Camping helps family stay strong
Three weeks before our family campout, we start packing.
This involves six separate tents, as well as clothes for the entire weekend. I have nine siblings and we camp with our kids, gathering on the property of my dad's home in Kahalu'u, where the ocean is our back yard.
It's a time for our family to rebond, and it's also a time to teach the younger generation to respect the ocean.
Grandma (that's me!) comes armed with two grandsons and their scoop nets and buckets. They are both 3 years old. Iolani has a courageous heart and, if you let him, he would rope a shark and ride its back. Nainoah, on the other hand, is a tender heart; when told to scoop the crab, he threw the net in my hands and shouted, "You do it!"
They are taught that you only catch what you eat and a small catch must be returned to "his mama." On our last trip, for Memorial Day, Nainoah had released his two small catches, so when I instructed him to return his next catch he replied, "But Grandma, it's the papa!" We had his catch for lunch.
We started to camp because I thought our family was drifting apart. The kids were isolating themselves with television and electronic games and developing bad attitudes. We have so many kids and the arguments over whose turn it was to choose the TV programs, or who gets to sit in the favorite chair was driving me up the wall, every day! In one desperate swoop, I threw out five of our television sets. Yes, five — one for every room.
It had amazing results. The kids started to talk instead of yelling at each other. Communication grew by leaps and bounds, books were being read and the biggest wonder of all was that their grades were improving! The spirit of peace and family had entered into our home again.
The idea of camping was born, a family time. Yes, it takes a lot of planning, but the excitement and the joy that fills our home is worth it. Labor Day camp is just around the corner; time to get packing ... Wait! Did we finish the laundry from last camp? Yikes!
A. Lee Totten, mother of 11, has adopted seven foster children.
