Where we worked our butts off starting at 6:00 am, and didn't have time to try to cash in on our least valuable, most ephemeral "asset". I'm glad. What I learned there paid off both in the short term and the long term in ways that have been more valuable than any chemical peels might be.

It's funny. Between looking my best and doing my best, there is no comparison. Doing my best feels better hands down. It's not even an issue. So why are we pushing girls away from doing and towards looking? Are we really so twisted that we'd rather lose productivity and contribution from half the population in exchange for...for...jeeze, I can't even think up why. I can't think of a reason. I honestly can't, not even in the self-esteem department, because no matter how hot you are when you're twenty, you're not going to be all that at 50, and if you haven't developed any other aspect of yourself in the meantime, you're going to bore the crap out of everyone, including the person in the mirror.

Thankfully, most families can't afford camps like this. They're more likely to send their kids to local, theme-related daycamps sponsored by the area parks and recreation department, and I have yet to see one that does avocado masks and ginger foot scrubs. Science, music, crafts, outdoors, chess, sports, all kinds of fun things, but not vanity.

Thankfully!

i would have found this horrifying as a child, and as an adult, i still do. i went away to camp to do things that you can't do in suburban southern california and to be liberated from the crushing pressures of teen magazines and televisions and peer pressure. for six glorious weeks i lived in cabins with one single, small mirror for 12 girls to share. i was totally unshackled from worrying about what i looked like or what the popular kids thought of me or what was cool or "in", and rode horses, shot rifles, milked cows, made fresh yogurt, learned how to identify edible wild herbs and plants, and learned about horsemanship and horse care.

i would return tan and capable and, surprisingly, thinner and in great shape. being freed from worrying about what to eat or what creams to slather on my face made me get out and DO things and as it turns out, having fun in the great wide open is one of the best beauty products there is.

i have no idea what i'd do if my daughter wanted to go to such a camp. i think i'd hand her an avocado and tell her that she was welcome to put it on her face at home any time she wanted.

Nothing against self-care. Yet, I don't think that relaxing activities that boost self-confidence must be of the most superficial sort. Also, I think that learning meditation in one day is an idea as stupid as becoming a surgeon in an one week course.

I guess that one gets more mentally stable not by manicuring but by actual work. I may not be that pretty but I can get something done without worrying that my precious ginger-scrubbed skin might get a boo-boo. That's mental stability. I guess that the traditional camps with mud and eating pancake batter (hey, Svutlana, I did that too) provide mental health enough. More than enough. Hey, I and my buddies have built an igloo one winter. Admittedly, our dads helped a bit at the top part. And we slept in it. We also climbed trees and fell off those, almost set a forest on fire, gathered tons of berries to make tons of marmalades (to be eaten with the pancake batter), picked herbs, hiked a lot, got dirty and survived even in dirty stinky clothes because we were too busy doing things to notice that we were dirty and stinky. I still know how to build a bonfire and how to cook on it. Not that I would use this skill too often but I know. I am able to identify a few species of edible mushrooms (wild mushrooms rock), I can recognize a spruce from a sunflower which may not be the hippest skill compared to ways how to paint one's nails but hey, it's not bad either.

I obviously painted my nails, too. Or wanted to dress up. Yet I'm really grateful to my parents that they gave me a chance to get some chance to roam free in the dirt.

At the computer camp I ran, some parents allowed kids to take video game "class" if they agreed to also take typing or programming classes. If manicures are incentives for learning valuable skills like meditation and skin cancer prevention, these "camps" are not solely about beauty. Most of the activities listed could arguably be about stress-reduction and self-care - skills many women don't devote much time to. With stress being a major contributor to nearly all of today's leading causes of death, a little yoga might go a long way and meditation is often about developing coping mechanisms. When the pressure to look thin and beautiful begins in kindergarten, even 10-year olds must learn to cope. Is this situation sad? Yes. Is jumping in the mud a better way to spend the summer? Probably. But perhaps traditional camps should consider providing basic mental health skills training - it might prove quite valuable, especially to young gals.

Hey there,

I just read that question.

Just to shed some light on the issue....

The woman holds three grandchildren hostage (to put it bluntly). As for asking one's former in-laws to pay for one's vacations?...That's not a stretch.

This is the same Ohio woman of whom my mother,who is an utterly homogenous product of a very particular class & time and who DOESN'T "make jokes", prophetically described (when word of the impending marriage to my brother leaked)as "The Sort of Woman Who Needs No Encouragement".

That wasn't meant to be a compliment.

In any case,no one went on a mother/daughter multi-generational cheerleaders' cruise. Instead, the two hightailed off for a 10-day long, mother/daughter, multi-generational cheerleaders' Florida resort trip with a gaggle of similarly consituted couples. The 11 year old twin boys stayed with me; they were quite happy to be disqualified to join their mother and sister.

Sincerely,

D.Terry