Ah, summer camp for kids, it's the dream of fun in the sun, no homework and no parents lurking over your shoulder. How many movies have tried to capture that feeling? Ah, your head counseler hoping to make your summer camp experience the best available in this price rate or lampoon it the scent of pine Wednesday. Look at all the other children that freckles.

Ah, summer camp for kids, it's the dream of fun in the sun, no homework and no parents lurking over your shoulder. How many movies have tried to capture that feeling? Ah, your head counseler hoping to make your summer camp experience the best available in this price rate or lampoon it the scent of pine Wednesday. Look at all the other children that freckles.

Their bright little eyes, Their eager, friendless minds.

Their bright little eyes, Their eager, friendless minds.

Helped them. But for many parents, summer camp is anything but fun. All the cost and stress of finding childcare with added expectations and social anxiety tossed in.

Helped them. But for many parents, summer camp is anything but fun. All the cost and stress of finding childcare with added expectations and social anxiety tossed in.

January is not a time that I think anyone really wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying to map out the whole summer, spend money for deposits, and that's what parents are forced to do in this particular system.

January is not a time that I think anyone really wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying to map out the whole summer, spend money for deposits, and that's what parents are forced to do in this particular system.

That's BusinessWeek contributor and summer camp parent Lydia Keysling. She dug into the archives to trace how the idea of summer camp and how it's been portrayed has changed over the decades, and Bloomberg reporter Claire Suttith is also here to talk about why summer camp really is just another way to say childcare and has a lot of the same problems.

That's BusinessWeek contributor and summer camp parent Lydia Keysling. She dug into the archives to trace how the idea of summer camp and how it's been portrayed has changed over the decades, and Bloomberg reporter Claire Suttith is also here to talk about why summer camp really is just another way to say childcare and has a lot of the same problems.

Whenever you look at sort of the inequity in child'scare. The harder you make a process, the more people are going to fall through the cracks.

Whenever you look at sort of the inequity in child'scare. The harder you make a process, the more people are going to fall through the cracks.

I'm Wesksova today on the big take, How did summer camp become such a struggle? Lydia? A lot of us have fine memories of going to summer camp. For parents not such a great experience.

I'm Wesksova today on the big take, How did summer camp become such a struggle? Lydia? A lot of us have fine memories of going to summer camp. For parents not such a great experience.

Well, I think that's certainly true for parents.

Well, I think that's certainly true for parents.

Now.

Now.

I knew anecdotally before where I began writing this piece that parents were just mostly moms. I really need to emphasize that we're freaking out about how to manage summer childcare, and camps seem to become sort of more of an arms race in terms of when you can register, when you need to register, and yeah, it seems like people are suffering.

I knew anecdotally before where I began writing this piece that parents were just mostly moms. I really need to emphasize that we're freaking out about how to manage summer childcare, and camps seem to become sort of more of an arms race in terms of when you can register, when you need to register, and yeah, it seems like people are suffering.

So how many kids are going to summer camp in the US now?

So how many kids are going to summer camp in the US now?

So the numbers that we have generally come from the American Camp Association, that's an industry group that does a lot of record keeping. Their estimate was roughly twenty six million kids were estimated to be in camp of some kind for the summer of twenty twenty two. That's based on many different kinds of camps. So I think the numbers are a bit nebulous, but it is a huge, huge industry in America.

So the numbers that we have generally come from the American Camp Association, that's an industry group that does a lot of record keeping. Their estimate was roughly twenty six million kids were estimated to be in camp of some kind for the summer of twenty twenty two. That's based on many different kinds of camps. So I think the numbers are a bit nebulous, but it is a huge, huge industry in America.

And when you think about summer camp, I think a lot of us think of, you know, your kid goes to summer camp for maybe four to six weeks, or if it's a day camp, they go in the morning, they come back in the evening. But in your reporting you show that that's really not the case, that it's so much more complicated for a lot of people.

And when you think about summer camp, I think a lot of us think of, you know, your kid goes to summer camp for maybe four to six weeks, or if it's a day camp, they go in the morning, they come back in the evening. But in your reporting you show that that's really not the case, that it's so much more complicated for a lot of people.

It is a vast and gnarled network of private, public, nonprofit religious entities offering many, many different kinds of camp. So there's yeah, that kind of idealized like sleep away canoe situation, which does still exist, but then more often with parents I know and in my own life, it's something that's happening for the day, and the day can take so many different shapes and there are so many different forms of what we things that all get lumped in under that term summer camp.

It is a vast and gnarled network of private, public, nonprofit religious entities offering many, many different kinds of camp. So there's yeah, that kind of idealized like sleep away canoe situation, which does still exist, but then more often with parents I know and in my own life, it's something that's happening for the day, and the day can take so many different shapes and there are so many different forms of what we things that all get lumped in under that term summer camp.

