CAMP MOTHER

Attending the school trip teaches Kate a lot

Going as a parent helper on school camp with my daughter was an eye-opener.

To be frank, I was expecting the worst. Well, when I say the worst, I mean not a lot of sleep, a thin plastic mattress, dodgy showers and heaps of mince. None of life’s luxuries, shall we say. Are wine and coffee a luxury, though? I think they’re more a necessity these days, aren’t they? Anyway, let’s just say my expectations were low and in that regard, they were met.

There was not a lot of sleep in the muggy, airless cabins on thin plastic mattresses in a dorm chocka with other camp mums. The meals were largely all mince and there was certainly no wine.

But some things surprised me that I wasn’t expecting.

Like how patient teachers are. These guys, they’re angels. They take your kid on board, day in, day out, no matter what mood your kid’s in and they keep smiling. They deal with the most mundane, insane requests and dramas, and they manage to do it all a) without losing the plot and b) sounding kind and not like they want to kill them. How do they do that? Hats off to teachers. I couldn’t be more grateful to you.

Then there’s the children. I was surprised at how many kids are unfamiliar with the great outdoors. Possibly an indictment on our modern culture of screens taking precedence over beaches, parks or exercise. But the number of kids who seemed genuinely perplexed at being outside for so long, who struggled to walk up and down hills, and across paddocks, and who needed endless water and toilet stops, and reassurance they weren’t being bitten by a mozzie.

And that’s before we get to the allergies. I was surprised by how many allergies kids have. Nut, gluten, MSG, dairy, grass, mosquito bites ... And do you know the rules around food allergies? We had to wash, rinse, re-wash, then sterilise every plate, cup and piece of cutlery morning and night for fear of cross-contamination of any food product someone might react to. A far cry from the days when we were kids on school camp and would drag our plastic bowl through a bucket of lukewarm, semi-brown water, rank with everyone else’s scraps in it, then leave it to dry off in the sun! Do you know how long it takes to wash 50 plates by hand three times, by the way? A long time, I can tell you.

But the kids who stood out on camp were the ones who offered to help, took rules at face value (and not as a negotiation), were resilient, gave everything a go and helped others less confident than themselves.

I came home determined not to wrap my daughter in cotton wool, to encourage her to try everything, to acknowledge adults (especially when they’re trying to help you) and to always help others.

I also came home determined to have a hot shower, with proper soap, sleep on a real mattress, consume a lovely pot of tea and eat a meal that didn’t consist of mince.