BRINGING CHILDREN TO THE RAINBOW GATHERING
Bringing babies and small children to the Rainbow Gathering can be quite a chore, but it is also very rewarding and a wonderful growth experience for both them and yourself. But deep woods camping with your kids can be quite a challenge, too. Being a Rainbow Mom myself, I was asked a few years back to pass along some helpful advice for folks who are bringing their kids for the very first time. The following article sprang from those requests. I wrote it when my eldest was 6 and my twin boys were three and potty-training. They are all officially teenagers now. I’ve been to the annual Gathering with my first when he was an infant and when he was 3, and then brought all three of them many times after that. This article is especially directed at first time Gatherers since a few requests of this type have come my way, but there is lots of good advice for anyone with kids.
Bringing babies and small children to the Rainbow Gathering can be quite a chore, but it is also very rewarding and a wonderful growth experience for both them and yourself. But deep woods camping with your kids can be quite a challenge, too. Being a Rainbow Mom myself, I was asked a few years back to pass along some helpful advice for folks who are bringing their kids for the very first time. The following article sprang from those requests. I wrote it when my eldest was 6 and my twin boys were three and potty-training. They are all officially teenagers now. I’ve been to the annual Gathering with my first when he was an infant and when he was 3, and then brought all three of them many times after that. This article is especially directed at first time Gatherers since a few requests of this type have come my way, but there is lots of good advice for anyone with kids.
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| Hiking in with Kids |
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ARRIVAL AND HIKING IN: When you first arrive at the Gathering, you will be directed to a meadow to park in, (or perhaps along a road). Hiking in with kids often takes a couple loads, so having a partner who can either hang with kids or go get the second load while you stay with the kids is a huge help. Get a baby carrier of some sort to carry your littlest ones in. On the first trip into the site, we tend to bring the kids, the tent and our plates, cups and utensils in the first load, plus whatever else we can manage. My husband and I each will wear a kid on our backs (we have twins). After hiking in, and figuring out where we want to set up camp, I will stay at the tent site with all three kids while the hubby goes back out to the car for another full load. While he is gone I will put the tent up, and perhaps go exploring with the kids to find a meal, fill our water bottles, and locate the nearest shitter.
KID VILLAGE: You can camp anywhere
with kids, but it is especially nice to camp at Kid Village. It is a drug-free,
peaceful area that serves three good kid-friendly meals every day. Kid Village
is easy to find. Ask anyone. When you get to Kid Village ask the folks there
where there are some good places for your tent. They will direct you. At Kid
Village, they usually have a little play area with seesaws and swings made from
downed trees and rope. There is also usually a sit-down potty back in the woods
there (people just call toilet areas "shitters" so sorry if your
child goes home spouting that word!!) For adults, shitters are long trenches
that you straddle. It’s nice to wear skirts if you want to have a little
privacy cover! Often for the little children there are small deep cylindrical
holes dug near the trenches so that the kids don’t have to balance across a
trench.
DAILY LIFE: You will want to bring, for each of you, a water bottle, a dish, a spoon, a cup and a day pack to carry everything in while you are away from your tent. If you drink coffee, make your cup a thermal one with a lid. If you can, put a carabiner on your cup as it’s nice to always have it hanging from your belt. Each morning, you will want to pack your daypack for the day and go out wandering. You may head back to the tent for naptime, but you will want to take your dishes, your water bottle, and whatever diapers or things you need for the day with you when you leave your tent in the morning, because sometimes you don’t come back until evening.
DAILY LIFE: You will want to bring, for each of you, a water bottle, a dish, a spoon, a cup and a day pack to carry everything in while you are away from your tent. If you drink coffee, make your cup a thermal one with a lid. If you can, put a carabiner on your cup as it’s nice to always have it hanging from your belt. Each morning, you will want to pack your daypack for the day and go out wandering. You may head back to the tent for naptime, but you will want to take your dishes, your water bottle, and whatever diapers or things you need for the day with you when you leave your tent in the morning, because sometimes you don’t come back until evening.
For dishes, most people bring just a bowl. But after many
years of gathering, I have discovered that the very best bowl is a tupperware
or similar style container with a lid. This way, if you can't get to a
dishwashing station right away after you eat, you can pop the lid on it and
toss it in your bag without dirtying anything inside your bag. We found some plate-shaped
containers with three divided sections which is nice if you get soup and
something else. It keeps them divided. Plates with lids are also good for
bringing food back to your kids, or for storing
things they might not eat right away.
