.SOMETIMES RAW.

Welcome to Dream Summer Camp, where we are here for you and your family. We offer tailored camp experiences for your child, individualized for their and your specific needs.

Camp Hours
Drop-off and pick-up times are 7:00 a.m. to whenever you need. Our camp director will work around you.

Pricing
Dream Summer Camp weeks start the moment your child’s school year ends. Each week costs 100 Euro. For families with two children at camp, the sibling discount is half-price. Families with three or more kids are entitled to a financial scholarship and our deepest sympathies. For an additional 25 Euro per week, our air-conditioned Wi-Fi-equipped buses will come to your home, and a camp counsellor will help get your child dressed and out the door, before you are late for a morning meeting.

Activities
If your child is averse to the outdoors and physical activity, we provide a plethora of indoor games to wear them out. Our guarantee: they come home exhausted and ready to sleep, or we stay and put them to bed ourselves. Each week, we also offer themed spirit days—such as Star Wars Day, Guardians of the Galaxy Day, Groot Day, Crazy Hair Day, Crazy Socks Day—and supply every camper with the appropriate attire and/or crazy socks or outfits, because asking you, the parent, to do it all would be crazy.

Every day, we offer a fun arts-and-crafts activity to campers. Even better than our endless art supply closet, we have a museum-sized warehouse for all the arts and crafts our campers create. You can visit the archives when your child wants to show you their artwork, but we are responsible for storing handmade pottery, art projects made out of popsicle sticks, animal-based sculptures, and that thing made out of feathers.

Registration
Registration begins the moment you remember you have to register for summer camp. We do not offer a waitlist because every family is guaranteed a spot for the exact weeks and times you need.

What to Bring
Nothing! We provide all the essentials your camper will need, including sunscreen that our counsellors are specially trained to apply so quickly your child won’t even notice they’ve briefly stopped playing capture the flag.

Dietary Requests
Our thoughtfully prepared organic, nutritious meals are disguised in French fries, cheese pizza, and ice cream. Does your kid hate tomato sauce? Anything squishy? Snacks bought in bulk? Our fully stocked pantry accommodates every camper’s diet.

Lost and Found
If your child has misplaced a water bottle, favourite article of clothing, or that object that is suddenly super important to them, our entire camp is enchanted by an ancient spell that immediately returns said lost item to your home.

Cancellation Policy
If you need to cancel, for any reason, such as your child suddenly deciding horseback riding camp is the worst idea ever, you are entitled to a full refund, a full-time babysitter until September, and one social-media-ready photo of your child at camp where it looks like they are having the best summer ever.

You are welcome.

Do not try to engage or bond with them over anything young people like.

I have a TikTok account, and its sole purpose is for watching TikToks that other people send me; I will never be participating in a single challenge or posting a video of myself of any kind. I know to leave that to the experts: beautiful teens with no screen-time restrictions. I did download the app because I don’t want to be “the old woman” watching TikTok on a browser, especially since I was already “old” not knowing how to make TikTok videos, and I got roasted by some teens at the playground. Kids YouTube? No idea what they are doing over there! I am sure there are other platforms kids use that I have no idea even exist and I like it that way. They should have their shit and I should not have to learn new shit. Let me save you from the heartbreak caused by the withing look on your child’s friends’ faces when you attempt to make small talk about anything invented in the last ten years: don’t!

Never earnestly ask for their opinions on literally anything you enjoy.

Have you ever been watching the most incredible movie of your life? The kind of movie where you are saying to yourself, “I can’t believe they made this movie. It is so perfect. I love it so much. How did I get so lucky to find this movie.” You call your best friend about it, and you text your other friends about it so they start watching it and for a time you make this movie your entire personality because that is how exhilarating you feel about it, and then a kid walks by the television and glances at it for a millisecond, then goes, “Ew, what are you watching? Ha, it looks like it suuuuuucksssss,” and you suddenly feel like you just took a shotgun blast to the chest? Yeah, me neither.

Do not mention their body ever, in any capacity, and try not to notice that they even have a body.

Yes, teenagers need to bathe or shower but don’t tell them that. Also, they know their hair looks like that. Don’t say shit about it, because the look they will give you in response could melt steel, just know that they know and they are choosing for it to be that way. I can pretty easily access my most hurt teenage feelings, and I remember someone telling me that my makeup and choice of clothing looked bad. Also the black “20 cm Buffalo” plateau shoes. What was I even thinking? My parents told me they suck. Did I listen? The way they dress is supposed to be confusing and upsetting to you, and the only way to deal with it is to pretend they are a hologram.

Repress your need to argue and/or be right.

