Moms paying pros $1,000 to pack their kids for camp

New York Post ^ | May 23, 2014 | Tara Palmeri

[grundle]

Professional organizer Barbara Reich demonstrates her bag-packing prowess.

So much for roughing it!

New York City mommies with money to burn are hiring professional organizers to pack their kids’ trunks for summer camp — because their darlings can’t live without their 1,000-thread-count sheets.

Barbara Reich of Resourceful Consultants says she and other high-paid neat freaks have been inundated with requests — and the job is no small feat.

It takes three to four hours to pack for clients who demand that she fit all of the comforts of home in the luggage, including delicate touches like French-milled soaps and scented candles.

At $250 an hour, the cost for a well-packed kid can run $1,000.

“I talked three people off the camp ledge,” Reich told The Post. “For a lot of mothers, particularly when their child is going away for the first time, it’s very stressful. Clients will say, ‘I need to touch and feel the sheets for softness.’ ”

“But these are the kinds of things they can control. They’re paying $10,000 for sleep-away camp, so they shouldn’t feel so bad for their child.”

Two years ago, she had one trunk request. Last year, she had five trunks, and this year, she has packed 10 trunks — and it’s not even Memorial Day.

Professional organizer Dayna Brandoff of Chaos Theory has at least four camp-packing requests on the books and expects at least 15 more in June.

Some of her clients have requested she recreate their child’s bedroom so they can feel completely at ease in their air-conditioned bunks.

[ladyjane]

Yes, totally a non-story. One of the ‘organizers’ probably has a publicist who arranged for it or maybe one of the organizers is her sister-in-law.

You make a good point about the money spent by the wealthy to walk the dog, clean the pool, polish the silver, oversee the trust funds.

I am always surprised at the attitudes here toward the rich. “They’re lazy” and “they didn’t build that” is the domain of Democrats who think anybody with money is bad and either stole it or somehow cheated to get it.

[Lurker]

As a matter of fact I do mow my own lawn. Mrs L enjoys trimming and the like.

We do our own laundry, except for dry cleaning.

We clean our own house.

We walk our own dogs.

When our son went to Boy Scout summer camp he packed his own gear. What he didn’t have he did without and made darned sure he had it the next year.

And we manage to do all of this while both working full time jobs.

I’m all for the entrepreneurial sprit here. I firmly believe that the stupid and the lazy need to be separated from their money, honestly of course.

But the folks are flat lazy. Good on the woman who is clipping them.

[Tax-chick]

But you'd still have to send them somewhere on the weekends. Maybe there's an app for that?

I think there are employees to cover the weekends.

We went to a "camp fair" a few years ago and got information about all kinds of summer programs, including some of the high-end, all-summer camps. My sons thought it would be fun, but we don't have that kind of money.

Two of my teenagers are on staff at Boy Scout camps this summer, which is almost like going to an 8-week camp, and they even get paid a bit.

[kearnyirish2]

“One of the ‘organizers’ probably has a publicist who arranged for it or maybe one of the organizers is her sister-in-law.”

My thoughts exactly when I see such a strange story (when so many more important issues could be discussed)...

The whole idea that rich people got their money by cheating others (including workers) goes back to Marx himself. The American people (including many FReepers) are in denial about the de facto communist revolution that has been going on since the financial collapse; a communist has won the White House in the two national elections since. Across the Hudson River from me NYC has elected a communist mayor; while the media won’t refer to Obama & DeBlasio as communists they trumpet their very obviously communist positions.

The media won’t honestly discuss how destroying the profit motive has killed the economy (as it does in all communist countries); work itself has been completely marginalized, and worker harder for additional income is nearly impossible now for most. The wealthy would do well to hunker down and protect their wealth, the Reds (Democrats) are whipping their masses into a frenzy about them EVERY DAY.

[lowbridge]

Huh. Rich kids camps.

As a kid, my family was dirt poor. The only camps I went to (against my will) were camps for poor kids, run by charitable organizations that cost us nothing. But then what do you get at a cheap, free of charge camp for poor kids? Surly, abusive counselors, lousy food (just oatmeal and a hard boiled egg for breakfast each and every morning for the entire month), sleep in a cabin with 30 strangers, on a mattress that has been urine stained by campers of previous summers, empty promises of hikes, trips, campfires, and horseback riding (never lay your eyes on a horse, much less get to ride one) and total boredom.

