Visiting Day Mommy Wars

Leadership, independence, friendship-camp offers many life lessons. Among them: the joy of small luxuries.

- DANIELLE STEIN CHIZZIK

Much has been made of the ludicrous culture surrounding camp visiting _day. Articles and TV episodes have detailed the excesses of the annual occasion, with rumors of families flying Nobu sushi via PJ to their children's cabins in Maine. And as absurd as it all can certainly get, there is a more generous analysis: that parents, missing their children and wanting to acknowledge what an accomplishment it is, in modern times, for a nine-year-old to spend seven weeks bucking up, taking responsibility for herself, fighting her own battles, trying new things, and forgoing not only parental help but countless other home comforts (no screens!), are eager to give their children a modicum of said comfort on the one day, mid-session, on which they are reunited.