Plan B

It's times like this that I long for year-round school. Not school that claims to be year round, but then actually goes for eight weeks then takes two weeks off and so on. No. Real year-round school. And not just year-round. All day. Monday-Friday. 8-4. Something that the kids can go to to learn new languages. Something where they have lots of time for art and playing with friends. Something that conveniently matches my work schedule.

Yeah. Summer sucks as a working parent. (I'm sure summer sucks for stay-at-home parents too - but I'm not a stay-at-home parent and this is about me!) It's bad enough having to go from all-day day care to school that gets out at 2:45 and figuring out what to do with the kids the other 3 hours while you are still at work. But summer. Summer is this big, vacuous time snort that just hangs over your head as a parent. What to do with the kids? What to do?

Shh!! We're busy!

Sure there are camps, but have you seen recently what these camps cost? $150/week. Per kid. And some of those are HALF day! I know it's my own doing that I have three kids, but allow me to complain for a minute anyway. With one kid in day care that already costs nearly $200/week, I'm supposed to pay another $300/week for the other kids to go to camp? That's $500/week! Let's see... For an 8 week summer break (a conservative estimate) that would cost $4000. Ouch! (Just to put that in perspective: 8 weeks of day care/camp = 4 mortgage payments!) No one said child care was cheap. But at this rate, we could own a second or even third home for the amount we pay.

Given all that, you can understand our glee when I found this summer camp with Fayette County Parks and Rec that was $25/week/kid. A steal!!! A dream!!! And, as it turns out...a farce.

Yeah, we wondered from the get-go whether this was some sort of get-what-you-pay-for deal. We were a little skittish at first. But soon we found that the kids got to go to the pool, the park, do lots of fun things. They were having a blast. We were all fairly happy with it.

Of course, though, it was too good to be true. Sure all those activities are cool, but we soon discovered the camp's Achilles heel: the vans.


Yeah. The vans. The 15-passenger vans that the camp uses to transport the kids. We've all seen these vans. Churches use them. Day cares use them. Camps use them. Damon, as a TA, has taken several driver-training classes on these vans (to transport students) and has been told by a trainer that basically they are death traps. They aren't so dangerous as vans. But, ironically, add people and the weight balance shifts making them very dangerous. (In case you didn't follow the link: "15-passenger vans have a rollover risk that increases dramatically as the number of occupants increases to full capacity." Lovingly, NHTSA) Damon says he would never drive one with people in it.

Climb aboard! The more, the deadlier!

But, really, we didn't have so much of an issue with the vans, but rather the seat belts. Or lack of using them, to be exact. Especially considering the use of these vans in the first place.

When asking the kids about their day, they would tell us about this and that. When we asked about the the vans and did they wear a seat belt, they reported that the vans were so full that not only did they not use seat belts, but some kids had to stand.

Uh... what? Yeah. Standing room only, apparently. Upon hearing this, Damon called some higher-up with Parks and Rec to complain, skipping over the camp director since obviously he does not have an issue with it if he allows it to happen, which is part of the problem. Damon talked to Ms. Higher-Up and she said that she would take care of it.

The next time the kids went out in the vans, we asked how it went and they said that every one had a seat, but not everyone had a buckle. Uh...ok. I guess that's "progress." But really? What part of it's-against-the-law-to-have-a-child-unbuckled-in-a-car don't you understand? But this isn't just a legal issue. Obviously, it's a safety issue. I kept envisioning a report on the news "County Van Crashes; No Children Buckled; Many Hurt." Well, actually I envisioned a more gory scenario, but one I don't care to write down.

So Damon complained again to Ms. Higher-Up. The kids then reported that they were all buckled the next time they went out. Success! While our children's safety was the impetus for all of this, I felt a little proud that as a result of Damon's persistence, ALL the kids were a bit safer.

Until the next time. The next time the kids reported that while they were buckled, some of the kids, including our kids, had to be doubled-up (two kids buckled with the same belt). I cannot understand how this was allowed. I mean, really?? You know enough (after several "reminders") that you need to seat belt the kids, but doubling up? Come on now. It's not the letter of the law, but the spirit. This is about safety, not trying to "technically" follow the law because of some jack-hole parent who likes to bitch. (I tried to find the exact wording of the law to see if it specifies "one kid per buckle," but, for today, my library science skills* have failed me.)

Really...it's not that hard.

Soon Damon found himself talking to the person over Mr. Camp Director (but under Ms. Higher-Up who he spoke to originally). While I couldn't hear everything, I could tell it was a heated discussion. Ms. Middle-Man told Damon that she was "concerned that you are the only parent who has complained." Uh, again, really? Your concern is that you've only gotten one complaint? What about the actual complaint? Maybe the other kids don't tell their parents about the seat belts. Maybe the other parents don't ask. Maybe they don't know any better. Maybe they are so desperate to find affordable child care for the summer that they just want to look the other way and hope for the best.

While this was ridiculous, what really did it for Damon was that she basically said our kids were lying. Ms. Middle-Man never outright called them liars, but kept saying that she talked to the staff and they all said that all the children were individually buckled. Perhaps she should consider that these staff probably don't want to be called on the carpet for creating liability so soon after just having been "retrained." Are they really reliable here? Do you really think our kids are telling us this stuff for the hell of it? Do you really think we want to have this discussion about seat belts again?

Sadly, Ms. Middle-Man kept defending Mr. Camp Director and was nothing close to apologetic. The insinuations made about our kids lying and Damon complaining sealed the deal: the kids would not be going back.

It just seems so silly, so ridiculous, that this all happened. I mean, OK, they screwed up about the seat belts. We complained. It should have ended there. The fact that it got only marginally better, that Ms. Higher-Up soon bowed out of the conversation (most likely not wanting to deal with it anymore), that Ms. Middle-Man totally missed the issue and dismissed us as complainers, saddens me. But what saddens me the most is that the kids were having a good time. They were having fun at the pool, making new friends, going on paddle boats at the park. And now: not.

So here we are again... what to do? what to do? Damon's decided to stay home with the kids several days a week, and we are going to send them back to our heroes over at Kindercare the other two days a week. It's the best balance we can make between Damon's sanity and our checkbook. I swear, though, us working parents need to start a co-op. Hmmm...


* aka I couldn't find it in the top 10 Google results

Google Alert! Hoping that Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government (LFCUG) Parks and Rec has a Google Alert set up for Camp Kenwick and will maybe read this and get their act together.