And Claire Lydia said something important, which is that summer camp has kind of really become an extension of childcare. And that makes a really big difference when you think of it that way.

And Claire Lydia said something important, which is that summer camp has kind of really become an extension of childcare. And that makes a really big difference when you think of it that way.

Yeah, I mean, think about it. Your typical job in the US, you are working in the summer. You don't get summer breaks from our jobs, unless perhaps you work as a teacher, and even then it's like a little questionable. But kids are off school. So the same needs that you have in March for childcare, you have the same needs in July. It's just that if your kid is in school or of school age, then you have to come up with a solution for that. And the hodgepodge network of after school programs, daycares, nannies, et cetera that parents have to navigate during the school year is exacerbated, I think in the summer because they can still largely rely on some sort of educational program that their kid is in. And you take that away, and it's like, okay, well what do I do instead of trying to fill the hours from like three thirty eight to six, Now I have to fill nine am to six, and summer camp is maybe nine to noon or noon to three, and it's only for two weeks, and then I have to come up with this other one, and so it's a sort of like patchwork system on top of an already existing patchwork system.

Yeah, I mean, think about it. Your typical job in the US, you are working in the summer. You don't get summer breaks from our jobs, unless perhaps you work as a teacher, and even then it's like a little questionable. But kids are off school. So the same needs that you have in March for childcare, you have the same needs in July. It's just that if your kid is in school or of school age, then you have to come up with a solution for that. And the hodgepodge network of after school programs, daycares, nannies, et cetera that parents have to navigate during the school year is exacerbated, I think in the summer because they can still largely rely on some sort of educational program that their kid is in. And you take that away, and it's like, okay, well what do I do instead of trying to fill the hours from like three thirty eight to six, Now I have to fill nine am to six, and summer camp is maybe nine to noon or noon to three, and it's only for two weeks, and then I have to come up with this other one, and so it's a sort of like patchwork system on top of an already existing patchwork system.

And Lydia, You've done a lot reporting on just what that patchwork system looks like. Can you describe kind of you have a typical working parent needs to find a place for their child to go during the day while they're at work. What do they have to do to fill those hours?

And Lydia, You've done a lot reporting on just what that patchwork system looks like. Can you describe kind of you have a typical working parent needs to find a place for their child to go during the day while they're at work. What do they have to do to fill those hours?

So, you know, it depends on whether you're talking about, you know, the rest of the year or the summer. I think parents who have kids in America, it's funny. I'm plattered to be considered a reporter in this case. Usually I feel like more what I'm doing is just ranting about my own experience with childcare. I have an eight year old and a five year.

So, you know, it depends on whether you're talking about, you know, the rest of the year or the summer. I think parents who have kids in America, it's funny. I'm plattered to be considered a reporter in this case. Usually I feel like more what I'm doing is just ranting about my own experience with childcare. I have an eight year old and a five year.

Old, so you're in the thick of it when it comes to.

Old, so you're in the thick of it when it comes to.

This, Yes, absolutely, And you know, starting from pregnancy, basically, it's just like a series of one betrayal after another. I got through the preschool era of kind of scrambling to find that care for you know, an infant or a toddler. You get through that, you get to the elementary school era and you think, oh my god, finally, like I don't have to pay so much and scramble so hard to find these spots, and then you realize, you know, the school day lasts, My school day last eight to two fifteen, So then you know, that sets off another scramble, and then I remember the first summer. Now that we're really into the swing of things, I'm finding, oh, well, these camps are opening their registrations in January, some of them, or February, and then the ones that are less expensive are opening their registrations at the end of May. You know, I'm coming at this with a lot more privilege than many people who are navigating this system. I am a freelance writer. I do have just sort of built in more flexibility. But January is not a time that I think anyone really wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying to map out the whole summer, spending money for deposits, and that's what parents are forced to do in this particular system.

This, Yes, absolutely, And you know, starting from pregnancy, basically, it's just like a series of one betrayal after another. I got through the preschool era of kind of scrambling to find that care for you know, an infant or a toddler. You get through that, you get to the elementary school era and you think, oh my god, finally, like I don't have to pay so much and scramble so hard to find these spots, and then you realize, you know, the school day lasts, My school day last eight to two fifteen, So then you know, that sets off another scramble, and then I remember the first summer. Now that we're really into the swing of things, I'm finding, oh, well, these camps are opening their registrations in January, some of them, or February, and then the ones that are less expensive are opening their registrations at the end of May. You know, I'm coming at this with a lot more privilege than many people who are navigating this system. I am a freelance writer. I do have just sort of built in more flexibility. But January is not a time that I think anyone really wants to be like forecasting ahead, trying to map out the whole summer, spending money for deposits, and that's what parents are forced to do in this particular system.

