Looking Back

I previously have written about my summers in Western Michigan in my family cottage. I have spent part of nearly every summer of my life at the cottage beginning when I was very small. Although most Easterners do not realize it, the shore of Lake Michigan in Western Michigan is a beautiful place, built on, yet wild.

This summer I paused to think about how things have changed in our small summer community, and how they have remained the same. When I was a child and teenager, families spent the whole summer at the Lake. Mothers would remain with the children from July 4 to the end of August, while fathers would commute back and forth. Because we lived in Kansas City, Missouri, which was 800 miles away, my dad would come every two weeks, staying sometimes for a week. Other fathers, coming from Chicago or Detroit, both of which are three plus hours away, would come every weekend. 

For the most part, children were left to their own devices. We could travel along about a two-mile section of internal paths and beach without walking on a road. We also moved around by boat because our community is framed by two lakes – Lake Michigan and an inland lake named White Lake. The summer stretched out in endless days (the sun does not set in Western Michigan until about 9:30 p.m.) of reading, visiting friends, sailing and swimming. This was a great luxury for the kids who were able to spend the summer, and I have many lifelong friends from that time.

But the downside of this summer structure was that our mothers were often lonely. This was a time when women did not have very many opportunities to work outside the home. Many would have sought jobs if opportunities had existed. That is borne out by the situation today.

Today, the summer season has a far shorter time frame because schools start so early. When I was a child, the summer started just before the July 4 weekend and extended to the end of August. The annual show put on by kids was scheduled for the third weekend in August; now it is on the first weekend of August. Sailing school, which used to last for seven weeks, can now be attended in one-week sessions. Most importantly, many mothers work so stays at the Lake are determined by work vacations. The summer for many kids at the Lake is only two to three weeks long. By the time I arrived on August 22 this year, all the kids were gone. 

The upshot of this is that, while kids have a shorter time to enjoy the Lake, the length of their mothers’ stay depends on their circumstances. There are still some families who come for the long season and leave in August, depending on when school starts.

Although the summer for children is shorter, the shorter summer is healthier for the family as a whole, because the women have opportunities that my mother never dreamed about. At the same time, everyone still shares a sense of community no matter the length of stay. Many of us have watched our parents and grandparents enjoy the beauty of Western Michigan and now are providing our children and grandchildren with the same sense of community.