in
Speaker 3: more flexibility. But January is not a time that I
Speaker 3: think anyone really wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying
Speaker 3: to map out the whole summer, spending money for deposits,
Speaker 3: and that's what parents are forced to do in this
Speaker 3: particular system.
Speaker 2: Well, I also just think, you know, if you think
Speaker 2: where you are in January, right, you're coming off the
Speaker 2: winter holidays, you've gotten through all of that. Maybe you
Speaker 2: are thinking ahead to your child's next school year, if
Speaker 2: you have to apply to schools or something like that.
Speaker 2: That because all of those school applications are usually around
Speaker 2: that time too. But if you're thinking about your summer,
Speaker 2: have you already mapped out, like let's say you have
Speaker 2: eight weeks to cover or ten weeks and you think, okay,
Speaker 2: well we're going to take a vacation as a family
Speaker 2: for this amount of time. Have you decided on those
Speaker 2: weeks and booked those weeks so that you can book
Speaker 2: end it with camps? Like, it's not just I have
Speaker 2: to register for camps in January, it's I have to
Speaker 2: have my whole summer planned out so that I can
Speaker 2: cover all the bases by January, which is a lot
Speaker 2: to ask. And I think whenever you look at sort
Speaker 2: of the inequity in child'scare, the harder you make a process,
Speaker 2: the more people are going to fall through the cracks
Speaker 2: because people you know, maybe don't have internet access or
Speaker 2: English as their second language, or you know, they cannot
Speaker 2: easily afford all of those deposits. They're going to be
Speaker 2: sort of out in the cold, essentially.
Speaker 1: And Lydia has it always been like this. It didn't
Speaker 1: seem like this was happening as much. I don't know,
Speaker 1: a couple decades ago that.
Speaker 3: Was kind of what I was tasked with setting out
Speaker 3: on this piece is sort of like what went wrong,
Speaker 3: what's happening? And one thing that I found really interesting
Speaker 3: is that a version of this has existed for a
Speaker 3: really long time, I think, especially among a sort of
Speaker 3: like more elite, like affluent group of parents. And the
Speaker 3: place I went in to sort of track this was
Speaker 3: the New York Times Archive, because it's a very rich
Speaker 3: archive and I think it's a great sort of barometer
Speaker 3: for like both the aspirations and anxieties for readers of
Speaker 3: The Times over the years. It starts out kind of
Speaker 3: talking about mostly the camps that were set up for
Speaker 3: children in New York City who lived by the settlement houses.
Speaker 3: So children in sort of like inner city didn't get
Speaker 3: a lot of outside time. We're sort of seen as
Speaker 3: like a problem to solve by welfare agencies, and so
Speaker 3: camps were set up and the children, sometimes their mothers
Speaker 3: would accompany them, would go out and have a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks on a farm, and sometimes there was even
Speaker 3: like a little bit of a work component. So those
Speaker 3: were sort of the first iterations. Then in nineteen forty five,
Speaker 3: the Times had an article that explicitly talked about camp
Speaker 3: as a form of childcare, and it was for the
Speaker 3: World War II workers. That was the time when women
Speaker 3: had always been in the workforce, but the number stored
Speaker 3: during World War Two as women sort of stepped in
Speaker 3: for the war effort. That, you know, it's no coincidence.
Speaker 3: Was also the only time that the United States has
Speaker 3: had any form of a sort of universal childcare through
Speaker 3: the Lanham Act, which was put in place for the
Speaker 3: war effort. And then of course once the war ended,
Speaker 3: just scuttled and there's a lot of reporting about what
Speaker 3: I mean, a real tragedy that was for families, in
Speaker 3: particular for working moms in America. I was really surprised
Speaker 3: to see that. You know, starting in nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 3: there was basically this annual winter article that got written.
Speaker 3: Maybe a few years got skipped here and there, but
Speaker 3: it's like, it's winter, what are you going to do
Speaker 3: for camp? And those articles generally were talking about the
Speaker 3: kind of more traditional like sleepaway camp idea, but over
Speaker 3: time you could see them begin to track the evolution
Speaker 3: of the idea of camp and so then the article
Speaker 3: started to say things like, now there's this bewildering number
Speaker 3: of opportunities and types of camps. You can do sports camp,
Speaker 3: you can do computer camp, you can do fine arts camp.