Well, I also just think, you know, if you think where you are in January, right, you're coming off the winter holidays, you've gotten through all of that. Maybe you are thinking ahead to your child's next school year, if you have to apply to schools or something like that. That because all of those school applications are usually around that time too. But if you're thinking about your summer, have you already mapped out, like let's say you have eight weeks to cover or ten weeks and you think, okay, well we're going to take a vacation as a family for this amount of time. Have you decided on those weeks and booked those weeks so that you can book end it with camps? Like, it's not just I have to register for camps in January, it's I have to have my whole summer planned out so that I can cover all the bases by January, which is a lot to ask. And I think whenever you look at sort of the inequity in child'scare, the harder you make a process, the more people are going to fall through the cracks because people you know, maybe don't have internet access or English as their second language, or you know, they cannot easily afford all of those deposits. They're going to be sort of out in the cold, essentially.

Well, I also just think, you know, if you think where you are in January, right, you're coming off the winter holidays, you've gotten through all of that. Maybe you are thinking ahead to your child's next school year, if you have to apply to schools or something like that. That because all of those school applications are usually around that time too. But if you're thinking about your summer, have you already mapped out, like let's say you have eight weeks to cover or ten weeks and you think, okay, well we're going to take a vacation as a family for this amount of time. Have you decided on those weeks and booked those weeks so that you can book end it with camps? Like, it's not just I have to register for camps in January, it's I have to have my whole summer planned out so that I can cover all the bases by January, which is a lot to ask. And I think whenever you look at sort of the inequity in child'scare, the harder you make a process, the more people are going to fall through the cracks because people you know, maybe don't have internet access or English as their second language, or you know, they cannot easily afford all of those deposits. They're going to be sort of out in the cold, essentially.

And Lydia has it always been like this. It didn't seem like this was happening as much. I don't know, a couple decades ago that.

And Lydia has it always been like this. It didn't seem like this was happening as much. I don't know, a couple decades ago that.

Was kind of what I was tasked with setting out on this piece is sort of like what went wrong, what's happening? And one thing that I found really interesting is that a version of this has existed for a really long time, I think, especially among a sort of like more elite, like affluent group of parents. And the place I went in to sort of track this was the New York Times Archive, because it's a very rich archive and I think it's a great sort of barometer for like both the aspirations and anxieties for readers of The Times over the years. It starts out kind of talking about mostly the camps that were set up for children in New York City who lived by the settlement houses. So children in sort of like inner city didn't get a lot of outside time. We're sort of seen as like a problem to solve by welfare agencies, and so camps were set up and the children, sometimes their mothers would accompany them, would go out and have a couple of weeks on a farm, and sometimes there was even like a little bit of a work component. So those were sort of the first iterations. Then in nineteen forty five, the Times had an article that explicitly talked about camp as a form of childcare, and it was for the World War II workers. That was the time when women had always been in the workforce, but the number stored during World War Two as women sort of stepped in for the war effort. That, you know, it's no coincidence. Was also the only time that the United States has had any form of a sort of universal childcare through the Lanham Act, which was put in place for the war effort. And then of course once the war ended, just scuttled and there's a lot of reporting about what I mean, a real tragedy that was for families, in particular for working moms in America. I was really surprised to see that. You know, starting in nineteen fifty three, there was basically this annual winter article that got written. Maybe a few years got skipped here and there, but it's like, it's winter, what are you going to do for camp? And those articles generally were talking about the kind of more traditional like sleepaway camp idea, but over time you could see them begin to track the evolution of the idea of camp and so then the article started to say things like, now there's this bewildering number of opportunities and types of camps. You can do sports camp, you can do computer camp, you can do fine arts camp. So having this idea of this kind of like multitude of options really started showing up in like the i'd say the sixties and seventies and just sort of soared from there. Childcare was always left out of those articles until you get into the eighties, and then every once in a while it's like, oh, no, camp is childcare. Parents are working, Mothers are working. You know, there isn't someone just at home to like watch a child all day and open the screen door for them. And that's when it finally starts to get a little bit of traction. I'd say not enough, but yeah, it's the last kind of thirty years, especially that more and more parents are working, mothers are speaking up and saying no, like this is a necessary part of our work life and something that every family kind of deserves access to.

