If you were out shopping this week you should have noticed the same scene playing out in store after store. Parents with children, bochurim, and teenagers of sleepaway camp age were filling carts with cases of instant soup, boxes of cereal, pickles, croutons, snacks, nosh drinks, and enough food to stock a pantry. Many were walking out with bills of $150 to $300 just for the food they're schlepping up to camp.

And that's before the camp canteen. Parents are expected to load money onto camp accounts, only to replenish them within the first week because "everyone else is buying," "I'm still hungry," or "the canteen has better food." Today's camp canteens aren't just selling chips, licorice, ices, and slush like they once did. Many now offer full takeout-style menus.

Add to that the extra clothing, equipment, and countless other camp expenses, all on top of camp tuition that already runs into the thousands of dollars.

When did all of this become normal?

Three weeks away from home is supposed to be an experience. Camps are not starving children. They are well fed, mostly. Yet somehow we've created the expectation that every camper also needs to bring an entire pantry from home and have unlimited spending money waiting for them.

And it's not just sleepaway camp. Day camp has become the same. Before every trip, children "need" special nosh, snacks, drinks, and treats. Every evening throughout the summer, parents can be seen negotiating in the snack aisle as kids bargain over which candy or treats they'll get only to repeat the same conversation a few days later.

So who's responsible? The camps? The parents? Society? Probably a little of each.

The real issue is that the bar keeps moving. What was once considered an extra has become an expectation, and today's expectation quickly becomes tomorrow's necessity. Families feel pressured to keep up, even when they can't comfortably afford it.

Maybe it's time to ask whether all of these extras are really making our children's summers better or simply making parents spend more, stress more, and sometimes even go into debt just to keep up with what has somehow become "normal."