Speaker 3: So having this idea of this kind of like multitude
Speaker 3: of options really started showing up in like the i'd
Speaker 3: say the sixties and seventies and just sort of soared
Speaker 3: from there. Childcare was always left out of those articles
Speaker 3: until you get into the eighties, and then every once
Speaker 3: in a while it's like, oh, no, camp is childcare.
Speaker 3: Parents are working, Mothers are working. You know, there isn't
Speaker 3: someone just at home to like watch a child all
Speaker 3: day and open the screen door for them. And that's
Speaker 3: when it finally starts to get a little bit of traction.
Speaker 3: I'd say not enough, but yeah, it's the last kind
Speaker 3: of thirty years, especially that more and more parents are working,
Speaker 3: mothers are speaking up and saying no, like this is
Speaker 3: a necessary part of our work life and something that
Speaker 3: every family kind of deserves access to.
Speaker 1: After the break, why signing up for camp got so complicated? Claire,
Speaker 1: I guess what we hear in that transition is this
Speaker 1: switch almost from how do I give my child this
Speaker 1: great summertime experience to how do I give my child
Speaker 1: a great experience but also keep that kid occupied because
Speaker 1: I need to go to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the story of summer camp
Speaker 2: and childcare specifically, I think is a story of one
Speaker 2: sort of like systemic failure on the part of America
Speaker 2: to create an infrastructure that supports these various seismic demographic
Speaker 2: changes in the labor force. By that, I mean, like
Speaker 2: women entering the labor force in just huge numbers permanently.
Speaker 2: We've still never addressed that we don't have a childcare
Speaker 2: system in America. Those decades, as women have entered at
Speaker 2: the labor force, the price of childcare has risen just
Speaker 2: like exponentially faster than inflation, to the point where now
Speaker 2: currently to put a baby in daycare costs more in
Speaker 2: most places in the country than in state college tuition.
Speaker 2: You pay more for daycare for a baby than you
Speaker 2: do for college for your kid. So there's that. But
Speaker 2: also when you get to summer camp, there's even less
Speaker 2: of a structure, So all of these problems are compounded.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, you know you have
Speaker 2: parental anxiety of I want my kid to have a
Speaker 2: summer and this is your chance for freedom, and you're
Speaker 2: not beholden to a schedule.
Speaker 3: The way that you are during.
Speaker 2: The school year, but I am as the parent, so
Speaker 2: in some ways you are too, and therefore I have
Speaker 2: to figure out how to send you to all of
Speaker 2: this stuff. And also because camp sort of skews more
Speaker 2: demographically affluent, because only the affluent families are the ones
Speaker 2: who are able to pay for space, camp and all
Speaker 2: this sort of stuff, then you have all this added
Speaker 2: pressure as your kid gets older. Is this enriching? Is
Speaker 2: this going to help them get into college? Do I
Speaker 2: need to send my daughter to coding camp even if
Speaker 2: she has no interest in coding?
Speaker 3: So when I got assign this piece, because I am
Speaker 3: a working mother, freelancer, I have to multitask, which meant
Speaker 3: the first people I talked to were the directors of
Speaker 3: my child's preschool, which is also has a day camp
Speaker 3: in the summer, which I have availed myself of because
Speaker 3: it is cheaper than any other option, it is more consistent,
Speaker 3: it follows the working hours, and it's just a great camp.
Speaker 3: So I asked them, you know, what are the things
Speaker 3: you've noticed over time? And I was really astounded by
Speaker 3: how sort of instantly they helped fill in this picture
Speaker 3: for me, because they said, you know this preschool they've
Speaker 3: been running, has existed for fifty years. They've done the
Speaker 3: camp part of it since nineteen ninety nine, and they
Speaker 3: noticed for the first years of the camp it was
Speaker 3: just something they knew was going to be summer childcare.
