Parenting Failure: Greatest Hits

On Family Camp, humility, and the line we’ll never live down

I’ve touched on the seven summers my family spent at Family Camp before, but today I feel pulled to tell the story in more detail, because nestled among all the goodness is what we still call our most spectacular parenting fail.

Starting when our older kids were eight and six, the four of us would pile into the minivan at the end of each summer and head to Family Camp. It was held on the grounds of a rustic sailing camp for kids ages seven to fifteen. After the regular campers went home, the counselors stayed to host a week for families. Each family was assigned their own “cabin,” which was really just a screened-in porch with rows of bunk beds covered in rubber mattresses (for lice and pee prevention, of course), and a bathroom with four toilet stalls and four showers.

And it was hot. August in the South hot.

Meals were served family-style in a giant mess hall, and while no one came for the food, the sense of togetherness made up for it. During camper weeks, no technology was allowed. And while Family Camp didn’t officially ban screens, we all put our phones away anyway. Our days were spent bouncing between waterskiing, tennis, archery, ziplining, sailing, swimming, racing down waterslides, or flinging each other off a giant floating blob, a children’s toy I still consider more dangerous than a guillotine.

There were no substances allowed, even for parents. Every evening brought a structured activity: a giant game of capture the flag, a camp-wide “talent” show, or a roaring bonfire filled with earnest, off-key singing.

It was wholesome. Embarrassingly so.

So wholesome, in fact, that one year my friends and I wrote a parody camp song called I Care About My Kids, Not For Them. We were kidding. Mostly. But the tension behind the joke was real. We came to camp to spend quality time with our children, but also, we all craved time away from them. We wanted to be happy and engaged parents, but also, we wanted our own down time.

That was the tension that contributed to our greatest and most family-infamous, spectacular parenting fail.

Every night, after the kids went to bed, the adults would pull out folding chairs and gather outside the bunks to talk, laugh, and decompress. If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll let you in on a little secret. An occasional glass of warm wine that had been hiding in a locker was brought out. Most of the kids were gone at the late-night movie, which always followed the evening snack. That particular night, our youngest decided to skip the movie and go to bed early.

But twenty minutes later, once we had begun the nighttime unwind, he changed his mind.

Perhaps overwhelmed by FOMO, our overtired boy came outside in his pajamas and announced that he wanted to go to the movie after all. But my husband and I were already settled in, finally off duty, enjoying the company of eight of our closest friends. We told him he had missed the window. It was too late.

He begged. We told him he could go on his own.

He hesitated. It was dark. He didn’t want to walk there alone.

We looked at each other. Neither of us moved.

“No,” we said again. “You had your chance.”

That’s when he started to cry. And that’s when my husband, utterly exhausted from a full day of physical play and emotional presence, said the line we still remember with a wince (and a giggle):

“All the others walked there on their own. Why do you get to decide now? Do you think you’re special? You’re not special.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew.

He apologized. He made amends. He lay with our son until he fell asleep, soothed and forgiven. But you can’t unring a bell. Especially not when there are eight horrified witnesses who will never let you live it down.

And here’s the thing: our kids are special to us. But we don’t want them to think that means they always deserve special treatment. That night, we got the message wrong. And also, we stumbled into something true. Parenting is full of these paradoxes. We want our children to feel deeply loved and uniquely valued. We also want them to learn they are not the center of the universe.

In the bigger picture, we are not special. And that’s a good thing.

In fact, in our family, “you’re not special” became an inside joke. We say it lovingly, often followed by a smirk or a hug. The message isn’t that you don’t matter. It’s that you don’t matter more. It’s a reminder of humility, of connection, of shared space on this crowded planet.

One year, we even made matching T-shirts for both our family and the one of the families we were with that night. Each shirt had our last names and the phrase “You’re Not Special” printed across the front.

It was our way of turning a parenting lowlight into a family classic.

And honestly? A parenting win.

I’m thinking of making this a series, Parenting Failure: Greatest Hits. Because there have been others. Oh, there have definitely been others.

Want to hear more of mine? What are some of yours?

Let’s normalize the mess, the missteps, and the moments we’d rather forget, but probably never will.