You Can Smell It, Touch It, and Keep It Forever: The Camp Letter

In this era of tweeting and texting, the slow-moving handwritten letter is an endangered species. Unlike an electronic missive, the letter that arrives in an envelope, can be touched, smelled, savored, tucked under your pillow, and filed away for decades. But of all types of letters, perhaps the most precious to both the sender and the recipient, is the camp letter. And, it is alive and well. Most camps still ban the use of the computer and insist that campers lie on their bunk beds during rest hour and write a letter home—a real letter, on paper, with an envelope and stamp. This ritual may be reason enough to send kids to camp: Where else are they going to learn how to address an envelope, lick a stamp, and wait for days to get a response?

Let me sing the joys of the camp letter!

Camp letters, because they slow down the responses between child and parent, allow for reflection in a way that is different from the instant and constant connection of emails and texts. As Michael Thompson, PhD., writes in his recent book about summer camp, Homesick and Happy, “The time between sending and receiving a letter is a valuable opportunity for both parent and child to think about one another without having to do anything with or for each other.”

Letters also seem to make us more eager to tell stories and to offer expressions of love: While we are writing we are in a little bubble with our own thoughts. By the time the letter is received, both reader and writer know that everything in the letter has changed. I may be homesick now, but, by the time you receive it, who knows?

Letters have an extra cachet, these days. It’s just plain surprising to get a letter in the mail that’s not a bill or a request to contribute to a charity. A personal letter really gets your attention, and makes you feel special.

The extras tucked in letters also add to their specialness. Instead of receiving an electronic attachment or a link to a website, your camper can shake out the envelope and find contraband sticks of gum, photos of Fido, or a baseball card. Going the other way, a parent may receive a bird feather, or a piece of bark from a recent hike, or a dried wildflower.

And, then there is the way that camp letters tend to be saved and treasured for years to come. When I cleaned out my childhood home recently, I came upon a packet of camp letters that my parents had held on to for many decades. In fact, these letters were the only real artifacts from my childhood, since art works, report cards, and college papers had long since been tossed out. The best part was reading them aloud to my young adult sons and showing them my careful, round handwriting, my drawings that boasted of high peaks I’d climbed, and my over-the-top proclamations of love for my parents that evoked my younger self in a way no stories or photographs had ever done.

When they asked me if I’d saved their letters, I was glad to tell them, “Every one.” I didn’t add, though it would have been true, “I hope you saved the ones I wrote you at camp, because some day, you’ll find them comforting to read.”

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As clinicians who work with families, we are interested in both the positive and negative effects of technology use on relationships at each developmental stage. We are interested in the way that digital natives may be using technology in ways that transform aspects of parenting. And we are interested in how family relationships at other stages are being altered by technology. We are inviting you to participate in The Digital Family Project by clicking on the image below.

Copyright Anne Fishel and Tristan Gorrindo, 2012