I’ve had the event penciled into my mental calendar since the day of her birth:

 “Teen years: Need for independence will bring about painful yet joyous steps away from parents, often involving a lot of tears.  Be prepared.” 

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of reading and observation, getting myself ready.  I knew there would come a day when I would have to start taking small steps backwards while my daughter attempted to leap forward. The thing is, I thought I had more time.  My daughter is only eight.  I was far from prepared for the week we just experienced together. Or was that apart?

For those of you who don’t know, we spend our summers living at a camp.  A camp where kids come to stay for one to six weeks beginning the summer they are entering fourth grade. It seems like forever that my daughter has waited for this summer to come – the year she would officially transition from a staff kid to a real camper.  The summer she would not have to sit at a table in the dining hall with her parents. The summer she would be able to choose her activities and not have to spend endless hours playing house with the littler girls. The summer she would watch the sunset on the beach while softly singing songs and then walk arm-in-arm with her new friends back to their cabin for the night. 

We were all prepared. We thought it would be easy, not much different than the camp life she had always known. She would see us everywhere.  She knows the staff like she knows family. She knows her way around, knows the schedule, knows how to set the tables, knows the words to the songs, knows many of the older campers. 

Oh, how wrong we were.

 Day 1: Check-in

We packed her bags, her initials carefully printed in the outfits she had agonized over.  I tried to give her one last thorough scrubbing but our well pump somehow broke down at this exact moment and I was forced to dump bowls of cold water over her soapy head – oh well, camp is not about shiny hair and nails.  As her dad and I took her proudly to the check-in desk and joked with our fellow staff members about being “concerned parents”, my daughter beamed.  She was thrilled to find out her cabin leader was one of the spunky girls from the UK that everyone adores.  Most parents drop and run – sometimes with a few tears, but almost always looking forward to what they will accomplish in the weeks ahead. My husband and I didn’t go anywhere, except a brief pit stop on the boy’s side of camp to drop off our son.  By the time I returned to Girls Camp, she had passed her swim test and was happily playing 4-square with her cabin mates.  I watched her at dinner and noticed she sneaked small glimpses at us but seemed to be smiling.  I watched her at the opening night show, playing with her flashlight and singing along to the songs she knows so well.  All seemed right with the world - though I did feel a twinge of sadness as we headed back to our cabin without her. 

Day 2: Something’s not quite right

Morning comes and we head back to Girls Camp for breakfast.  I look for my daughter through the trees during flag raising, trying to catch just a glimpse of her.  I don’t see her at first but then I find her.  Let’s just say it was not the picture of the proud beaming camper I had left the night before.  It was not even just the look of a tired camper who isn’t used to sleeping in her cabin.  Something’s not quite right, but I can’t do anything.  I can’t go to her. It’s not my job, that’s what the camp staff is there for. “Pretend you’re not her mom, pretend you don’t notice, don’t look at her, don’t catch her eye, keep walking.”  I get to the breakfast table and purposely sit with my back to my daughter.  It’s all I can do to keep my head from constantly rotating to check her out.  After breakfast, I sit outside chatting with friends and suddenly there she is, steps quickening as she gets nearer to me, until suddenly she flings herself into my lap and starts to cry.  What do I do?  No other camper gets their mom’s lap when something isn’t going as planned.  Do I push her away?  Force her to seek out her leader or one of the other staff members?  Maybe an older camper?  I can’t do it.  I let her sit and cry, though she never tells me why. What’s happening?  The staff is trying to keep me uninformed, trying to treat my daughter like any other camper. Bless them. I try to find new places to hang out where she won’t see me but I find that I want to see her.  I am peeking around bushes, sitting just over the other side of the sand dune, watching her perform a skit from a perch up above the council circle.  I walk back home that night with an ache in my stomach.  I don’t sleep well. 

Day 3: This is not what we had planned

At breakfast, she has scabs under her eyes from rubbing away so many tears. When I see her, there is barely a trace of the energetic young girl I know.  I can tell something is still being sorted out but something has changed. She isn’t coming to find me, she’s trying to fix whatever it is on her own.  I feel like I am dying a slow death from afar, wanting to curl her up and take her home and tell her we can try again next year.  I know that is the worst thing I can do but it is going against every mothering instinct I have to sit and watch her suffer without helping.  I put my trust in the staff we love so much and I walk away. The day is sunny and warm, a day that would brighten anyone’s spirits, and when I see her walking up to me before lunch she’s smiling.  She sits beside me and tells me about her morning activities and I notice she seems happier.  I am trying to keep some emotional distance but finally I reach over and say “Can I just give you a hug?” as I am already wrapping my arms around her. Her tears let loose and I am really working hard to hold mine back.  What a stupid move on my part.  I ask her if she is doing better and she says “I was until you did that.” 

Day 4: We take the day off

We get 24 hours off per week, sacred time to escape camp and return to our other home 20 miles away.  I agonize over whether to remind my daughter that she won’t see us around – I don’t want her to think we didn’t care enough to say goodbye but I don’t want to make her cry again. In the end, I sneak it in during a quick exchange. “Is there anything I can pick up for you to share with your cabin mates while we are on our day off?”  As we jump in the car I am again close to tears. Will she survive without me there?  Maybe it will be better for her, but maybe not.  We spend our day off doing errands and playing at the beach with our youngest child, the only one not old enough to be a real camper yet.  The vision of those teary eyes haunts me all day, follows me around like a lost puppy whining at my feet.  I do have moments of relaxation and joy, guilty relief that what ever is happening with my daughter is not my problem and is happening out of my sight.

 Day5: Something has changed

I return to breakfast at the dining hall and it’s immediately apparent that something has changed.  She’s smiling, she’s doing cheers with her tribe, she’s letting people hug her, she’s raising her hand to participate.  Her leader catches my eye and winks, gives me a secret smile.  I notice I have mixed emotions.  Such pride that she has worked her way through whatever it was.  Such sadness that she has taken a step away from me.  Such guilt that this all would have been easier for her if I had just disappeared and stayed out of her way.  I realize there is a sense of mourning for the little girl that is growing up.  But that’s about me, and this experience is supposed to be about her.  That night, I sit with the rest of camp at the council circle, directly across from my daughter who gives me a small wave and a big smile.  She has volunteered to be in all three of the skits that her tribe performs, a big deal because she is not a “look at me” kind of kid.  We end the night singing “Stars in the Sky” and I watch her sway back and forth with her arms around her cabin mates.  She stands and walks away. 

 Day 6: It works

It is time to pick up our daughter at the closing council ceremony for the one-week campers.  She is full of energy, once again just beaming, holding hands with her new friends.  She is a non-stop narrative of everything she has done in the past six days. Nothing but fun. We watch a slide show full of pictures of happy, smiling campers and I almost start to wonder if everything I thought I saw those first few days was real. The only sign - the telltale scabs under her eyes that are still slightly visible. I approach my daughter’s leader and give her a hug, thank her for her patience and her caring.  We look at each other trying to hold back our tears.  She tells me how proud she is of my daughter, how much she has seen her grow.  I won’t find out the details of just what they were dealing with until later that afternoon. For now, all I know is that my 8 year-old daughter has made one huge step towards independence.  I have taken one small step back to let her move forward.