Camp is For the Campers

To all parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles and other assorted adults who are currently experiencing child withdrawal because your kid is at overnight camp:

I say this with the utmost compassion and love....BACK THE HELL OFF!

Stop updating and refreshing those camp photo websites in a desperate search to find your kid. And when you do happen to find them, stop posting those pictures on social media. Cut out the daily updates. Cease and desist, parents. It's time to cut the cord.

It's fabulous that Johnny or Jenny had a great day waterskiing, sailing, or dancing. I'm so thrilled that they are settling in and enjoying their camp experience, but here's the thing....that was their day, not yours. This vicarious social media blitz really must stop.

I know. You miss them. I get it. I also get that you want them to be happy, safe, and comfortable. I get that you need to see tangible evidence of that happiness and share it with the world, but speaking from personal experience as a long-time camper, counselor, unit head, and parent of all of those aforementioned, you are doing a great disservice to both your child and yourself by peering into a world in which you absolutely DO NOT belong.

Overnight camp is about so much more than fun activities. It is the first place that many kids get to flex their independence and make choices that maybe mom and dad wouldn't necessarily make for them or even worse, disapprove of. They learn conflict resolution, how to clean up after themselves, how to deal with disappointment, success, failure, first loves, first kisses, new food choices, teamwork, self-advocating, friendships, dealing with people that can be difficult, and most importantly they are doing all of this without parents around to tell them how to do it. When you digitally spy on them (yes...I said, spy!) you are intruding on their privacy. Maybe they don't want you to see them holding hands with somebody? Maybe they had a bad day and don't want to be photographed. Maybe they are deliriously happy but they simply aren't interested in sharing it with you. I realize that might be difficult to hear, but it's true. There are things that happened at camp over forty years ago that I still haven't told my parents about, and that's as it should be.

My dear friend the camp director from my own camping days was always adamant in his mantra that "camp is for the campers." This constant obsession of parents scouring photo websites changes that dynamic. Suddenly, there are no surprises. Parents know far more than they should and kids will have less excitement to share with you when they return home.

Look. I understand that you worry. I know that there is a giant-sized hole. But trust me...if there is a major problem, the camp will contact you. Is your child homesick? Maybe. But trust the camp and their competent staff to deal with it. If it is more than they can handle, you will know. Has your child failed to write? Possibly. But that could be a good thing. When Older Son first went to camp at the tender age of 8, (by himself, on an airplane, and crossing an international border!) we didn't get a single letter, save for the introductory postcard. He was simply too busy and too happy to care.  

Use this time when your child is at camp to reconnect with your spouse or friends or yourself. My mother used to say that the only pots on the stove during the summer were flower pots and that the kitchen was closed. Have fun. Eat out a few more times and cook a few less. Sleep in on weekends. See friends. Enjoy a brief respite from parenthood and trust that your child is in good hands.

And write them letters. Campers love and need to get mail. It is fun for them and a gentle reminder of home. Tell them about the dog or what you have been up to. But seriously...stay away from those photo sites. They aren't helping either you or your kid. Content yourself with the odd picture that the camp puts up on Facebook to let you know everything is just fine and then go and let your camper enjoy his/her summer.

In my next post maybe I will tackle why Visitor's Days are a nightmare for all and should be abolished unless a camper is staying over sessions.

My Fortnight of Positivity: Dream or Reality? (Or...My Feeble Attempt to Reclaim My Social Media Feeds)

If you have somehow missed my last two posts, (I'm genuinely stunned into silence!) I am currently engaging in an exercise to bring civility back to our social media feeds by posting ANYTHING that isn't related to the shitstorm of ugliness we all are dealing with leading up to November 8th. Please join me in this exercise by refraining from posting ugly partisan memes, badly sourced pseudo-stories, and nastiness in general. We could all use a healthy dose of nice. Let's put the "social" back into social media.

As we sit and wallow in the eyes of our own personal hurricanes, it is so very easy to forget that there is much to be grateful for. Sometimes that joy can be blindsiding. Such is the case with my nephew's Bar Mitzvah which we will be celebrating this Shabbat.

As a parent of adult children, I've long since put the B'nai Mitzvah "circuit" in the rearview. I've grown complacent when it comes to celebrating these rites of passage of other people's kids and sometimes I have even bemoaned the need to attend and wrongly viewed it as a chore. But, this one feels different. This particular Bar Mitzvah is the second to last in our immediate family and I am experiencing a real sense of life's impermanence and fleeting nature. In the very near future, it is entirely possible that I will ascend the ladder of generations. No longer the parent or the aunt or the cousin, but instead one step removed. That idea has me a bit freaked. My dad used to say that he knew he had aged out when they started asking him to do the Motzi at simchas. That, he says, is the quintessential old man's job.