Speaker 3: They started it the week after the Portland Public schools closed,
Speaker 3: and they ended it the week before they opened in
Speaker 3: the fall. It was the full work day and you know,
Speaker 3: kids would come do arts and crafts. They would take
Speaker 3: them to a park in a bus and that was it,
Speaker 3: and you signed up for the whole session. And then
Speaker 3: pretty swiftly they started hearing from parents that there were
Speaker 3: all these other options popping up. And they both remember
Speaker 3: a camp I believe it's called Girls Who Rock and
Speaker 3: that was founded in two thousand and one as being
Speaker 3: this kind of turning point where suddenly they were hearing
Speaker 3: about bike camp, taekwondo camp, these different offerings, and so
Speaker 3: parents were kind of agitating, saying, you know, I love
Speaker 3: your camp, but I want an opportunity to sign up
Speaker 3: for these kind of individual things, and you know, for
Speaker 3: a while they sort of held fast, but then I
Speaker 3: think in twenty fifteen they had noticed their numbers were
Speaker 3: declining and so then they broke it up and so
Speaker 3: now you register by the week. I spoke with another
Speaker 3: camp director who reported something similar, although that also kind
Speaker 3: of creates problems for camp directors as well, because she
Speaker 3: says she also offers weekly sign ups, and she's finding
Speaker 3: that parents are signing up for a bunch of weeks
Speaker 3: in January and then in March they're canceling. So she's
Speaker 3: actually had to change the amount of refund available because
Speaker 3: it was so clear that people were trying to like
Speaker 3: piece together the summer, and they would start out just
Speaker 3: throwing everything at the wall and then start like peeling
Speaker 3: away some of the weeks. And she said, you know,
Speaker 3: I understand why they want to do that, but I
Speaker 3: can't run a camp with that much sort of built
Speaker 3: in instability. A lot of my conversations, both just as
Speaker 3: a parent and then reporting this piece and spending time
Speaker 3: in you know, these Facebook groups that are mostly populated
Speaker 3: by moms and where a lot of information is shared,
Speaker 3: the word spreadsheet came up so much more often than
Speaker 3: I would have imagined, and many parents are starting these
Speaker 3: spreadsheets and needing them basically to keep track of what
Speaker 3: the summer is going to look like, and so you know,
Speaker 3: one mom I spoke with pulled up a spreadsheet during
Speaker 3: our phone call and counted and there were seven different
Speaker 3: camps covering nine different weeks. They all were in a
Speaker 3: different location, ran during a different time, So her calendar
Speaker 3: for the summer became this kind of like frank science
Speaker 3: monster that she was having to navigate. And you know,
Speaker 3: she would be the first to admit, like, I hate this,
Speaker 3: this is not functional. But I think the system we
Speaker 3: have it's sort of there's both like an abundance of
Speaker 3: options but a sort of scarcity mindset that I think
Speaker 3: is rooted in the knowledge parents have that there is
Speaker 3: a fundamental scarcity of good childcare options in America. So
Speaker 3: it's like this profusion of things you can choose from,
Speaker 3: but also knowing there's limited spots. I've got to get one.
Speaker 3: And people are bringing administrative skills to sort of just
Speaker 3: running the summer for their kids that are rival you know,
Speaker 3: any kind of like office administration setting. It's really wild.
Speaker 1: Claire is part of the problem that we're calling it
Speaker 1: and thinking about it as summer camp instead of what
Speaker 1: it really is, which is childcare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can call it camp. I mean
Speaker 2: maybe for kids it's more fun if you call it camp.
Speaker 2: But I think employers expectations of their working parents being
Speaker 2: able to be working the same way in the summer
Speaker 2: as they are. And also, certainly if you are at
Speaker 2: like the state or federal level and you're trying to
Speaker 2: discuss childscare, this needs to be part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: One of the few positive sides of the pandemic is
Speaker 2: it did require this sort of like fundamental rethinking of like, oh,
Speaker 2: child's care really is important. And while we've ignored it
Speaker 2: as just a mom's problem for decades, it turns out
Speaker 2: that this is a problem for everyone. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a problem for working fathers, it's a problem for employers
Speaker 2: who employ working mothers and working fathers. It's a problem
Speaker 2: for kids.
Speaker 3: I love that point, and I would add that I
Speaker 3: think there's been a long tradition, a rhetorical tradition in
Speaker 3: America of explicitly trying to remove daycare as this sort
Speaker 3: of other thing. And you can see this in the
Speaker 3: New York Times Arch one of the nineteen eighties article
Speaker 3: headlines is day camp is not daycare, And that's supposed
Speaker 3: to be an advertisement for day camp. Because there is
Speaker 3: this sort of idea that denigrates daycare the same way
Speaker 3: that people would say during especially at the start of
Speaker 3: the pandemic, Well, schools aren't babysitters, And first of all,
Speaker 3: yes they are. In some very important respects they are.