DIAPERS: If you use disposable diapers, I would bring a double thick trash bag (one inside the other, to lessen the smell and strengthen the bag) with some kind of clasp that can be put on and taken off numerous times, to keep your dirties in. You will need to hike this (very) heavy bag back to your car at the end, as there are no trash stations inside the gathering. Everyone carries their own trash out. Depending on how long you stay, a full bag of dirty diapers can be one whole load! With twins, and ten days in the Gathering, our bag was very large and difficult to manage. If you use cloth diapers, I have seen people wash them out in five gallon buckets and hang them on clotheslines hung between trees. You can get a 5 Gallon bucket for about 3 dollars at large hardware stores. Bring your own clothesline as well. Kid Village has had a communal diaper wash area in the past but I don’t think it is a regular thing at all.
FINDING FOOD / DINNER CIRCLE: At Rainbow the food that is cooked in the kitchens is free for all, and is purchased with donations to the Magic Hat that lives on the desk at the Information Booth, and is also carried around every evening at Dinner Circle in a musical parade. Dinner circle happens every evening in the Main Meadow. Most larger kitchens will bring their cooked food down to the dinner circle and serve there. Bring your dishes! People form a large circle, do a group “Om”, and sit down in circle to be served by the food servers. Pregnant or nursing Mamas and children (and adults who are helping children) are asked to come to the center of the circle before the food is served to get first dibs. Don’t be shy. Come forward when it is announced and get your kid a plateful of good food! Breakfast and lunch are often served out of individual kitchens. Kid Village is a good place to find steady outpouring of food, and if your kid misses a meal, they can direct you to fixings for a peanut butter sandwich or a carrot or something. That said, most people like to bring snacks from home to keep in their tent to keep the kids happy. Dried fruit, nut butters, carrots, apples, celery, jerky and granola are things many people tend to bring to keep in their tent.
DIAPERS: If you use disposable diapers, I would bring a double thick trash bag (one inside the other, to lessen the smell and strengthen the bag) with some kind of clasp that can be put on and taken off numerous times, to keep your dirties in. You will need to hike this (very) heavy bag back to your car at the end, as there are no trash stations inside the gathering. Everyone carries their own trash out. Depending on how long you stay, a full bag of dirty diapers can be one whole load! With twins, and ten days in the Gathering, our bag was very large and difficult to manage. If you use cloth diapers, I have seen people wash them out in five gallon buckets and hang them on clotheslines hung between trees. You can get a 5 Gallon bucket for about 3 dollars at large hardware stores. Bring your own clothesline as well. Kid Village has had a communal diaper wash area in the past but I don’t think it is a regular thing at all.
FINDING FOOD / DINNER CIRCLE: At Rainbow the food that is cooked in the kitchens is free for all, and is purchased with donations to the Magic Hat that lives on the desk at the Information Booth, and is also carried around every evening at Dinner Circle in a musical parade. Dinner circle happens every evening in the Main Meadow. Most larger kitchens will bring their cooked food down to the dinner circle and serve there. Bring your dishes! People form a large circle, do a group “Om”, and sit down in circle to be served by the food servers. Pregnant or nursing Mamas and children (and adults who are helping children) are asked to come to the center of the circle before the food is served to get first dibs. Don’t be shy. Come forward when it is announced and get your kid a plateful of good food! Breakfast and lunch are often served out of individual kitchens. Kid Village is a good place to find steady outpouring of food, and if your kid misses a meal, they can direct you to fixings for a peanut butter sandwich or a carrot or something. That said, most people like to bring snacks from home to keep in their tent to keep the kids happy. Dried fruit, nut butters, carrots, apples, celery, jerky and granola are things many people tend to bring to keep in their tent.
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| Playground at Kid Village |
NAPS: For small babies, it’s not common, but I have seen people bring a playpen and hike it in. That way you can set the baby down somewhere clean for a while. You might consider bringing one and leaving it in the car. Then you can decide if you want to hike it in or not. A lightweight baby floor-chair might be a simpler idea, or perhaps a Moses basket? I have also seen people bring those bouncy chairs that you hang from a door frame, and tie them to a low tree branch so baby can jump.
When I brought my first born to his first gathering at about
seven months old, instead of a playpen, I put a blanket in a cardboard box I
got from a kitchen! Having walls is nice for a new crawler. A good
ground-blanket made out of something with a water resistant bottom layer is
nice to have. After realizing the cardboard box was nice to have but not the
best choice, the next time I brought a kid’s pop-up toy backyard play tent.
They pack down tiny and can be used to lay the baby down to sleep if you are
out wandering away from your camp and want to take a break, or give him/her
some shade to rest in. We also napped our eldest in that for a couple years. It
was handy, and kept us from having to go and sit quietly outside our own tent
for 3 hours every single day so they could nap. We used two toy tents to nap our twins separately during the
afternoon, because if they napped together, they would just play in the tent
and not sleep.
