When my wife and I put our daughter on a bus bound for camp last weekend we made an effort not to appear anxious or anything other than thrilled for her, even though she knew no one who was getting on board, and they all seemed to know each other, and hardly any of them were anything but white (Franny was born in Paraguay, and always does a quick tally of white versus non-white in any group situation). We smiled and waved, my wife being much more controlled than she was the first time we did this three years ago and she cried all the way driving back to New York…

But this was a new camp, one our daughter had researched and chosen based on a referral from a classmate. She is good at making friends and the first one to wade into any gang approximately her age (13), not sitting back sulkily as I did when I was that old. We tried to watch her through the darkened glass of the bus windows (“I think she’s talking to the girl in the seat next to her,” my wife said) and kept waving and smiling as they finally pulled out. And once they were gone the parents in the Queens parking lot burst into applause and cheers, anticipating a month’s freedom.

Freedom to miss their kids, that is. We had dinner with some friends last night (great time for restaurant reservations in NY). They are in the same boat; their son Jack is gone to a camp in Maine for a month, and we spent the majority of our time talking about them, how they were doing, what we imagined the experience was like etc. We had just received our first note from Franny at camp, written on the second day, and it was tinged with a little homesickness — and perhaps some buyer’s remorse. Yes, she had made friends but she was one of the few first-timers, I gathered, and in a PS she wrote, “I’m the only non-white person here, I swear.” (Good thing she’s not prejudiced.)

Where once NY dads sent away kids AND wife for the summer to get into mischief on their own (remember The Seven Year Itch?), now single-child-centric families experience a different kind of comedy with their kids away. My friend Paul told me that with his son gone, he had no excuse to go see a matinee of Miami Vice (I volunteered). And I’m sure my wife, curling up to watch Project Runway, longs for our daughter’s company. We need them both to remind us we’re parents and to help us be children again.