So this weekend I plan to revel in my family's joy and not take a single moment for granted. I will feel pride as I watch my youngest nephew take a giant leap forward. And...I will bake mounds of chocolate cookies for the occasion because that's what you're supposed to do when faced with good things.

Stop and smell the chocolate.

Shabbat Shalom to all who observe. 

Step Away From The Keyboard If....

It has been a difficult week to be an active online participant. There has been so much hate spewed by so many about so much, that I have honestly begun to question whether or not this great social media experiment that billions of us have signed on for is actually worth it. I am all for the free exchange of opinions and ideas, but I have reservations when that careful, cool, and considered debate turns into something darker and more sinister. It isn't just on social media sites. Check out the comments section of any newspaper, magazine, or blog and you will find a litany of venom spewing from all sides of a dispute. And this crap is just the stuff that has made it through the moderators. Imagine what gets filtered?

I have given much thought to online etiquette and why our discourse has become so very toxic and I have developed my own personal filters to weed out the miscreants. Here are some basic tips for commenting, posting, or sharing online. I am calling it Step Away From the Keyboard If...

Step Away From The Keyboard If....that which you are about to share comes from a blog, "news organization", or media site that you have never heard of before or has no attributable source. The chances are if it has a funky name, it is spewing bullshit.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you might share a meme, photograph, or photoshopped image that has no viable attributable source.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you don't feel comfortable posting under your own name. If you feel that you need a pseudonym or handle in order to feel safe or comfortable with your words, I can almost guarantee that what you are about to post isn't worth it and probably shameful.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you are about to share a meme, photograph, or photoshopped image that comes from somebody with a pseudonym or handle you are unfamiliar with. The chances are, that it emanates from bullshit.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you are thinking about posting on a friend's Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page with angry, contrary, bigoted, and expletive-laden opinions that are certain to anger your "friend". Discussion and discourse are fine. Hostility and venom are not.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you are thinking about sharing an email that has a chain of hundreds of thousands of names, comes from an undisclosed recipient, or arrives from an address that you are unfamiliar with. Chances are....bullshit.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you would never consider saying the things you are about to post in a face to face conversation.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you have given less than five minutes of thought to that which you are about to post or on that which you are about to comment. Impulsivity is certain disaster online.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....a friend's post makes you so angry that you are tempted to type a diatribe response filled with expletives, hate, and venom. Angry online debates are a waste of time. Civil discourse requires thought and space.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you have only read the headline or title of an article and have only skimmed the contents. Context is everything. Don't comment if you haven't read something thoroughly.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you can't be polite.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you are uninformed or underinformed on the topic presented. Trust me when I say that ignorance can't be easily hidden.

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you feel the need to use euphemisms like "libtard", "Left-wing asshole", "cu**servative", "right-wing nut job", or if you use demeaning nicknames for the leaders of Canada or the United States. For the record, those proper forms of address are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Barack Obama. Whether you like them or not, or agree with them or not, they are the duly elected leaders of our countries. When you demean their names, you demean the offices they hold. Unless you are a satirist (and trust me none of you are) stop with the name-calling. (I must admit that I learned this one the hard way.)

Step Away From The Keyboard If....you can't address the issue at hand without personal attacks.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn't enjoy our time online, nor am I suggesting that it shouldn't be fun. I am suggesting that we be far more careful about the tone that we are setting and far more careful about the content we are spreading and, by default, becoming responsible for. These are just a few gentle reminders. I hope that by following some of them, we can improve the tenor of our discourse.

One last thing on a highly personal note: If anybody ever posts anything on any of my social media sites or on this blog which I deem to be racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, religiously insensitive, culturally inappropriate, or just plain mean that person will be permanently blocked. My game, my rules. I have no time nor patience for bullshit.

It's Official. We're All Related

My sister-in-law (I have affectionally dubbed her The Yin to The Lil' Bro's Yang) is not into social media at all. The whole experience bores her to tears. She has a Facebook page but she only has three friends, her kids. She registered when they were young teenagers so that she might watch out for the pond scum that inevitably inhabits these sites. As they have transitioned into adulthood, she has simply abandoned the page.