Spit.

[CorporateStepsister]

At the risk of being flamed, these are the types of mothers who are SAHM (stay at home mothers) who went from their parent’s bank account to that of their husbands and never learned resourcefulness or self sufficiency or anything like that. So frankly these women are essentially silly little kids with adult bodies and adult bank accounts.

They don’t have to learn coping skills and to them, to their delicate psyche, they can’t handle one simple stinking thing. So as far as I’m concerned, I understand why most successful men get sick of them and leave them after so many years. Tired of the same silliness, the hesitant delicacy, the relentless paying for high paying beauty treatments, spas, therapy because they have such a good life that they literally WANT to find something to complain about.

This is kind of why I don’t really sympathize when I hear about how a high level exec leaves his wife. Usually the wife is essentially a fully grown ‘child’ who spends his money, socializes, and spends much of her time pawning the kid off to a nanny while pushing the cook and maid around.

[itssme]

That is certainly hot weather. It was in and out of the house during the summer, breakfast, then out the door & into our big yard to play with our friends. Then it was inside to get a cold drink, then lunch and out again we'd go. And then when we'd hear our mothers calling us by name for dinner, and it was time to go home. After dinner, we'd go back out and play, till evening, when it was cooler and we'd then sit on someone’s front porch steps, or the concrete stoop in from of someone’s 4 flat, as we'd talk and laugh under the glow of the street light. And then it was 9pm and time to go home. That's how it was in Chicago in the eary 50s.

[itssme]

The women you're describing are SAHM for our time. Back in the 40s and 50s, stay at home moms and working fathers were the norm. Our moms came from working class families and learned from their mothers on how to maintain a home, cook, clean, care for their husbands & children, save their money & manage the finances, and what our moms didn't learn from their moms, they learned by doing. And we kids had our grandmothers to lend a hand when moms needed help with sick children.

I agree with you. The women you describe, such as those you see on TV’s Real Housewives of whereever, are empty, shallow, moneyed, constantly looking for luxury, fun, liquor, and disgusting, grossly crude & rude behavior. What role models they are for their children. And the men who marry them are no better. They know what they want & can afford them, so they're both getting what they want.

These are ugly, dangerous times to be alive, and the frantic, frenzy that women and men go through to obtain the biggest, the best, the most expensive, the most impressive lifestyle money can buy, isn't being envied by those of us who lived in simpler times, when morals and values meant something. I don't envy these women whatsoever.

[VanShuyten]

Ten grand for camp?!? I can take the kid on a road trip and teach him all the computer science or biology or survival skills or whatever the camp is about and make 5 grand. And the kid will have great stories to tell.

Sign me up.

[CorporateStepsister]

“the frantic, frenzy that women and men go through to obtain the biggest, the best, the most expensive, the most impressive lifestyle money can buy, isn’t being envied by those of us who lived in simpler times, when morals and values meant something. I don’t envy these women whatsoever.”

Neither to I, I in fact view them as upper class mistresses with a wedding ring.

“These are ugly, dangerous times to be alive, “

Which is why I can’t understand why these women are so stupid; I don’t begrudge someone privilege, but thing is, that as time goes by, men are going to be less interested in supporting their spouses with their money, just so the wife can indulge in her spoiled neurotic behavior.

One of the social trends I see disappearing is that men who work like fiends and make mounds of cash are no longer interested in taking care of someone just because they (the women) have expectations that someone else is going to allow them to continue a privileged life without working or paying their way.

It’s not right.

So when the deluge occurs, I won’t be feeling sympathetic for them when they are forced to sink or swim.

After 9-11, the upper class widows got donations, but they started complaining that the amount given would only cover a few year’s salaries, not sustain them forever in the lifestyle that they were used to while their husbands were alive (yes, this did happen). So my sympathy these days is limited.

[Billthedrill]

Hmm...well, I will say that I was taught to pack for summer camp by a professional. He had a funny first name: “Gunny”. We had lots of fun with sing-alongs. I don’t recall any 1000-thread-count sheets, though.

[UCANSEE2]

Scented candles and extra shelving at camp is not a way to make sure your child can care for themselves. *shudder*

They don't send their children to 'camp' to learn to care for themselves.