Speaker 3: And also I think what that does is it's a
Speaker 3: way of putting down care work which is almost exclusively
Speaker 3: performed by women, or has been and disproportionately performed by
Speaker 3: women of color. Care workers remain incredibly underpaid.
Speaker 1: Lydia. You talk about how people who provide childcare often
Speaker 1: aren't given the respect they deserve, and you encounter that
Speaker 1: when you were talking to people who run camps about
Speaker 1: how difficult it is to find and retain people and
Speaker 1: pay them.
Speaker 3: Yes. So one of the reasons that this conversation is
Speaker 3: so kind of complex is because the numbers we have
Speaker 3: for childcare, the childcare situation in America. Camp is part
Speaker 3: of that, but the numbers aren't You can't really parse them.
Speaker 3: So when you talk about childcare, you know, they're twelve
Speaker 3: point three million children have working parents, it's the recent
Speaker 3: figure that I read, But they're only eight point seven
Speaker 3: million licensed childcare providers. We already have a just huge
Speaker 3: dearth of affordable childcare options for American children and parents. So,
Speaker 3: you know, Claire mentioned that infant daycare costs the same
Speaker 3: as in state tuition for college, but childcare workers are
Speaker 3: not earning a salary that is commensurate with that high number,
Speaker 3: and so there's incredible turnover. They're just a lot of
Speaker 3: places where childcare workers can earn more money. Facilities cost
Speaker 3: is a huge problem. So all of those things that
Speaker 3: childcare providers are experiencing sort of also apply to camp.
Speaker 3: But there's an added component of the fact that the
Speaker 3: work is seasonal. So you know, if a camp is
Speaker 3: only running for ten weeks, they're hiring people, they're not
Speaker 3: able to pay them a ton, generally speaking, and they're
Speaker 3: usually not promising them work that's going to last year round.
Speaker 3: So that just kind of compounds the fundamental labor issue
Speaker 3: that exists on sort of across the care spectrum.
Speaker 2: I also think, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 2: makes childcare so expensive is when you're talking about daycare,
Speaker 2: you're talking about babies and you know, kids preschool age
Speaker 2: and younger, and so maybe they're not matching with the
Speaker 2: camp cohort, but you know, you have to make sure
Speaker 2: that they have background checks, they've done CPR training. There's
Speaker 2: usually this like childish staff ratio component where you have
Speaker 2: to have, you know, one caregiver for every three or
Speaker 2: four babies and maybe five or six older kids or
Speaker 2: something like that, and summer camps have some of those
Speaker 2: same requirements. Probably a CPR, definitely a background check. The staffing,
Speaker 2: because they're not watching infants is probably not as bad.
Speaker 2: But you know, when I think back on my summer
Speaker 2: camp memories, I was elementary school age, but I was
Speaker 2: like wandering around in a day camp playing kickball, overseen
Speaker 2: by a bunch of teenagers who probably had not learned CPR.
Speaker 2: And that's probably not possible at a camp run today
Speaker 2: under today's regulations. I was sort of the lax nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties crew, and a lot of that is good and necessary,
Speaker 2: but that just makes it even harder.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about possible solutions to this camp and childcare
Speaker 1: conundrum when we come back. Claire, you wrote a story
Speaker 1: that called childcare the most broken business in America, and
Speaker 1: you said that it's a rare example of an almost
Speaker 1: entirely private market in which the service offered is too
Speaker 1: expensive for both consumers and the businesses. That provide it,
Speaker 1: and that seems to describe what we're talking about summer
Speaker 1: camps too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so summer camps are part of this,
Speaker 2: but when you think about just childcare in America, it's
Speaker 2: so expensive because in order to post a good summer
Speaker 2: camp or provide good childcare, we have all of these
Speaker 2: regulations and stuff that we want to have to keep
Speaker 2: kids safe. You know, we are very concerned about children's
Speaker 2: well being, as we should be, but the cost of
Speaker 2: that is so high that unless the government subsidizes it,
Speaker 2: parents can't really afford it, and the government periodically tries
Speaker 2: to fix it. I don't know if you guys remember
Speaker 2: the whole like build back better debate that was happening,
Speaker 2: but in the early versions of all of that childcare
Speaker 2: was included. And it was this bold move on the
Speaker 2: part of Congress and President Biden to be like, look,
Speaker 2: we understand parents' problems, we understand the childcare industry's predicament,
Speaker 2: and we are going to allot a sizable chunk of
Speaker 2: money to, you know, not fix the problem, but really
Speaker 2: try to make it better. What they were going to
Speaker 2: do was a lot a bunch of money for states
Speaker 2: to sort of opt in and create their own programs
Speaker 2: within their states to fix it. And so I think
Speaker 2: you would have had a tiered system where sort of
Speaker 2: like Medicaid expansion, but it ultimately failed, and in large
Speaker 2: part that was because of Senator Joe Manchin, who was saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't spend so much money on this.
