...and why are the two of them still working for Slate?

This is far and away the worst piece I've ever read in Slate. I signed up for this forum just to express my displeasure.

Eight-year old boys act like little miscreants when you put them together? No way! Ohmigosh, call Dr. Spock's estate!

What, exactly, was the point of this piece?

Maybe the boys don't ride horseback because it's a younger camp that lacks the financial resources of the older, more established girls' camp? And how do the girls not play soccer, yet little Eli is able to comment on co-ed games later in the piece?

Why doesn't Bazelon feel the need to "probe that one [archery and riflery] deeply"? This represents either a) a stunning lack of curiosity, or b) the clumsiest attempt at a phallic reference I've read in years.

Honestly, the worst piece I've ever read in Slate. Take it down and send Bazelon on a vacation.

Got to tell you -- I just registered, for precisely the same reason. This piece was ridiculous. It's as if the writer tapped it out on her Blackberry while commuting. It doesn't make sense, and doesn't seem to have much of a point beyond, well, little boys do things like have burping contests.

I'm only bothering to comment in order to say that it was FAR WORSE than you two say. It was a nauseating piece of crap.

I'm with you guys. I clicked on the link to this article hoping for an interesting insight into how summer camps change kids' sense of their own gender, but instead...we got Emily Bazelon's "What My Kids Did This Summer" essay.

This is the headline for the column:

Family: Snapshots of life at home."I'm gonna take a leak" What Happened When My Sons Went to an All-boy Daycamp. There is nothing in this piece to indicate that anyone was supposed to mistake it for a serious "Human Nature" column (Saletan writes those) or a serious Emily Bazelon column (those are about the law). So guys, since the column is immaterial to these outbursts, tell us why you're really mad...

I have a better idea doubtry, why don't you just write why you think they're really mad? It looks like you have a theory but you can't, quite, type...it out.

I agree... Sad to say, whenever I feel strong interest in an article based on the title and then see "by Emily Bazelon" my expectations fall through the floor. At this point I read her pieces as a game to see if I can guess what points the Fray members will (often rightly) slam her for.

Aside from the writing itself being weak, I see a much more annoying problem in her work... She seems to have a weird phobia/impression that her boys are going to turn into the extreme male or female stereotype, and seems to be hiding some kind of messed-up attitude towards girls by making "progressive" statements that ring hollow. Same goes for the other Emily writing for Slate...

They're lucky, though. As much as Fraysters complain, they're much nicer to staff authors than the people writing in the "letters" area at Salon.com! I'd love to see the two women spend a month writing pieces at least twice a week for Salon, then forced to read the letters written in response. Maybe it would improve their writing style & content, possibly even mend some of their attitudinal trainwrecks. (In trade, Salon could send Rebecca Traister here for the Fray to "teach" for a month.) Might not do any good, but the ensuing melee in both discussion sites would be entertaining to read...

Don't know about the rest of you, but I'd happily sign a petition to fire either one or both of the Slate writers named Emily, or to do the "trade" with Salon I suggested.

and yes, my typing is crap (I'll preview next time). It's just reading the Fray often gives me the impression that I must've read a different article, or maybe followed a different link (this often has me going back to re-read the titles). Usually I compose then erase a response expressing my confusion, [really, I don't see the anxiety/smothering/whatever that some posters see, and I don't get how someone could come to this article expecting more than a light, chatty, blog about Emily's family life this summer], but this time I got on earlier, and had more time on my hands, and so we find ourselves here.

Reading forums can be really cool, with a lot of people giving different pointers to new information on a topic, or better articles, or their own experiences, and it is, reasonably often, so I don't think it's completely disingenuous of me to hope for a little more even though, like the posters I mentioned earlier, I knew what I was getting into when I clicked the link.

But then again maybe I'm the knee-jerk poster, angry that salon.com still gets kudos today while my beloved suck.com lies cold in the grave. The humanity!