Was kind of what I was tasked with setting out on this piece is sort of like what went wrong, what's happening? And one thing that I found really interesting is that a version of this has existed for a really long time, I think, especially among a sort of like more elite, like affluent group of parents. And the place I went in to sort of track this was the New York Times Archive, because it's a very rich archive and I think it's a great sort of barometer for like both the aspirations and anxieties for readers of The Times over the years. It starts out kind of talking about mostly the camps that were set up for children in New York City who lived by the settlement houses. So children in sort of like inner city didn't get a lot of outside time. We're sort of seen as like a problem to solve by welfare agencies, and so camps were set up and the children, sometimes their mothers would accompany them, would go out and have a couple of weeks on a farm, and sometimes there was even like a little bit of a work component. So those were sort of the first iterations. Then in nineteen forty five, the Times had an article that explicitly talked about camp as a form of childcare, and it was for the World War II workers. That was the time when women had always been in the workforce, but the number stored during World War Two as women sort of stepped in for the war effort. That, you know, it's no coincidence. Was also the only time that the United States has had any form of a sort of universal childcare through the Lanham Act, which was put in place for the war effort. And then of course once the war ended, just scuttled and there's a lot of reporting about what I mean, a real tragedy that was for families, in particular for working moms in America. I was really surprised to see that. You know, starting in nineteen fifty three, there was basically this annual winter article that got written. Maybe a few years got skipped here and there, but it's like, it's winter, what are you going to do for camp? And those articles generally were talking about the kind of more traditional like sleepaway camp idea, but over time you could see them begin to track the evolution of the idea of camp and so then the article started to say things like, now there's this bewildering number of opportunities and types of camps. You can do sports camp, you can do computer camp, you can do fine arts camp. So having this idea of this kind of like multitude of options really started showing up in like the i'd say the sixties and seventies and just sort of soared from there. Childcare was always left out of those articles until you get into the eighties, and then every once in a while it's like, oh, no, camp is childcare. Parents are working, Mothers are working. You know, there isn't someone just at home to like watch a child all day and open the screen door for them. And that's when it finally starts to get a little bit of traction. I'd say not enough, but yeah, it's the last kind of thirty years, especially that more and more parents are working, mothers are speaking up and saying no, like this is a necessary part of our work life and something that every family kind of deserves access to.

After the break, why signing up for camp got so complicated? Claire, I guess what we hear in that transition is this switch almost from how do I give my child this great summertime experience to how do I give my child a great experience but also keep that kid occupied because I need to go to work.

After the break, why signing up for camp got so complicated? Claire, I guess what we hear in that transition is this switch almost from how do I give my child this great summertime experience to how do I give my child a great experience but also keep that kid occupied because I need to go to work.

Yeah, I mean, I think the story of summer camp and childcare specifically, I think is a story of one sort of like systemic failure on the part of America to create an infrastructure that supports these various seismic demographic changes in the labor force. By that, I mean, like women entering the labor force in just huge numbers permanently. We've still never addressed that we don't have a childcare system in America. Those decades, as women have entered at the labor force, the price of childcare has risen just like exponentially faster than inflation, to the point where now currently to put a baby in daycare costs more in most places in the country than in state college tuition. You pay more for daycare for a baby than you do for college for your kid. So there's that. But also when you get to summer camp, there's even less of a structure, So all of these problems are compounded. And then on top of that, you know you have parental anxiety of I want my kid to have a summer and this is your chance for freedom, and you're not beholden to a schedule.

Yeah, I mean, I think the story of summer camp and childcare specifically, I think is a story of one sort of like systemic failure on the part of America to create an infrastructure that supports these various seismic demographic changes in the labor force. By that, I mean, like women entering the labor force in just huge numbers permanently. We've still never addressed that we don't have a childcare system in America. Those decades, as women have entered at the labor force, the price of childcare has risen just like exponentially faster than inflation, to the point where now currently to put a baby in daycare costs more in most places in the country than in state college tuition. You pay more for daycare for a baby than you do for college for your kid. So there's that. But also when you get to summer camp, there's even less of a structure, So all of these problems are compounded. And then on top of that, you know you have parental anxiety of I want my kid to have a summer and this is your chance for freedom, and you're not beholden to a schedule.

The way that you are during.

The way that you are during.

The school year, but I am as the parent, so in some ways you are too, and therefore I have to figure out how to send you to all of this stuff. And also because camp sort of skews more demographically affluent, because only the affluent families are the ones who are able to pay for space, camp and all this sort of stuff, then you have all this added pressure as your kid gets older. Is this enriching? Is this going to help them get into college? Do I need to send my daughter to coding camp even if she has no interest in coding?

The school year, but I am as the parent, so in some ways you are too, and therefore I have to figure out how to send you to all of this stuff. And also because camp sort of skews more demographically affluent, because only the affluent families are the ones who are able to pay for space, camp and all this sort of stuff, then you have all this added pressure as your kid gets older. Is this enriching? Is this going to help them get into college? Do I need to send my daughter to coding camp even if she has no interest in coding?

