Way Cool

AGOURA HILLS — If you need to find Amber McCraken’s) mom, it’s really easy.

You go straight, turn this way, then go under a bridge and there she is. While Amber spends her days at summer camp, she says, her mom is busy working.

“My mom just makes money,” 5-year-old Amber explains. “She dials for the money and then they send her the money because she’s made it.”

Amber loves summer camp, archery most of all. But sometimes she misses her mom. “In the middle of the day,” she says, “I think of my mom. But I know she’s coming to pick me up.”

It’s summer and the living is easy for Amber and the 50 or so other children here at CW Adventure Camp in Agoura Hills. In a patch of green fields and red and yellow jungle gyms enveloped by the warm California hills, they make crafts, swim, play and just plain enjoy being out under the blue sky, even if it’s 90-plus degrees outside. Being at home, they’ll tell you, is boring.

Summer camp is the day care of choice for Southern California parents this time of year. Year-round, however, families are grappling with the emotional aspects of child care, an issue that ranks up there with religion and money. It divides spouses and siblings, sparks fights at neighborhood barbecues and increases conflict in the workplace as parents struggle with how much time they want to spend--or can afford to spend--with their children.

Though some parents have opted to cut back on their work hours or even leave the labor force, an unprecedented number of U.S. women with preschool-age children now work outside the home.

Government statistics show that 62% of mothers with children under the age of 6--a total of 10.3 million women--work either part or full time. The vast majority of them use some form of day care.

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Amber and Elite Rothstein hide under a picnic table to get away from the bumblebees, which hover around the dripping watermelon and the peanut butter sandwich in Elite’s Barbie lunch box. Elite’s bright pink dress, emblazoned with Esmeralda from Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” catches on the wooden bench and Amber helps her.

Does Elite like being at camp?

“Of course,” the 5-year-old says, brushing back the colored beads woven into her hair. “You can play with kids here, and I don’t have a sister or anything at home.”

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No doubt many parents sighed in relief earlier this year when a wide-ranging study was released that said young children in day care generally suffer no disadvantage in cognitive or linguistic development.

“Day care affects more families now than it did a generation ago, though it’s always been an emotional issue,” said Alison Clarke-Stewart, a UC Irvine developmental psychologist overseeing a group of more than 100 Southern California children who participated in the federally funded study.

“Certain family factors, education, income and the quality of care are still more important when determining how a child will do in day care,” she said.

Studies have shown that the most significant factors are the family’s economic status, the mother’s psychological well-being and intelligence, the child’s gender and infant temperament.

The recent federal study tracked 1,300 children from birth to age 3. Results from the first phase, released last year, found that day care itself did not harm children’s emotional attachment to their mothers.

“There’s comfort in the sense that these studies are not a blanket condemnation of child care,” said Clarke-Stewart. “Some people have been worried that the very fact of being separated from the parent is detrimental. That’s not a valid view, although many people are still very vocal in their view that this is true.”

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Sean Titcher, 4, stands so close to his friends Sean Smith and Arram Noshirvan, also 4, that they almost form a pile. They want you to watch them do somersaults in the grass. And to listen to how each can burp louder than the other. “Look at me!” everything about them shouts.

“I like all the things here,” says one of the Seans, pulling his white T-shirt over his head so his bellybutton shows. His friends march around in the grass trying to find bees to stomp on.

Bikini-clad Rachael Feinstein and Cassandra Gaffney, both 9, are best friends, but only while they’re at camp.

“I have another best friend at home,” says Cassandra.

Not that that’s where she wants to be. “There’s nothing to do at home but watch TV. This is the best camp I’ve been to,” she says, squirting herself in the forehead with a water bottle. “I hate school.”

The two girls agree that summer camp is the best. It gives you plenty of time to swim and talk.

Seven-year-old Tara Fleishman is here with her younger sister, Sarah. Their father and uncle attended a summer camp run by the same people who operate this one, Tara says. Though Sarah says the camp is “really fun,” Tara would rather be at home.

“Today my mom might come pick me up early ‘cause she has a doctor’s appointment,” she says. “I’m going to call her.”

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The number of children in day care is expected to swell in coming years, as welfare reforms, by some estimates, push as many as 4 million low-income women into the work force. This surge in working women, many of them single parents with special needs but little cash to pay for increasingly expensive care, is certain to exacerbate the debate over child care.

The latest issue of Working Mother magazine ranks California among the top 10 states for child care in terms of quality, safety, availability and commitment. The magazine notes that child care has become a priority at the state level nationwide.

“This is not an issue that will go away,” Clarke-Stewart said. “If there were some dramatic shift and more people were able financially to stay at home, I still think women are not going to trudge back into that role. We’ve been socializing girls to have a career for the last generation.”

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Jeffrey Miller, 12, who lives in Detroit most of the year, likes spending his summers in California with his mother. He especially likes camp in Agoura because of the friends he’s made and the sports. Next year he hopes to be a counselor.

“People care about people a little bit more here,” he says.

Jeffrey said he’s glad his mom, a trainee at a nearby car dealership, has a job.

“I think she likes her job,” Jeffrey says. “It’s better than her sitting around the house all day. We spend lots of time together on the weekends.”