Speaker 2: We cannot afford to spend what I think the congressional
Speaker 2: budget obvious is going to save us about twenty two
Speaker 2: billion dollars a year, which sounds like a huge amount
Speaker 2: of money, except that that's only two percent of the
Speaker 2: military budget. So what they're saying is we cannot take
Speaker 2: two percent of the military budget to create something that
Speaker 2: American families need and will really improve the economy, make
Speaker 2: childcare workers lives better, allow these businesses to thrive, and
Speaker 2: also allow parents to work more. And that did not
Speaker 2: even include summer camp. So as far behind as we
Speaker 2: are on the childcare issue, we are even further behind,
Speaker 2: I think, on summer camp.
Speaker 1: So what is the solution here? What can be done
Speaker 1: to help parents who are really struggling when it's not
Speaker 1: summer to provide healthcare and then even more so during
Speaker 1: the summer when all the usual support systems go away.
Speaker 3: It's basically like triage mode. And the places and institutions
Speaker 3: that are working on this are really thinking about the many,
Speaker 3: many kids who have you know, been sort of left
Speaker 3: out of this conversation because they are not accessing camp
Speaker 3: at all. There are lots of entities that are kind
Speaker 3: of thinking about how to reach those families and kids.
Speaker 3: And I spoke with one camp director in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: It's a San Francisco based California nonprofit called EDMO, and
Speaker 3: at Caballero I had a great conversation with him where
Speaker 3: he described they used to run camps that were just
Speaker 3: sort of open to the public and anyone who could
Speaker 3: pay the four or five hundred dollars a week would
Speaker 3: sign up. They had the same kind of like registration
Speaker 3: hunger games every year, and what he told me is
Speaker 3: that equity was very important to them, and so they
Speaker 3: you know, would advertise like their scholarships and really try
Speaker 3: and get a lot of kids whose families normally wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to pay. But the process they use, which
Speaker 3: is like the general registration process that most places use,
Speaker 3: was leaving those kids out because there was an onerous
Speaker 3: sort of application process for the scholarships, and so they
Speaker 3: decided upon reflection to scrap that. So then when the
Speaker 3: state of California made an ongoing almost five billion dollar
Speaker 3: investment in I believe it's called Expanded Learning Opportunities Program,
Speaker 3: which is meant to basically like guarantee after school and
Speaker 3: summer programming for California public school kids, Edmo Cabalero said, well, okay,
Speaker 3: we'll partner with the state. We are going to not
Speaker 3: do these public camps anymore. We're just going to work
Speaker 3: on site at the public schools and run our programs there.
Speaker 3: So that's one way, you know, that one organization pivoted
Speaker 3: and said, let's tie this to school rather than to
Speaker 3: just this like free for all. So there are a
Speaker 3: lot of programs that are doing something similar and trying
Speaker 3: to like reach groups that are normally left out. But
Speaker 3: you know, the overall problem remains of just like wildly
Speaker 3: disparate opportunities, wildly disparate costs. It's just a really lumpy system.
Speaker 3: And the major thing I can think of is just
Speaker 3: sort of like shifting our idea of summer camp from
Speaker 3: an extra to just a rite and sort of thinking
Speaker 3: about everything having to do with childcare from an extra
Speaker 3: or like an individual problem to solve to a write
Speaker 3: and something that all American parents and kids sort of
Speaker 3: deserve access to. That's like the fundamental shift that needs
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 1: Lydia Claire, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks have a great summer.
Speaker 1: Thank you you too. Thanks for listening to us here
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