So when I got assign this piece, because I am a working mother, freelancer, I have to multitask, which meant the first people I talked to were the directors of my child's preschool, which is also has a day camp in the summer, which I have availed myself of because it is cheaper than any other option, it is more consistent, it follows the working hours, and it's just a great camp. So I asked them, you know, what are the things you've noticed over time? And I was really astounded by how sort of instantly they helped fill in this picture for me, because they said, you know this preschool they've been running, has existed for fifty years. They've done the camp part of it since nineteen ninety nine, and they noticed for the first years of the camp it was just something they knew was going to be summer childcare. They started it the week after the Portland Public schools closed, and they ended it the week before they opened in the fall. It was the full work day and you know, kids would come do arts and crafts. They would take them to a park in a bus and that was it, and you signed up for the whole session. And then pretty swiftly they started hearing from parents that there were all these other options popping up. And they both remember a camp I believe it's called Girls Who Rock and that was founded in two thousand and one as being this kind of turning point where suddenly they were hearing about bike camp, taekwondo camp, these different offerings, and so parents were kind of agitating, saying, you know, I love your camp, but I want an opportunity to sign up for these kind of individual things, and you know, for a while they sort of held fast, but then I think in twenty fifteen they had noticed their numbers were declining and so then they broke it up and so now you register by the week. I spoke with another camp director who reported something similar, although that also kind of creates problems for camp directors as well, because she says she also offers weekly sign ups, and she's finding that parents are signing up for a bunch of weeks in January and then in March they're canceling. So she's actually had to change the amount of refund available because it was so clear that people were trying to like piece together the summer, and they would start out just throwing everything at the wall and then start like peeling away some of the weeks. And she said, you know, I understand why they want to do that, but I can't run a camp with that much sort of built in instability. A lot of my conversations, both just as a parent and then reporting this piece and spending time in you know, these Facebook groups that are mostly populated by moms and where a lot of information is shared, the word spreadsheet came up so much more often than I would have imagined, and many parents are starting these spreadsheets and needing them basically to keep track of what the summer is going to look like, and so you know, one mom I spoke with pulled up a spreadsheet during our phone call and counted and there were seven different camps covering nine different weeks. They all were in a different location, ran during a different time, So her calendar for the summer became this kind of like frank science monster that she was having to navigate. And you know, she would be the first to admit, like, I hate this, this is not functional. But I think the system we have it's sort of there's both like an abundance of options but a sort of scarcity mindset that I think is rooted in the knowledge parents have that there is a fundamental scarcity of good childcare options in America. So it's like this profusion of things you can choose from, but also knowing there's limited spots. I've got to get one. And people are bringing administrative skills to sort of just running the summer for their kids that are rival you know, any kind of like office administration setting. It's really wild.

So when I got assign this piece, because I am a working mother, freelancer, I have to multitask, which meant the first people I talked to were the directors of my child's preschool, which is also has a day camp in the summer, which I have availed myself of because it is cheaper than any other option, it is more consistent, it follows the working hours, and it's just a great camp. So I asked them, you know, what are the things you've noticed over time? And I was really astounded by how sort of instantly they helped fill in this picture for me, because they said, you know this preschool they've been running, has existed for fifty years. They've done the camp part of it since nineteen ninety nine, and they noticed for the first years of the camp it was just something they knew was going to be summer childcare. They started it the week after the Portland Public schools closed, and they ended it the week before they opened in the fall. It was the full work day and you know, kids would come do arts and crafts. They would take them to a park in a bus and that was it, and you signed up for the whole session. And then pretty swiftly they started hearing from parents that there were all these other options popping up. And they both remember a camp I believe it's called Girls Who Rock and that was founded in two thousand and one as being this kind of turning point where suddenly they were hearing about bike camp, taekwondo camp, these different offerings, and so parents were kind of agitating, saying, you know, I love your camp, but I want an opportunity to sign up for these kind of individual things, and you know, for a while they sort of held fast, but then I think in twenty fifteen they had noticed their numbers were declining and so then they broke it up and so now you register by the week. I spoke with another camp director who reported something similar, although that also kind of creates problems for camp directors as well, because she says she also offers weekly sign ups, and she's finding that parents are signing up for a bunch of weeks in January and then in March they're canceling. So she's actually had to change the amount of refund available because it was so clear that people were trying to like piece together the summer, and they would start out just throwing everything at the wall and then start like peeling away some of the weeks. And she said, you know, I understand why they want to do that, but I can't run a camp with that much sort of built in instability. A lot of my conversations, both just as a parent and then reporting this piece and spending time in you know, these Facebook groups that are mostly populated by moms and where a lot of information is shared, the word spreadsheet came up so much more often than I would have imagined, and many parents are starting these spreadsheets and needing them basically to keep track of what the summer is going to look like, and so you know, one mom I spoke with pulled up a spreadsheet during our phone call and counted and there were seven different camps covering nine different weeks. They all were in a different location, ran during a different time, So her calendar for the summer became this kind of like frank science monster that she was having to navigate. And you know, she would be the first to admit, like, I hate this, this is not functional. But I think the system we have it's sort of there's both like an abundance of options but a sort of scarcity mindset that I think is rooted in the knowledge parents have that there is a fundamental scarcity of good childcare options in America. So it's like this profusion of things you can choose from, but also knowing there's limited spots. I've got to get one. And people are bringing administrative skills to sort of just running the summer for their kids that are rival you know, any kind of like office administration setting. It's really wild.

