The Hellscape of Summer Vacation for Moms

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Jo Piazza, Influence Inc.

Society & Culture, Parenting, Kids & Family, Personal Journals, Technology

4.3 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if summer vacation did not suck? Let's dive into the challenging reality of summer childcare in America and explore why planning for summer breaks has become increasingly stressful and expensive for parents, particularly working mothers. Katherine Goldstein writer of "The Double Shift" newsletter, joins us to discuss the historical context of America's unique summer childcare crisis (spoiler: it is much, much worse here than in most other countries) and shares creative alternatives to traditional summer camps. Whether you're a parent already deep in the summer planning chaos or someone curious about this systemic challenge, this conversation offers both practical insights and a broader perspective on how we got here and what could change. Follow Katherine's work at the Double Shift newsletter here. Join our newsletter community here. Pre-order EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU here. Visit our lovely sponsors here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey all, Joe here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.
0:12.1	I'm so happy to be here with you today to talk about something that is maddening, crazy,
0:17.4	and just, you know, one of the worst things that we have to endure as parents, like
0:23.6	one of the worst mundane things that we have to endure as parents. Yeah, I'm talking about
0:30.9	summer camp and summer plans and how most of us have to navigate this insane amount of time off that our kids have from school
0:42.3	and also pay so much money just to keep them occupied and safe and also vaguely happy during the summer months, and, and how all of this emotional and
0:59.7	psychological labor almost always falls on mothers.
1:06.6	Summer, I didn't, I never thought about this. I really, really didn't. Summer is so tough for parents. When I was growing up, and I'm going to talk about this a little bit in the episode, when I was growing up, my mom was a teacher. She was a special ed teacher. And during the summers, she worked at a bunch of different camps. She worked at a YMCA camp, and then
1:29.2	she worked at this day camp called Breezy Point, which is actually like kind of a cult, like
1:34.2	Breezy Point kids, stay Breezy Point kids until they're Breezy Point grownups. And I thought
1:39.8	nothing of it. I was like, oh my gosh, she's working at these camps because it's fun for her.
1:45.5	I never thought, oh, my God. First off, she's making extra money for our family. But also,
1:52.3	it gives me a place to be during the summer, right? Like, I got a spot in camp, even though 80 spots in camps weren't nearly as
2:02.2	competitive as the crazy madness of getting a spot in camps today. By the way, spoiler alert,
2:09.0	I didn't get spots in any camps. I was too late. I didn't set my alarm correctly. And now we've got
2:15.4	no camp spots. So I'm figuring it out.
2:19.2	I'm going to figure it out and it's going to be fine and thank the Lord that I have a
2:23.3	flexible enough schedule that I can figure this out.
2:26.4	But yeah, and my mom got to send me to the camps for free, which, again, I'm sure it was
2:33.0	cheaper in the 80s than it is now,
2:35.5	but that is no small amount of money. So that's what we're talking about today. We are talking to
2:42.6	Catherine Goldstein. She is such a gem. I love her. She writes the newsletter, The Double Shift.
	...

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