Diversions : There’s a Place Just for Mom : Dump the dishes! Forget those diapers! At this retreat, any day can be Mother’s Day.
Ah, the rigors of motherhood: Endless piles of dishes, diapers and dirty socks.
Petrified French fries wedged between the vinyl seats of your once new mini-van.
And then there’s that overstuffed duffel bag you still call a purse. (Instead of carrying cosmetics and credit cards--the way it was before you had kids--all you see now are leaking tubes of Desitin and Oragel.)
But before you sacrifice your last shred of sanity to the altar of Supermom, you might want to call Carol Smith-Carter, founder and head counselor of Mother’s Camp, a 2 1/2-day retreat in Big Bear that caters exclusively to mommies.
Smith-Carter, a slightly frazzled mother of two daughters, ages 5 and 10, guarantees she will have you feeling like your old self before you can say “rubber-baby buggy-bumper.”
“I don’t want people to think that I have a bunch of burnt-out, crazy mothers coming up here,” says Smith-Carter. “But I think more moms are realizing that they need a break like everybody else in the family.”
When Janet Winget brought a camp brochure to the Diamond Bar Nursery School Co-Op where she volunteers, the news spread faster than pinkeye through a kindergarten class. Winget, mother of two boys--ages 7 and 3--and three of her mommy mates sent in their deposits on the same day.
“When I told my husband, he was very supportive,” Winget recalls. “But it didn’t matter whether he was or not. I was coming.”
Indeed, these are women with a cause.
Despite differences in age, income, education and geography, motherhood--and their temporary need to escape it--is their shared obsession. As a result, they are all united in their goal: to behave the way their children do back home. No making beds, no picking up wet towels, no cutting up someone else’s food, no laundry. To quote their 2-year-olds: No! No! No!
Even their children would blush at this enforced sloth and deferred dedication to decadence.
“When moms come to Mother’s Camp,” Smith-Carter says, “there’s no thinking. Everything is planned. They don’t even have to read a menu.”
In their private lake-shore cabins, the arriving moms are pampered with baskets of toiletries, gourmet chocolates and chilled splits of Sutter Home white Zinfandel. In fact, the only time these women enter the kitchen at all is to get another soda or glass of wine.
“Here, you don’t have to do for everybody else. It’s w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l,” says Stacy Kahn, a Bay Area housewife, who attended a recent getaway with 10 other mothers from as far away as Missouri.
Day 1
Late Friday afternoon, the mothers gather for hors d’oeuvre, champagne and a detailed explanation of ish-time , as in “Dinner is at 8-ish.” The plan is to wean them from ‘round-the-clock itineraries and car-pool schedules to a more tolerable timetable.
As Smith-Carter previews the weekend’s activities, she tells her brood they can do everything--or nothing: “We want them to say, ‘Well, OK, lunch is at noon-ish’ because it . . . creates a relaxation in their mind.”
Smith-Carter should know. A former advertising executive who used to wash her woodwork at midnight because it was the only time she had, she first struck on the idea of Mother’s Camp in 1982 when she was looking at summer camp catalogues for her daughters.
“I just stopped and said, ‘My God, I’m the one who really needs this,’ ” she recalls. By 1986, she had moved to Big Bear with her husband Tim, and began taking in her first guests, using rented cabins and lodges.
So far, the thought of a place that nurtures and gives care to the world’s top care-givers has proved irresistible to more than 1,600 women.
Day 2
On Saturday, the natural inclination is to load up the Married-With-Childrenmobile and take little Johnny to soccer and little Suzy to ballet.
Not here.
After a continental breakfast of fruit, pastries and a heavenly blend of official Mother’s Camp coffee, the newly relaxed moms set off for horseback riding at Baldwin Lake Stables. Some of the women who haven’t ponied up in more than two decades are game to show their athletic skills, out of view of critical husbands and embarrassed children.
“It’s been 25 years since I’ve ridden anything without a seat belt,” says Donna Vroman, a member of the Diamond Bar co-op quartet, who is inhaling the sweet scents of juniper, sagebrush and sugar pines at the 6,700 feet elevation.
Another city slicker, Marcia Meister, a raven-haired grandmother from Foster City, seems little concerned about the aches and pains that may follow her hourlong ride on the open range.
“It’s nothing a massage won’t fix when I get back to my cabin,” she says. By noon, the mothers are back at camp, constructing their own tostadas. There’s no calorie-counting at Mother’s Camp. The only concession to expanding waistlines is dietetic sour cream. “We’re a camp, not a spa,” Smith-Carter says.
In the kitchen, Pam Loony, a San Diego mother of three, drops a chunk of avocado on the floor. “I’m not used to eating without at least two kids hanging from my arms,” she says apologetically.
After some sinfully rich chocolate chip cookies for dessert, several moms invade the Big Bear boutiques about a mile away. Others retreat to their cabins for uncensored talk that runs the gamut from labor pains and stretch marks to second wives to the sense of freedom they feel at camp.
“When I go Lake Tahoe with my husband and kids, that’s time off for him,” Kahn explains. “I’m the one who has to cook and clean and shop for groceries and break up the fights. Everybody still comes to me for the beach towels and sunblock.
“My children are my work, my job, so coming here is my true vacation.”
At 3-ish, a paneled-boot Victorian carriage pulled by an English shire named Thumbelina and driven by a bearded gentleman in top hat and winter coat arrives to take pairs of mothers for a ride through the countryside. Moms board the carriage, delicately balancing chocolate-dipped strawberries in one hand and champagne in the other. The attendant secures the women by draping a crushed velvet blanket of midnight blue over their legs.
“Hey, this doesn’t happen to me very often,” Winget coos.
Later, over a steak dinner, Alice King, a nurse from Independence, Mo., seems to speak for the group: “I take care of people all the time. I take care of my family and my patients, but who takes care of me? So this is my time.”
Some mothers spend the remainder of the evening lingering by a crackling fire or reading or bathing in their private cabins. Others spirit off to town to catch the late showing of “Fried Green Tomatoes.”
“Here I have the chance to complete my day, which is something I rarely experience at home,” Kahn says.
Day 3
On Sunday a full breakfast buffet of eggs, sausage, Canadian bacon, pastries, fruits and coffee coaxes the women out of their cozy cabins. After breakfast, moms make boo-boo bunnies, a folded washcloth that conceals an ice cube to soothe skinned and scraped knees.
Before the campers have to head down the hill, surrogate mom Smith-Carter invites “her children” for a serendipitous tour of the cabins and castles along Lake Shore Drive. As she approaches the lavish Moose Mountain Lodge, she drops her keys.
Not a single mother lifts a finger to help. The care-givers of the world, flush with the healthy glow of a scrumptiously self-indulgent weekend, have learned their lessons well.
“I’m very proud of them all,” Smith-Carter says.
A weekend stay at Mother’s Camp is $225-$270. Massage is extra. For information, call Smith-Carter at (714) 866-7978. She’s usually in about 9-ish.