Claire is part of the problem that we're calling it and thinking about it as summer camp instead of what it really is, which is childcare.

Claire is part of the problem that we're calling it and thinking about it as summer camp instead of what it really is, which is childcare.

Yeah, I mean you can call it camp. I mean maybe for kids it's more fun if you call it camp. But I think employers expectations of their working parents being able to be working the same way in the summer as they are. And also, certainly if you are at like the state or federal level and you're trying to discuss childscare, this needs to be part of the conversation. One of the few positive sides of the pandemic is it did require this sort of like fundamental rethinking of like, oh, child's care really is important. And while we've ignored it as just a mom's problem for decades, it turns out that this is a problem for everyone. You know, it's a problem for working fathers, it's a problem for employers who employ working mothers and working fathers. It's a problem for kids.

Yeah, I mean you can call it camp. I mean maybe for kids it's more fun if you call it camp. But I think employers expectations of their working parents being able to be working the same way in the summer as they are. And also, certainly if you are at like the state or federal level and you're trying to discuss childscare, this needs to be part of the conversation. One of the few positive sides of the pandemic is it did require this sort of like fundamental rethinking of like, oh, child's care really is important. And while we've ignored it as just a mom's problem for decades, it turns out that this is a problem for everyone. You know, it's a problem for working fathers, it's a problem for employers who employ working mothers and working fathers. It's a problem for kids.

I love that point, and I would add that I think there's been a long tradition, a rhetorical tradition in America of explicitly trying to remove daycare as this sort of other thing. And you can see this in the New York Times Arch one of the nineteen eighties article headlines is day camp is not daycare, And that's supposed to be an advertisement for day camp. Because there is this sort of idea that denigrates daycare the same way that people would say during especially at the start of the pandemic, Well, schools aren't babysitters, And first of all, yes they are. In some very important respects they are. And also I think what that does is it's a way of putting down care work which is almost exclusively performed by women, or has been and disproportionately performed by women of color. Care workers remain incredibly underpaid.

I love that point, and I would add that I think there's been a long tradition, a rhetorical tradition in America of explicitly trying to remove daycare as this sort of other thing. And you can see this in the New York Times Arch one of the nineteen eighties article headlines is day camp is not daycare, And that's supposed to be an advertisement for day camp. Because there is this sort of idea that denigrates daycare the same way that people would say during especially at the start of the pandemic, Well, schools aren't babysitters, And first of all, yes they are. In some very important respects they are. And also I think what that does is it's a way of putting down care work which is almost exclusively performed by women, or has been and disproportionately performed by women of color. Care workers remain incredibly underpaid.

Lydia. You talk about how people who provide childcare often aren't given the respect they deserve, and you encounter that when you were talking to people who run camps about how difficult it is to find and retain people and pay them.

Lydia. You talk about how people who provide childcare often aren't given the respect they deserve, and you encounter that when you were talking to people who run camps about how difficult it is to find and retain people and pay them.

Yes. So one of the reasons that this conversation is so kind of complex is because the numbers we have for childcare, the childcare situation in America. Camp is part of that, but the numbers aren't You can't really parse them. So when you talk about childcare, you know, they're twelve point three million children have working parents, it's the recent figure that I read, But they're only eight point seven million licensed childcare providers. We already have a just huge dearth of affordable childcare options for American children and parents. So, you know, Claire mentioned that infant daycare costs the same as in state tuition for college, but childcare workers are not earning a salary that is commensurate with that high number, and so there's incredible turnover. They're just a lot of places where childcare workers can earn more money. Facilities cost is a huge problem. So all of those things that childcare providers are experiencing sort of also apply to camp. But there's an added component of the fact that the work is seasonal. So you know, if a camp is only running for ten weeks, they're hiring people, they're not able to pay them a ton, generally speaking, and they're usually not promising them work that's going to last year round. So that just kind of compounds the fundamental labor issue that exists on sort of across the care spectrum.

