Growing up with a stay-at-home mom and a 9-5 working dad my summers were spent outdoors playing with friends.  We took the canoe to the middle of the lake and turned it over and swam until we were water-logged.  We rode our bikes until our legs were like jelly.  We built tree houses and forts.  Played hide-and-go-seek and football in the street.  We left our homes when the sun came up and didn't come home until it was setting...or hunger pains set in. 

But that was then. 

Now, I work outside the home while my husband works from home balancing care giving to our 11-year-old daughter and his nursing home-bound dad.  Even though we live in a gated community we have not and will not ever send her out to play for the day.  We watch her walk to and from play dates with the neighbor kids.  It wasn't until we got her a cell phone that we would even allow her to ride her bike around the block with a group of friends and no adults. It's not that we are paranoid.  Well, maybe we are a little.  It is that the world is different.  It is simply not as safe.  People are not as trustworthy.

So summers for her can't be like they were for me.  And I've made peace with that.  She gets the benefit of a variety of summertime experiences I never knew, and a few I did.  Like me, she does Vacation Bible School and visits her cousins.  She sleeps in and swims all afternoon. Unlike me, she is going to several camps that fuel her various passions--dogs, drama, mystery solving/puzzles, writing and cooking.  When she grows up, summer may mean something different for her children.  And that's okay, too. 

How is your kids summer different from or the same as the ones you remember?  How do you feel about that?