That isn't to say that she isn't remarkably internet savvy. As keeper of the family archives, she has been incredibly active on one of those fancy genealogy sites, the pro edition. For the past several years, she has spent her free time constructing elaborate family trees and discovering long-lost relations. The constant merging of kinsmen into new branches is her social media experience. I suppose that she prefers interactions with the mostly deceased to those of the mostly living. Honestly, I don't judge.

But, she is great at it. She has found relatives in places that we never knew existed. She has uncovered photographs, documentation, and connections that have simply defied expectations. Our family tree now consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals from all over the globe. For an Ashkenazi Jewish family that lost so many souls in the Holocaust, this genealogical rediscovery is life-affirming. It actually says to us that we will go on. We will survive.

But I think that her hobby has devolved into some form of theatre of the absurd. This past weekend, she must have had some time on her hands. For reasons known only to her, she sent The Husband an email detailing that she had found a link between him and Twin Son.

**Some history is required. I had very good reasons for dubbing The Husband's partner and best friend Twin Son. Aside from sharing a name, (both first and middle) the two of them are so very much alike in character and demeanour. The business that they started together grew out of mutual loves and interests. I initially called them Twin Sons of Different Mothers and his nickname grew from there.**

But...related? Um...no!

Until Sunday, that is.

She sent the following link from her genealogy search. I have blacked out the names to protect the guilty. Because I really suck at all things photoshop, I was unable to fix one detail. This line is from her perspective, so she is the "you" at the head of the profile. If you put The Husband in that slot, and substitute "your wife" (that's me) for "your husband" (that's my Lil' Bro) as the second connection, the rest is absolutely equal.

If you are having trouble reading the connection as ascribed at the top it goes like this.

Twin Son is your wife's first cousin twice removed's wife's niece's husband's uncle's wife's nephew.

Read it again.

And again.

Got it yet?

No?

Me neither.

I have read the f***ing thing dozens of times and I still don't get it. 

The only thing that this absurdity proves conclusively is that all Jews, no matter who they are, are related to one another. Yup. We have finally achieved maximum redneckedness. We are all marrying our cousins and there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it. Bring on those genetically-infused diseases. We are obviously a doomed species. 

I think that this stupidity shows unquestionably that we have reached peak saturation when it comes to social media. When we all can categorically state that we are Twin Sons of Different Mothers it is time to give up the ghost.  

My Facebook Diet

For the past week, I have been on a Facebook diet. Not a fast nor a total abstention, mind you. A diet.

You see, lately I have noticed a more intensive polluting of my Facebook feed. I have been dismayed by the level of mindless shares, toxic discourse, junk science, and disheartening advertisements that have grown exponentially on the site. I thought that if I could dramatically cut back on my postings and instead become an acute observer of what was developing on my homepage, I might begin to bring Facebook back to a level where I once again feel comfortable in engaging. I really wanted to become a leaner, sleeker, better informed user of the product, so I decided to conduct a little experiment.

For one week I didn't "like" anything on Facebook. Nothing. Nada. Rien. I didn't wish anybody a Happy Birthday with the exception of Younger Son which I managed by way of a photographic post. (If I missed your birthday this week, I apologize and wish you all good health and many many more!) I didn't share a single article, blog post, (mine or anybody else's) newspaper article, and with only one exception last evening, I didn't post a single status update. I did post pictures relating to my latest strange obsession, bird watching, but I limited them to one per day. I did engage in a few short conversations on those particular photos and I did visit the site often in order to observe what was happening on my feed.

Here are a few things that littered said feed this week that I pointedly avoided.

• The Grammys
• Kanye West vs Beck
• Brian Williams
• Jon Stewart
• Measles
• Anti-Vaxers
• Bibi's congressional speech
• Bibi's perhaps cancelling of his congressional speech
• Rob Ford
• John Baird
• Stephen Harper
• Barack Obama
• GMOs, Gluten, Toxins that might be invading my foods, vitamins, makeup, or beverages
• American Sniper
• Stupid or Cute Cat, Dog, or any other animal videos
• Animal rights stories
• Sun News
• 50 Shades of Grey and BDSM (Thank God!)
• The Leafs (Are they still playing?)
• Stories that were clearly anti-Islam, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-religion, anti-liberal, anti-conservative, anti-democrat, anti-republican or anti-anything.

And that is only a small sampling. There is not a single thing on this list that I feel as though I missed out on, but I did learn a great deal.

Here are a few of my observations after a week of Facebook dieting.