Yes. So one of the reasons that this conversation is so kind of complex is because the numbers we have for childcare, the childcare situation in America. Camp is part of that, but the numbers aren't You can't really parse them. So when you talk about childcare, you know, they're twelve point three million children have working parents, it's the recent figure that I read, But they're only eight point seven million licensed childcare providers. We already have a just huge dearth of affordable childcare options for American children and parents. So, you know, Claire mentioned that infant daycare costs the same as in state tuition for college, but childcare workers are not earning a salary that is commensurate with that high number, and so there's incredible turnover. They're just a lot of places where childcare workers can earn more money. Facilities cost is a huge problem. So all of those things that childcare providers are experiencing sort of also apply to camp. But there's an added component of the fact that the work is seasonal. So you know, if a camp is only running for ten weeks, they're hiring people, they're not able to pay them a ton, generally speaking, and they're usually not promising them work that's going to last year round. So that just kind of compounds the fundamental labor issue that exists on sort of across the care spectrum.

I also think, you know, one of the things that makes childcare so expensive is when you're talking about daycare, you're talking about babies and you know, kids preschool age and younger, and so maybe they're not matching with the camp cohort, but you know, you have to make sure that they have background checks, they've done CPR training. There's usually this like childish staff ratio component where you have to have, you know, one caregiver for every three or four babies and maybe five or six older kids or something like that, and summer camps have some of those same requirements. Probably a CPR, definitely a background check. The staffing, because they're not watching infants is probably not as bad. But you know, when I think back on my summer camp memories, I was elementary school age, but I was like wandering around in a day camp playing kickball, overseen by a bunch of teenagers who probably had not learned CPR. And that's probably not possible at a camp run today under today's regulations. I was sort of the lax nineteen eighties crew, and a lot of that is good and necessary, but that just makes it even harder.

I also think, you know, one of the things that makes childcare so expensive is when you're talking about daycare, you're talking about babies and you know, kids preschool age and younger, and so maybe they're not matching with the camp cohort, but you know, you have to make sure that they have background checks, they've done CPR training. There's usually this like childish staff ratio component where you have to have, you know, one caregiver for every three or four babies and maybe five or six older kids or something like that, and summer camps have some of those same requirements. Probably a CPR, definitely a background check. The staffing, because they're not watching infants is probably not as bad. But you know, when I think back on my summer camp memories, I was elementary school age, but I was like wandering around in a day camp playing kickball, overseen by a bunch of teenagers who probably had not learned CPR. And that's probably not possible at a camp run today under today's regulations. I was sort of the lax nineteen eighties crew, and a lot of that is good and necessary, but that just makes it even harder.

We'll talk about possible solutions to this camp and childcare conundrum when we come back. Claire, you wrote a story that called childcare the most broken business in America, and you said that it's a rare example of an almost entirely private market in which the service offered is too expensive for both consumers and the businesses. That provide it, and that seems to describe what we're talking about summer camps too.

We'll talk about possible solutions to this camp and childcare conundrum when we come back. Claire, you wrote a story that called childcare the most broken business in America, and you said that it's a rare example of an almost entirely private market in which the service offered is too expensive for both consumers and the businesses. That provide it, and that seems to describe what we're talking about summer camps too.

Yeah, I mean, so summer camps are part of this, but when you think about just childcare in America, it's so expensive because in order to post a good summer camp or provide good childcare, we have all of these regulations and stuff that we want to have to keep kids safe. You know, we are very concerned about children's well being, as we should be, but the cost of that is so high that unless the government subsidizes it, parents can't really afford it, and the government periodically tries to fix it. I don't know if you guys remember the whole like build back better debate that was happening, but in the early versions of all of that childcare was included. And it was this bold move on the part of Congress and President Biden to be like, look, we understand parents' problems, we understand the childcare industry's predicament, and we are going to allot a sizable chunk of money to, you know, not fix the problem, but really try to make it better. What they were going to do was a lot a bunch of money for states to sort of opt in and create their own programs within their states to fix it. And so I think you would have had a tiered system where sort of like Medicaid expansion, but it ultimately failed, and in large part that was because of Senator Joe Manchin, who was saying, you know, we can't spend so much money on this. We cannot afford to spend what I think the congressional budget obvious is going to save us about twenty two billion dollars a year, which sounds like a huge amount of money, except that that's only two percent of the military budget. So what they're saying is we cannot take two percent of the military budget to create something that American families need and will really improve the economy, make childcare workers lives better, allow these businesses to thrive, and also allow parents to work more. And that did not even include summer camp. So as far behind as we are on the childcare issue, we are even further behind, I think, on summer camp.