NECESSITIES: You should have water bottles you can carry around for your family. You can fill them up at any kitchen. Look for a giant cooler on the kitchen counter with a spigot facing out toward the public walk-up area. Bring sun block, wide brimmed children’s hats, bug spray and sun glasses. We also bring LED flashlights for our littlest boys who will of course want to have one of their own when they see ours. They can accidentally leave it on for hours and it won’t use up the batteries. Sandals that can get wet or water shoes are great if there is a stream that can be played in. When the twins were three years old, and liked to wander, we brought masking tape and stuck some tape on the backs of their shirts saying “IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO INFO” where we were camped! When the kids got older we made sure each kid had his own daypack to keep track of his things.
NECESSITIES: You should have water bottles you can carry around for your family. You can fill them up at any kitchen. Look for a giant cooler on the kitchen counter with a spigot facing out toward the public walk-up area. Bring sun block, wide brimmed children’s hats, bug spray and sun glasses. We also bring LED flashlights for our littlest boys who will of course want to have one of their own when they see ours. They can accidentally leave it on for hours and it won’t use up the batteries. Sandals that can get wet or water shoes are great if there is a stream that can be played in. When the twins were three years old, and liked to wander, we brought masking tape and stuck some tape on the backs of their shirts saying “IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO INFO” where we were camped! When the kids got older we made sure each kid had his own daypack to keep track of his things.
TENT SLEEPING: Also bring warm sleeping bags. It gets down to 40 at night at high elevations. We always bring thermal underwear to sleep in, both for us and for them. When our son was a little baby, and we worried about the safety of sleeping bags, we slept him in a down-filled, winter outdoor snow suit, wearing a hat, with a regular blanket tossed over him. That way I wasn't worried about losing him down inside our sleeping bag or about him scooting out into the cold at night. Beware of using any kind of gas heater inside your tent as the fumes inside a closed tent can be deadly.
NURSING BABIES: Another idea I had which turned out to be SUCH A GOOD IDEA, was my homemade nursing shirts. While still at home, I got a couple long-sleeved thermal shirts at the thrift store. I cut vertical slits in the front for nursing, and when I was at the Gathering I would wear these shirts underneath my regular shirt. The benefit is that on cold days, and ESPECIALLY on cold nights, I could lift my outer shirt to nurse without having to expose the sides of my torso to the very cold air. It was SO much warmer for me, and easier to doze when nursing in the middle of the night half outside of a sleeping bag! These shirts might not be so necessary for eastern Gatherings, but most western Gatherings can get pretty cold at night.
SAFETY: When it comes to safety for my kids at
Gatherings I have always had a firm rule for them: NEVER go inside someone else’s
tent unless I give specific permission to do so. Even if it is the tent of
another child they are playing with, I have them come and ask me first.
Secondly, I give my kids permission to be rude and walk away if their instincts
tell them that a person is odd or not to be trusted. If they find themselves in
a conversation with an adult and their gut tells them something is off, or the
person seems weird, they have permission to just be rude and say, “I have to
go!” and to just turn and run off. I don’t want their desire to be polite
override their intuition that a person is unsafe.
COMMUNICATION FOR OLDER KIDS: As our kids got older, and wanted to go off and explore on their own, we went out and got a good set of FRS radios, one for each of us, and some extra batteries. These are fairly long range radios. For the kids we put them on lanyards and hung them around their necks, and sometimes they put them in their daypacks (although they sometimes would miss our calls if they did this). A belt loop holster would be a good choice as well. This way, if they want to stay out longer than agreed, or ask a question, they can reach you and it gives them some more freedom, and the parents some freedom as well! (Also, they are good for letting the other party know that pizza is just coming out at The Ovens and that you should hurry on over!)
LASTLY: Have a blast! Rainbow Gatherings are a wonderful way to get you and your kids to step away from the screens for a while and get back in touch with each other and with the wonder of nature. My kids, who are now all three teenagers will tell you, going to Gatherings have been some of the best times they have ever had, growing up.
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| Serving breakfast at Kid Village |
COMMUNICATION FOR OLDER KIDS: As our kids got older, and wanted to go off and explore on their own, we went out and got a good set of FRS radios, one for each of us, and some extra batteries. These are fairly long range radios. For the kids we put them on lanyards and hung them around their necks, and sometimes they put them in their daypacks (although they sometimes would miss our calls if they did this). A belt loop holster would be a good choice as well. This way, if they want to stay out longer than agreed, or ask a question, they can reach you and it gives them some more freedom, and the parents some freedom as well! (Also, they are good for letting the other party know that pizza is just coming out at The Ovens and that you should hurry on over!)
LASTLY: Have a blast! Rainbow Gatherings are a wonderful way to get you and your kids to step away from the screens for a while and get back in touch with each other and with the wonder of nature. My kids, who are now all three teenagers will tell you, going to Gatherings have been some of the best times they have ever had, growing up.
-Info Karen- (Mom to three exuberant boys)