They will never submit. You will never make your point. They will never concede your victory. They will write off your arguments as old-fashioned and claim that everything you know came from a textbook written in 1950, even though you just learned it five minutes ago from a pastel-coloured social media uplifter your friend shared online on Instagram. Their information is FRESH and CURRENT and their ideas are NEW and HOT and are courtesy of a young man on YouTube YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ABOUT BUT HE’S THE TRUTH. Reconcile yourself to this now: all the ways you do things and everything you believe is old and wrong, and your best year was 1997 before they were even born so hang it up and let them lead the way. Kids have endless amounts of energy, especially the ones with no real problems. What I am going to do is walk away and remind myself that all these years I wandered this earth, my experience, and my twenty plus years school eduction and endless degrees are apparently completely outdated before screaming into a pillow, then biting into it while swallowing some feathers.

“McDonald’s? Sure why not!!!!!”

JUST SAY THAT.

Pretend you are not bothered by noise.

I bought these fancy iPod earplugs that are “discreet” and claim to reduce noise by twenty-five to twenty-seven decibels. And no, I don’t know what those words mean, but the science doesn’t even matter, I just need to hear less. Less Minecraft, less punching, less arguing, less Naruto, less starting a rock band, less begging for Nintendo coins, less shrieking, less “Mom?” -ing, less door slamming, less ringing phones, less text messages, less people at the door, less crying, LESS EVERYTHING. Unless it is something I want to hear, like a door closing when people leave. Okay, but here is my advice: yes, I have tried noise-cancelling headphones, and I have a couple of pairs of the good ones that actually work, but the thing about them is if people see them on your head they are like, “Oh, she is just listening to some dumb eighties metal song. It is fine to interrupt.” The key is, even if you want to stab your own ears out, it won’t work. That’s why you need to spend 4,000,000 million euros on good earplugs. So that you can sit unbothered through an actual hurricane if need be while looking like you don’t have a care in the world, especially if that hurricane is named: “Opa bought me a drum kit.”

Do not give them any books or ask if they read books.

You will be disappointed every single time. Even if you hand a teenager a book called “Mc Donalds is the healthiest food on earth” or whatever shit kids care about, they will look at you as if you are offering them a steaming pile of your own excrements. But it is just a book. When I was fourteen, I would have taken a book a grown-up gave me and carried it around like a talisman until it disintegrated in my hands but this was in the time before cellular phones, and no one knew what binge-watching was yet.

Do not expect thanks for literally any kindness you show them.

If a tree falls on a teenage boy and you walk by and lift it off him, saving his life, just walk away without saying a word and buy yourself a beer, because the acknowledgement or gratitude you might expect will never come, and if you stand towering over him, and ask for it, you will look like an insolent ingrate.

Don’t talk to their friends!

Unless they talk to you first. I asked one of my sometimes in-home children if they enjoy talking to adults, and the answer was a resounding NO. That gave me such a gratifying feeling, knowing that my silence and gentle hostility was a welcome reprieve from all the “Hey, how was school? Did you guys learn anything cool?” conversations forced on them by other adults. The neighbourhood kids were eating dinner here one evening and I heard one tell the other in a hushed, reverential voice, “Don’t be so loud, Joel’s mom is in a bad mood.” I don’t think I had said more than hello to this kid in weeks and yet: deference and respect for my tight-lipped, hateful exterior that day.

Swallow that story about how “it used to be.”

The most surprising thing I have learned about myself is how quickly I find the phrase “when I was a kid” trying to claw its way from between my anxiously clenched teeth. I know that when your parents hit you with the “back in my day…” your eyes would roll up to your brain and your ears would seal themselves shut, and you swore that once you were an adult, you would never even think about saying something like that to an impressionable youth, but I am going to come to your poor mother’s defence and say that a kid will look you dead in your face in a room that you work a soul-deadening job you hate to pay all the bills to tell you that you couldn’t possibly understand how hard their life is. How hard can it possibly be to do some extra maths or grammar lessons or read a fucking book for pleasure? At least that’s what I think, but I don’t say that, because you know what? They don’t care and it’s fine. That trauma is meant to ruin the rest of my life, not some innocent’s, so why waste my breath recounting the torment of trying to do division longhand when I could just go talk to some grapes about it?

Play your music loud in the car.

Play whatever it is you like listening to at a skull-fracturing volume, especially if the parents of the kids you are shuffling between swimming lessons and basketball lessons are no-music-in-the-car-people. I always feel so much pressure in a quiet news car, like okay, we are going to sit at this red light pretending we care about the latest we-are-sorry-but-the-Cvaccine-was-bs news? No way, turn that easy listening up. Even bumping your soft shit at the very least makes you cooler than the people your age who don’t. I am not kidding, I pull up to a sleepover blasting the new Rammstein album and the kids stare in awe like, “FUCK!!!! Joel’s mom is cool!”