Yeah, I mean, so summer camps are part of this, but when you think about just childcare in America, it's so expensive because in order to post a good summer camp or provide good childcare, we have all of these regulations and stuff that we want to have to keep kids safe. You know, we are very concerned about children's well being, as we should be, but the cost of that is so high that unless the government subsidizes it, parents can't really afford it, and the government periodically tries to fix it. I don't know if you guys remember the whole like build back better debate that was happening, but in the early versions of all of that childcare was included. And it was this bold move on the part of Congress and President Biden to be like, look, we understand parents' problems, we understand the childcare industry's predicament, and we are going to allot a sizable chunk of money to, you know, not fix the problem, but really try to make it better. What they were going to do was a lot a bunch of money for states to sort of opt in and create their own programs within their states to fix it. And so I think you would have had a tiered system where sort of like Medicaid expansion, but it ultimately failed, and in large part that was because of Senator Joe Manchin, who was saying, you know, we can't spend so much money on this. We cannot afford to spend what I think the congressional budget obvious is going to save us about twenty two billion dollars a year, which sounds like a huge amount of money, except that that's only two percent of the military budget. So what they're saying is we cannot take two percent of the military budget to create something that American families need and will really improve the economy, make childcare workers lives better, allow these businesses to thrive, and also allow parents to work more. And that did not even include summer camp. So as far behind as we are on the childcare issue, we are even further behind, I think, on summer camp.

So what is the solution here? What can be done to help parents who are really struggling when it's not summer to provide healthcare and then even more so during the summer when all the usual support systems go away.

So what is the solution here? What can be done to help parents who are really struggling when it's not summer to provide healthcare and then even more so during the summer when all the usual support systems go away.

It's basically like triage mode. And the places and institutions that are working on this are really thinking about the many, many kids who have you know, been sort of left out of this conversation because they are not accessing camp at all. There are lots of entities that are kind of thinking about how to reach those families and kids. And I spoke with one camp director in San Francisco. It's a San Francisco based California nonprofit called EDMO, and at Caballero I had a great conversation with him where he described they used to run camps that were just sort of open to the public and anyone who could pay the four or five hundred dollars a week would sign up. They had the same kind of like registration hunger games every year, and what he told me is that equity was very important to them, and so they you know, would advertise like their scholarships and really try and get a lot of kids whose families normally wouldn't be able to pay. But the process they use, which is like the general registration process that most places use, was leaving those kids out because there was an onerous sort of application process for the scholarships, and so they decided upon reflection to scrap that. So then when the state of California made an ongoing almost five billion dollar investment in I believe it's called Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, which is meant to basically like guarantee after school and summer programming for California public school kids, Edmo Cabalero said, well, okay, we'll partner with the state. We are going to not do these public camps anymore. We're just going to work on site at the public schools and run our programs there. So that's one way, you know, that one organization pivoted and said, let's tie this to school rather than to just this like free for all. So there are a lot of programs that are doing something similar and trying to like reach groups that are normally left out. But you know, the overall problem remains of just like wildly disparate opportunities, wildly disparate costs. It's just a really lumpy system. And the major thing I can think of is just sort of like shifting our idea of summer camp from an extra to just a rite and sort of thinking about everything having to do with childcare from an extra or like an individual problem to solve to a write and something that all American parents and kids sort of deserve access to. That's like the fundamental shift that needs to happen.

It's basically like triage mode. And the places and institutions that are working on this are really thinking about the many, many kids who have you know, been sort of left out of this conversation because they are not accessing camp at all. There are lots of entities that are kind of thinking about how to reach those families and kids. And I spoke with one camp director in San Francisco. It's a San Francisco based California nonprofit called EDMO, and at Caballero I had a great conversation with him where he described they used to run camps that were just sort of open to the public and anyone who could pay the four or five hundred dollars a week would sign up. They had the same kind of like registration hunger games every year, and what he told me is that equity was very important to them, and so they you know, would advertise like their scholarships and really try and get a lot of kids whose families normally wouldn't be able to pay. But the process they use, which is like the general registration process that most places use, was leaving those kids out because there was an onerous sort of application process for the scholarships, and so they decided upon reflection to scrap that. So then when the state of California made an ongoing almost five billion dollar investment in I believe it's called Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, which is meant to basically like guarantee after school and summer programming for California public school kids, Edmo Cabalero said, well, okay, we'll partner with the state. We are going to not do these public camps anymore. We're just going to work on site at the public schools and run our programs there. So that's one way, you know, that one organization pivoted and said, let's tie this to school rather than to just this like free for all. So there are a lot of programs that are doing something similar and trying to like reach groups that are normally left out. But you know, the overall problem remains of just like wildly disparate opportunities, wildly disparate costs. It's just a really lumpy system. And the major thing I can think of is just sort of like shifting our idea of summer camp from an extra to just a rite and sort of thinking about everything having to do with childcare from an extra or like an individual problem to solve to a write and something that all American parents and kids sort of deserve access to. That's like the fundamental shift that needs to happen.

Lydia Claire, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Lydia Claire, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thanks have a great summer.

Thanks have a great summer.

Thank you you too. Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky berg Alina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. Our producers are Michael fal and mow Barrow. Raphael I'm Seely is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidron I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.

Thank you you too. Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky berg Alina. Our senior producer is Catherine Fink. Our producers are Michael fal and mow Barrow. Raphael I'm Seely is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidron I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.