You Don’t Just Raise a Kid — You Raise the Child You Once Were

I searched hard but couldn’t find it.  A 40-year-old commercial for a sleepaway camp that operated on Chautauqua Lake in 1984.  I know this seems specific, but I remember the album cover of Van Halen’s 1984 – a baby with angel's wings, smoking a cigarette.  And David Lee Roth busting out jump kicks on stage – images delivered by my parents’ RCA – old school – encased in wood, with legs, as if it were a piece of furniture.  I was eleven, but my brother was 15.  I watched GI Joe cartoons.  When he changed the channel on me, it was to watch Van Halen. 

Child World’s Mascot was a Peter Panda

The people who made the commercial for the camp were smart to connect it to other products like Kool-Aid, Wyler’s Grape Juice, and the Toys R Us song.  We didn’t even have a Toys R Us in Niagara Falls.  We had Child World – which eventually closed.  Then we had a Toys R Us. Walking into the Toys R Us felt like a betrayal.  We were Child World people, and the stupid giraffe took Peter Panda away from us. 

Giraffes are Tougher - Geoffrey Won

The commercial spoke smart words to the adults, while the images sucked us children in.  Canoes on the lake, and the kids sitting in them with fishing rods.  A huge campfire.  Targets with bullseyes, and big people showing the little people how to fire the non-compound bow.  They had kickball, and what really caught my attention was an obstacle course.  The kids in the commercial were having so much fun – so I wanted to go.

Now I have the image of my brother asking me if I wanted to go to the sub shop with him to play Pac-Man.  I said yes.  Then he said, “Nice to want, ain’t it,” as he left the house without me.  For me, at eleven years old, there’d be no Pac-Man at the sub shop, nor would I ever know what it would be like to go to a sleepaway camp on Chautauqua Lake for a week.  My cousin got to go to one of them, I remember.  Her dad was in the auto industry.  Mine was a public servant.  And, even if my going to Chatauqua were to be financially viable – there was NO way my parents would be cool with it.  

I asked.  And I got the kind of no…you just don’t ask twice — fast, emphatic, and served with a look like the septic tank just backed up.

That was 40 years ago. My thoughts about David Lee Roth, Pac-Man at the sub shop, and the camp at Lake Chautauqua belong in the Smithsonian.  I really can’t believe all that came back to me. 

A couple of months ago, my son asked me if he could go to a week-long camp in Maine.  Some of his friends have been going for years.  Wanna guess what I said when he asked?

He left for the camp on Saturday.  And if financing his experience were an issue, I would have taken cans back to the store, mowed lawns, and washed dishes on a midnight shift to get him there.  At this camp, the kids bring their own snacks. Since I envisioned him bartering in his cabin…I sent him with extra.  I had to strengthen his negotiating positions.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little weepy after he left. Not just because he’s gone for a week, but because I was able to make it happen for him. Forty years from now, if he’s writing a blog, it’ll be different. 

When he arrived, he had to ditch his phone – so I have no idea how it’s going for him.  He’s off the grid. And I realized, in a way, so am I.

This isn’t just a week without him. It’s a week without pings, without updates, without the Venmo requests or “what’s for dinner” or Life 360 telling me he’s on his scooter, or made it to the baseball field. 

And it made me think: When was the last time any of us really disconnected?

He’s out there right now with no WiFi, no updates, no dopamine hits — just nature, strangers, and himself.

He doesn’t know it yet, but this week will shape him. Not because of what he’s missing — but because of what he’s finding.

The independence.
The silence.
The chance to make decisions without me watching.

That’s what I wanted when I saw that camp commercial 40 years ago. I didn’t want Kool-Aid. I wanted the confidence in those kids’ eyes. The sense that they belonged somewhere outside their living rooms.

And now my son gets to feel that. Because I’m not just raising him — I’m also trying to heal the little boy I once was. The one who sat in front of a boxy RCA with a camp dream he’d never touch.

I’ve realized lately that being a dad means more than showing up — it means growing up. And I’ve done a lot of that over the past year. It’s made me reflect not just on who I want to be for my son, but also for someone else. I still believe in connection. In kindness. In the kind of partnership where we both feel safe being ourselves — goofy, deep, messy, and human.

If you’ve read this far, maybe that says something about you, too.

We don't always get the childhood we wish for. But if we work hard, stay hopeful, and love without hesitation, sometimes we get to give that experience to someone else.

And when we do, we don’t just raise better kids — we begin to heal the kid we used to be.

That’d be it.  But I gotta say one more thing…

The giraffe still disgusts me.