What happens in the bushes at MO camps?

A guest post by TikunOlam

DB's post about the anti-cellphone movement in the chareidi community got me thinking about something that happened to me when I was about 13 years old. Somehow this event was seared into my memory. I was an eighth grader shopping for the right high school. So I applied and interviewed at a number of schools across the OJ spectrum. The most right wing school that I applied to can best be described as an all girls school somewhat to the right of Bruriah and SKA but to the left of a Bais Yaakov.

On the day of the interview at this one school, I met with the principal. At some point in the interview she asked me where I went to camp over the summer. I told her that I went to camp X, a sleepaway camp that is best described as to the right of Seneca Lake but to the left of Camp Morasha (for the non-initiates, that would be kinda like centrist MO). The prinicipal responded with a look of repugnance on her face and said to me "I know what happens in that bushes at that camp." I must have looked confused, as at the age of 13 I had not a clue as to what was going on in the bushes of my camp. In fact, I couldn't even remember the camp having any bushes. She continued to press, as though she believed that I was just playing dumb or something by saying, "don't tell me you don't know what I am talking about."

So, I was scared away from the school. That conversation creeped me out.

It wasn't until a couple of years later, at the age of 15, when I was attended another MO sleepaway camp, that I even understood what she must have meant. At this particular sleepaway camp most of the campers, including myself, attended coed MO high school during the year. But there was a contingent of girls from one particular Brooklyn based all girls school that hid their attendance at this camp from the administration and teachers of their school as they were not allowed to attend coed camps. My friends and I called them the "(name of school) sluts." We didn't understand why they were so "easy," why they would take scissors to their skirts that they wore for Shabbat, or why they wore lip gloss on hikes. But when one of them got thrown out of camp after she was caught fooling around with a boy in the bushes, that conversation I had with the principal of that school finally made sense to me.

It is interesting to me, the Chareidi phobia of the runaway Id. Growing up MO I never understood the need for g'derot on top of g'derot on top of g'derot. This idea that teen cell phone use may lead to mixed sharing jokes which may lead to coed socializing which may lead to mixed dancing which may lead to teenage sex is so foreign to me. Sure, I think there should be supervision of children and teenager, but as a psychologist, I believe that the way to raise responsible young adults is to raise children to value themselves and understand that there are consequences to their actions. Children grow into fine and responsible adults when they have active and consistent parenting in which children are encouraged to develop strong senses of identity, and gradually trusted as they get older to rely on their own ability to control their impulses.

As a rule, I am against unnecessary rules with children. It sets up scenarios in which there will be excessive power struggles between youth and the authority figures in their lives. In fact, because the task of separation and individuation , is the most essential developmental task of adolescence, if too many restrictions are placed on teenagers, teenagers will inevitably not be able to resist the impulse to rebel. Finding their own sense of identity is the job of a teenagers and they need to be allowed to go through the process if they want to reach "Identity Acheivement." Once Identity Achievement has been reached, individuals no longer makes decisions based on fears of the law, punishment or going to hell as they are making life choices bases on a set of values and sense of identity that is internal and permanent. Or as the American Humanist Association is saying these day, they become "good for goodness' sake."

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Buy DB's book. (please)