In the 30 minutes between when like the bus drops off all the kids and the parent picks

up the kid, they're just pouring water consistently over these kids to stop them from getting heat

illness.

Do I want that for my kid?

So like, these become the difficult questions.

I'm Hotta Rosen and this is Radio Atlantic.

We have a lot of romantic ideas about childhood and especially about what childhood should

look like in the summer.

Kids mucking around in ponds, finding tadpoles, nature camp, city kids learning outdoor

skills so they won't be totally useless in the apocalypse.

But then like a lot of romantic ideas, they sometimes run up against reality.

Which these days means it's too hot to muck around in ponds or even go outside sometimes.

In the summer, 107 in Texas, 105 in Louisiana and a couple of summers ago, a free

heat wave so dangerous that Emma Patti, who's a climate writer, got trapped in her house

with a new baby for days and her fellow moms in Portland basically never recovered.

So Emma, you told me that you are on your Facebook mom's group one day and what happened?

So you know, I'm a mom and I'm obviously you cannot be a mom without being part of your

local Facebook mom's group.

And last summer, we would have these hot days and I would just see these Facebook groups

explode.

You know, how hot is too hot to have my kid outside or like while the summer camp counselor

is saying that they're sending the kids home because of the heat, but I don't think it's

...