My kids go to day camp during our summer vacation. It gives me time to relax and have fun outside being a parent.

The author's kids go to day camp during our summer vacation.

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For the past three summers, my friends and I have driven our families to Colorado to work remotely, be playful adults, and, in some ways, mildly neglect our children.My friends and I work hard to nurture our relationships. Whether it's a constantly changing technological landscape or a precarious job market, the world around us continues to evolve quickly. Maintaining a sense of interconnectedness in our friend group helps us to feel more stable, but it also allows us to find communal joy, for ourselves, explicitly outside our kids.To further connect on trips, we take it a step further and send our kids to day camp so we can get some respite from our typical demands.Sending our kids to camp gives us parents a breakParental expectations seem endless these days. Under the umbrella of intensive parenting, there seems to be an implicit message: we need to be constantly available to our kids.There's a steady stream of emails coming from schools, applications to download for every sport, and a birthday party scene that is, at times, unbearable. To avoid burnout, we need to strike a balance; to thrive, we need enjoyment.To do so, our children attend a very reasonably priced day camp in Colorado while my friends and I take our own vacation.