Get Tattoos.

No easier way to look like the front singer of Sons of Anarchy than to cover yourself in skulls and tombstones and other garbage that makes you look like you don’t care if you live or die, which, I am sorry, automatically makes you cool as hell. I am not sure how many tattoos I have, either 42 or 349. All kids see and need to know is that I am carefree and reckless and willing and that they will destroy their future employment prospects when getting a face tattoo. Have you ever met some uptight person but then found out that they have tattoos, and that makes you want to be their best friend? That’s the power of randomly picking a piece of shitty body art off a wall and having it stabbed into your skin, where it will remain for the rest of your life: you can make friends, terrify your enemies, and one day overhear a seventh grader say, “She won’t make eye contact with me or listen when I talk, but she looks really scary and cool.”

*Honest advice for anyone with a job

I have had two main jobs in the past eighteen years and have followed a somewhat linear pattern: law enforcement. My career decisions have been based on a) desperation b) spontaneity and c) curiosity. Because of my experience, friendliness and many years in service, I have met a lot of awesome people and gathered knowledge from different cultures, environments and roles. I have spent time with people from all areas of life and countries. All stages of their careers allow me to understand, learn and observe how they do what they do. Or not do.

There are numerous unspoken rules that exist in the world of work. I will considerately share them in this article, so you don’t have to go through the trouble I have had. Just know I have suffered for you. I can write about making mistakes, failing, blagging, bullshitting, saying the wrong things, and doing the wrong things because I have been there. I am guilty of practically everything you are about to read. Head held high, I can admit I have embarrassed myself a lot, I have got myself into some humiliating situations and I have made questionable decisions or said the wrong things at the wrong time. (Story of my life!) On the other hand, I have surprised and impressed myself too.

This article will provide you with the insights that I wish I would have had at the start of my career, but make no mistake, they never stop being helpful, no matter what stage you are at in life.