It is clear that there are some individuals who are all about sharing other source's content rather than creating their own. When I first started using Facebook, I was excited to have a social conversation with friends and family. I loved the reconnections. I loved the photos and the catching up. Sharing the odd article of interest is certainly part of that conversation, but many people on my feed are sharing 20 or more posts from outside sites or other users a day. A day! That level of sharing is going to dilute anything of value that you may wish to convey, because believe me, I will, and have already begun to ignore you. If you are one of these people who over-share other people's content rather than create your own, you probably have been muted in my feed.

Avoiding the "Like" button, even for a few days, has certainly led to an increase in the diversity of posts I am seeing. I know absolutely nothing about algorithms and the manner in which they function, (that's math, right?) but I do know that being more judicious in my "liking" has cleaned up some of the more distasteful ads on my feed. If I haven't "liked" your posts this week, please know that I probably really did. I will most likely go back to "liking" certain things, but I will be far more attentive as to when I press that insidious little button.

Too many of us are lazy users. If Facebook is to function properly, it requires the collective masses to have a basic working knowledge of how it works. Today, a friend posted that Miep Gies, the lady who helped Anne Frank, had passed away. The problem? She died four years ago. A closer reading of the date of the article would have cleared up the confusion, but this friend didn't take the time. It happens with old photos and statuses as well. Please take care not to "like" a photo that is older than three months. All it takes is one person and the damn thing jumps to the top of everybody's feeds.....AGAIN! Just look at the top left hand corner of the post to discern the date and be careful what you are "liking".

By thinking more carefully about my own postings, I became far more conscious about things and opinions that might have been better left unsaid by many. That was a difficult lesson for an opinionated b**** like me, but it was a very worthwhile one. Look, I am fairly open, honest, and vocal about my preferences and interests. You can read all about them right here in this space. But, I refuse to get drawn into hateful discussions with trolls who clearly revel in their anonymity on social media in order to advance an agenda. If you have expectations that you might possibly be able to bring me around to your position,  I will only engage if the conversations contain meaningful, rational, and polite debate. If you cannot follow these simple rules, you are blocked. Facebook is supposed to be fun. It has become less so.

Facebook is an amazing tool. It affords introverts like me an opportunity to interconnect while maintaining a safe environment in which we feel comfortable. But it has lost it's focus and it is up to us, the individual users to bring it back to a place of usefulness. There is much that I love about the site, but I have learned a small amount of judiciousness goes a long way.

Be wise, be wary, and be careful.

That said....I saw a black swan today. No picture, so no Facebook post, but it was just as exciting.

Facebook and Tomato Sandwiches

I invited myself to lunch yesterday with a couple of dear friends.

It started when one of the girls posted a picture on social media of her gloriously ripening backyard tomatoes and the rest just took care of itself. It seems that we all have a fondness for fresh tomato sandwiches on challah, made with just a hint of mayonnaise, basil, and some wonderful cheese. (Lactose free, of course.) My mouth is still in saliva overdrive.

I have to say that it was a wonderful diversion from the myriad of "stuff" plaguing us all. For two lovely hours, we just sat in the sun, consumed the aforementioned delicacy, and chatted. Somehow, in the middle of it all we got to talking about the ills of social media, ironically the very thing that made our lunch yesterday possible.

I have been thinking a great deal about the collective misery that we have been witness to this summer. The horrors in the Middle East, the nightmare in Ferguson, the loss of iconic celebrities, ebola, the bullshit being spewed during this Toronto municipal election campaign, and the crappy weather have all made for a rather soul-crushing season. And social media, especially Facebook, has contributed mightily to much of the ugly discourse.

Social media can be a wonderful tool, but it is just that...a tool. It cannot and should never be a substitute for critical thinking or fact checking. Source material of suspect origin has invaded our feeds and what has me concerned is just how many of us have abdicated our social responsibility to the greater good by passing on trash, rumours, innuendo, and spam. It is dangerous and difficult to undo. Author Terry Pratchett once famously wrote, “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” We have a duty to every single person to whom we are connected, to do our homework before carelessly posting and pushing that share button.

I loved the frivolousness of our lunch yesterday. It reminded me of the best parts of social media. Connections. We sometimes lose sight of those connections in our busyness. I am not for a minute advocating dismissing social media from our lives, (there is a genie/bottle metaphor in there somewhere) merely to temper it with a few ripening tomato photos and a stupid status update now and again. It might just lower the ulcer-inducing discourse a wee bit.