This week, my oldest daughter, EM1, is taking a friend and going camping. Ordinarily, this would not be a big deal. People go camping every day and no one feels the need to write a blog about it. But this trip is a bit of a special occasion. You see, this is her first time going camping without her parents.
To provide a little bit of background, this is the same girl that won’t leave the house to go into the garage by herself because, “there are spiders out there.” This is the same girl that won’t go in the back yard and do yard work because it’s dirty and she will have to touch bugs. Her entire experience camping up until now has been hiding in our trailer, away from the dirt, mosquitoes and animals, while other people worked to set up camp and provide her with meals and snacks. She is like a baby bird, poking her head outside the nest just long enough for someone to cram food into her mouth.
Before leaving for this trip, she asked me if I would take her outside and show her how to set up the tent. I thought that was a smart, logical request, and I told her I would be happy to do it. I removed an old plastic tarp from the garage and handed it to her, explaining that she would need to place the tarp on the ground under the tent to keep it dry in case there was any unexpected wet weather. EM1 refused to touch it.
“It looks dirty,” she told me.
I said that yes it was dirty. We used it on our last camping trip and it was on the ground for four days. Then she asked if there any bugs on it. I said probably not, but that I could not guarantee some critter hadn’t crawled in at some point.
She asked me to open it up and check. I suggested we open it up together outside while we set up her tent. She walked away and told me she had something she needed to do. I am not sure at this point if she is going to take the tarp with her. I do know that she has still not learned how to set up the tent. I can only hope that the friend camping with her knows what she is doing, and they won’t end up just draping the tent over a tree branch and sleeping on the ground underneath it.
Honestly, I am not completely sure why she decided she wanted to go camping. My only guess is that EM1 was talking to a friend and told her that she camps with her family every year. Which is true. Then perhaps she said that with so many years of camping experience, she was an expert. Which is a shameless lie.
I am afraid her friend may have been lulled into a false sense of security, like a blind man who has been promised a guide animal and then dropped into the middle of a busy freeway with a squirrel on a leash. Except that the blind man probably wouldn’t get eaten by a bear in the middle of the freeway. So, maybe it’s more like being surrounded by bears in a cave while holding a squirrel on a leash.
My daughter would be the squirrel in both analogies, just in case anyone was wondering.
My second concern has to do with the campfire. While rummaging through EM1’s grocery bags (yes, I was snooping. Shoot me.) I noticed that she had hotdogs and marshmallows. I also noticed that she is packing absolutely no firewood or charcoal. I don’t know what she thinks she is going to be burning to cook her food while she is on her outdoor adventure, but I admit to very mixed emotions on the proposition.
On the one hand, I would feel bad if she is unable to have a fire and has to eat all her meals cold. That would be unfortunate. On the other hand, I can vividly picture the ten o’clock news announcing that 5,000 acres of forest have just been burned to ash because two girls decided to set fire to their tent to make s’mores. That would be … well … slightly more than unfortunate.
My friends and I were putting up tents and camping in the wilderness by ourselves at her age, so although I would personally prefer that my daughter do her camping in the backyard where I can see her and I know she is safe, I also know that she is an adult and needs to be able to make decisions for herself. I just have to hope and pray that those decisions are good ones.
In other words, not the same decisions I made at her age.
My dad used to tell me that you can grow up lucky or smart.
I grew up lucky. I hope EM is smart.