1. No One Knows What They Are Doing. Neither Should You. Everyone makes it up as they go along. You don’t have to have all the answers to do a good job.
2. You Will Have Regrets. We are told not to have regrets, but I have a bucketful. But if you learn from them (which I did), they can actually be useful experiences.
3. Learn the Art of Bullshitting: There are three types of people in the world. a) those who bullshit, b) those who believe other people’s bullshit and c) those who believe their own bullshit (aim to be here!)
4. Everyone’s Creative, Even You. If you are feeling particularly uncreative, switch up your environment. A lack of inspiration is external, not internal. Remember: No one gives a shit about you.
5. There is nothing Wrong With Wanting to Make Money. But happiness should be your priority, and you can’t buy it. If you are not happy within yourself, you will remain that way whether you are in a Lamborghini or a Fiat Panda. You cannot heal an open wound with a 100 Euro note.
6. The World is Full of Assholes. Approximately 8 % (This is a made-up statistic. But from past experience, I am sure it’s pretty accurate) of people in every office are assholes, unpleasant characters with a lot of shit on their shoulders. The challenge is not to become one.
7. A Fat Lie: Many of us were raised to believe we could be anything we wanted. That anything we set our minds to is achievable. Unfortunately, the real world is tough and unpredictable. Sometimes working hard isn’t enough. Opportunities don’t come knocking at your door, you have to go out and find them. Have a little self-compassion and don’t knock on your boss’s door to sleep with him.
8. Don’t Work for Free. Internships are a great way of making new connections and gaining valuable experience but beware of working for free. When you start out, you will find people will ask you favors because “it will look good on your CV”. The choice is yours, but just because you are inexperienced doesn’t mean your time isn’t worth something.
9. The C-Word. “Career” belongs in the past. Think of it as “jumping between ladders”, instead of climbing up the same one.
10. You Will Be Disappointed. Often, something unexpected happens and everything goes downhill. It is good to reserve a bit of room for setbacks, and when things do go the way you had hoped, you will be that much more appreciative.
11. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others. We all have different journeys and we are all operating at different speeds.
12. Never Say “Think Outside the Box”. What box? Why are you thinking inside a box? There are no excuses and no exceptions; if you catch yourself saying this you might as well lock yourself in a box and never come out.
13. Everyone’s faking it. The moment powerful words are plucked from the dictionary and used to sound important in emails they lose their meaning. Watch your words. Really consider what you are saying and writing and avoid the predictable jargon and lazy clickés.
14. Fuck up and Fail. Make all the mistakes. You have got to b bad before you get good. The faster you fuck up, the faster you will learn the lesson. Not fucking up is actually worse. But at some point, stop fucking up because after some time you really look dumb.
15. You are a Walking/Talking Billboard of you. It takes under two seconds for someone to form an opinion of you, without even opening your mouth. A mushroom T-shirt with soy sauce stains isn’t helping people take you seriously.
16. Use Your Time Wisely. Time is the one thing you can’t get back. Consider it a currency and spend it well.
17. Your Education Doesn’t Mean Shit. Glowing exam results, impressive qualifications, or the fact you did X, Y, or Z before do not decide how successful you will be later in life.
18. High Intention and low expectations on Success, Destiny, Luck, and Money
19. Remain as flexible as possible: Your only concerns are the things you can control – your thoughts and actions.
20. Things pass, it’s just one thing after another. Don’t work so hard to impress people.
21. Assumption Is the Mother of All Fuckups. Ask, clarify, ask again.
22. Having an opinion is Important: Because it shows you are passionate, demonstrates critical thinking, provokes healthy debates, Invites new discussions, and encourages others to share their own views.
23. Know what’s Going On: Have a vague idea of what’s happening in the world, so you don’t look like an ignorant airhead
24. There are Lots of Bad Bosses Out There: Just because they are your boss doesn’t mean they are a good role model or leader. Shitty bosses lead to unhappy employees and an unhealthy work environment. If your office has issues you can usually point to the people at the top. There is something about authority going to a person’s head, metamorphosing them into bad-tempered bastards on a power trip.
25. People Will Judge You: They will always find something not to like. So, you might as well embrace everything about yourself, flaws and all. You do you, haters gonna hate.
26. Sick Days: Sometimes the idea of going to work might be too unbearable. When this happens, I suggest you call in sick, take the day off. Every once in a while, we must all succumb to a “chronic migraine”. This, my friend, is a healthy white lie. It is just another way of making sure you are looking after yourself. And, don’t feel guilty; everyone does it at some point.
27. Work is not Life: You need to establish some boundaries. Period!
28. Don’t be a Dick: Those people gain nothing from their stinky attitude. These people go about their dickish daily lives oblivious to the display of middle fingers targeted behind their backs. Be equally pleasant to everyone, from the window cleaner to the boss.
29. On Language: The job is to do the right thing for the client, not the right thing for your creativity. Put your romantic ideas aside and say what you need to say in the most effective way. If you are going to argue, do it as if you are presenting a case in court – it must be balanced and measured, not emotional.
30. Always Be Prepared. Shit happens. Deal with it.
31. Never Say the F-Word: Companies that refer to themselves as a “family” are usually disguising something. This is most likely code for “everyone’s secretly miserable and our culture is toxic”. It’s a clever leadership tactic, leading to employees working for free and staying way beyond their contracted hours, all in the name of family loyalty.
32. Tips for Not Losing Your Goddamn Mind: Try not to eat your lunch at your desk. Don’t get involved in work drama. Headphones are handy for drowning out the voices of people you hate.
33. Speak Up: Following the crowd is lame. Blending in is boring. Care passionately about what matters to you and project it proudly.
34. It is cool to Be Proud of Yourself: Sharing your success is part of the reward of hard work and it should never feel like boasting. If those around you make you feel guilty or ashamed for tooting your own horn, then you might want to explore new friendship horizons. Don’t be sheepish, you deserve to be proud of your accomplishments. The same goes for praising others for their achievements too; don’t be stingy.
35. Work/Life-Balance: Are you neglecting your relationship/family because you are so consumed with work? Do you find yourself cancelling plans with friends and family in favour of staying in the office to finish that really important thing? If this happens more than you would like or more than it should, either: a) invite your family to your office for a sleepover, b) re-evaluate your priorities and make some changes or c) get a new job.
36. Vagus, Baby! The vagus nerve runs down your torso, connecting your brain and your gut. When we get that sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach, it is our brain communicating that something isn’t quite right. The next time your tummy starts rumbling (unless it is hunger or stomach ache from last night’s takeout), consider what could be subconsciously bothering you.
37. Ask “Why” because you are curious.
38. Don’t Hand in Your Notice Until You Have a Backup Plan. No matter how much you despise your office and detest everyone and everything within it, ride it out until you have another viable option.
39. No Job is Worth Your Sanity. When you start losing sleep and your health begins to suffer, maybe you should consider a Plan B
40. There is no such thing as a perfect job. Don’t forget to have fun and laugh (about the insanities at work).