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RADIO SILENCE
Big Mama is Watching You At Camp
Pre-technology, after parents dropped children off, radio silence. They trusted the universe would keep their children safe until they picked them up weeks later.
In the 70s-90s, parents sent kids to camp and hoped for a postcard. Occasionally, a magic-marker-streaked, chicken-scratched, crumpled, food-stained postcard showed up in a mailbox with the words Camp is great (I’m safe) or This place sucks (rescue me). It was a ransom letter written by the campnapped kid.
That scant correspondence didn’t inform parents about anything except that their children were still at camp a week ago — when they mailed it.
Enter technology and big Mother.
Technology changed camp. I’m not saying kids are allowed to bring their iPhones, but we parents are constantly monitoring them.
No one takes our tech away.
We’re hooked on monitoring our kids. Many of us have apps that show us where our children are when they’re in town, around the corner. Because of our monitoring habit, we need regular data regarding their whereabouts or we’d all be calling the camp every day.
