S T A T E M E N T

michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily
Wednesday, March 29, 2023— 7

At the age of 16, from 4 to 5 p.m. 
for the better part of two weeks, I 
sat on a damp towel in Franklin, 
Mass. reading aloud to some of 
my cabin mates at an Armenian 
summer 
camp. 
Like 
many 
summer camps, Camp Haiastan 
was 
relentlessly 
regimented. 
Part of that regimen consisted 
of an hour of free swim in the 
afternoons, 
a 
chlorine-coated 
reprieve from the hours of playing 
games under the sun’s scrutiny. In 
the first few days of camp, I would 
choose to swim with my cabin 
mates, but most days I’d opt to 
read Nicola Yoon’s “Everything, 
Everything” on my towel. Some of 
my cabin mates would sit with me, 

and eventually, I began reading 
out loud to them. As we weren’t 
allowed to have phones, or any 
technological devices, books and 
letters had become our primary 
forms of media. For those few 
days, cut off from the rest of the 
world, that towel, that book and 
those girls felt like where my 
world started and ended.
Even years after those sun-
soaked 
afternoons 
came 
and 
went, sandwiched by many years 
before and after, they still stick 
out as some of the most carefree 
and special hours of my life. 
Beyond 
our 
reading 
sessions 
during free swim, and despite 
most of us not knowing each 
other 
extensively 
beforehand, 
there was something so special 
about camp that drew my cabin 
mates and I together within a day 

or two of walking through the 
door of our well-worn cabin for 
the first time. On one of our first 
nights at camp, preferring sharing 
hushed conversation to adhering 
to a scheduled bedtime, we all 
gathered in a circle on the forest-
green wood floor of our cabin 
with flashlights on after lights 
out. A self-described oversharer, 
I suggested we all go around the 
circle and share our “life stories.”
At the time, it was just an 
attempt for me to exchange 
emotional 
vulnerability 
for 
social connection. In retrospect, 
I’m struck by how quickly we 
were able to open up to each 
other about some of life’s most 
challenging 
subjects. 
Sitting 
cross-legged 
in 
our 
pajamas, 
we discussed religion, fears of 
becoming our parents, belonging 

in the Armenian community, 
sexuality, losing friends, body 
image and so on for hours. In a 
world that insists on the necessity 
of women working against other 
women, this circle embodied 
female trust and camaraderie to 
a degree that I haven’t seen since. 
We passed around flashlights and 
tissues, knowing that this wasn’t 
something we’d ever get back. 
From that night on, those girls — 
almost all of whom I didn’t know 
prior — became lifelines in places 
I didn’t know I needed saving.
In addition to how naturally 
my cabin seemed to click, summer 
camp’s unique offering to do 
things exclusively for one’s own 
enjoyment also contributed to the 
authenticity of our relationships. 
Looking back, I’m surprised I 
went to Camp Haiastan once — let 

alone three times. The activities 
there typically encourage either 
athletic ability or a knowledge 
of Armenian culture and history 
— two things I have always felt 
I particularly lack. Whether it 
was understandably being the 
last pick for someone’s dodgeball 
team or stumbling through the 
Lord’s Prayer in Armenian before 
meals, being bad at the things I 
was tasked with left me feeling 
exposed. But once I realized 
that this particular context of 
vulnerability would only exist 
for two weeks, my interest in 
presenting a particular image 
of myself to those around me 
became limited. Particularly at 
cultural summer camps, there’s 
almost no evading feelings of 
otherness in some way, and I know 
several of my cabin mates shared 
my disinterest in appealing to 
ideals we’d never reach. And with 
that commonality, we all met each 
other where we were — not where 
we were told we were supposed to 
be.
For those two weeks, I was 
energized by the transience of the 
physical and mental spaces I was 
in. There’s something distinctly 
formative about living in the same 
room as seven other girls and 
knowing that you only have two 
weeks together. I shared fears and 
insecurities that normally took me 
months, if not years, to be honest 
with someone about, and watched 
the girls around me do the same. 
I said ‘yes’ to everything because 
I knew the context I was living in 
had a two-week expiration date. 
I went out of my way to do things 
that I wouldn’t normally do, and 
so did a lot of the people around 
me. My cabin mates and I adopted 
the practice of saying every day 
was “our day,” laying claim to 
each hour as if it was ours alone. 
I spent several nights staring into 
the trees above me watching flying 
squirrels jump from one branch 
from the next. It was tradition to 
stay up all night on the last day of 
camp, and all I can remember from 
that night now is watching the sky 
above “picturesque Uncas Pond” 
lighten in the early morning. 

Watching the sun rise with my 
cabin mates, I struggled to come 
to terms with the fact that we were 
all leaving and for the first time 
questioned what would become of 
these relationships that had all at 
once become central in my life.
For many, nostalgia plays a 
crucial 
role 
in 
retrospective 
perceptions of summer camp. 
I’ve found that the most nostalgic 
moments are often the most 
unattainable. The more out of 
reach a positive memory is, the 
more we miss it. Summer camps 
excel at maintaining this elusive 
quality: I will simply never be 
16 with a schedule consisting 
exclusively of playing games I’m 
bad at in rural Massachusetts, 
and talking with new people from 
different corners of the country 
over cheese boregs again. Once 
you sign out of a summer camp, 
it’s back to the real world: the 
microcosm of early mornings and 
flashlights after dark collapses 
just quickly as it was created.
While I don’t talk with any of 
my cabin mates regularly now, 
I see snippets of their lives on 
social media and sometimes I 
wonder if they think of the fudgy 
ice creams from the camp store 
or the five-minute showers or the 
dance lessons or the midnight 
conversations that I could have 
sworn would never end. In writing 
this, I’ve realized how much my 
memory of this place and the 
people I shared it with has faded. 
I don’t think of Camp Haiastan 
often, but when I do I am forced 
to acknowledge how different I 
am now. The confidence I once 
had has been eroded by self-doubt; 
the girlhood I once shared with 
my seven cabin mates now feels 
like 
an 
impossible 
caricature 
of youth. Despite knowing that 
place and the person I was there 
will perpetually be out of reach, 
when I revisit memories of camp 
I always have this quiet hope that 
if I think about it long enough, it 
won’t be gone — and that I’ll feel 
that same sense of assumed trust 
in the world and in myself again. 

Design by Leilani Baylis-Washington

To be a 16-year old girl at summer camp

OLIVIA MOURADIAN
 Statement Columnist

My first time writing an advice 
column was without submitted 
questions — just me, alone with 
my computer, spitballing at the 
screen. It was my senior year of 
high school, my final column, 
a 
last-ditch 
effort 
to 
leave 
something timeless behind. I 
remember splitting the column 
into sections: on health, on 
relationships, 
on 
wellness 
in 
general. It was broad but heartfelt 
— maybe not as applicable to 
others as I would’ve wanted — but 
I remember thinking, It would be 
cool to do this for real.
My second time writing an 
advice column was a brief stint 
last year on the Opinion section 
of The Michigan Daily. Myself 
and two other writers were hired 
to answer submissions, except, 
by the time the deadline came 
around, we had received hardly 
any questions to pen advice in 
response to. At the end of the 
semester, my recently-graduated 
sister admitted to submitting 
honest-ish submissions with her 
friends so that we would have 
something to reply to. I had a 
small suspicion after getting a 
submission about a roommate 
who refused to watch anything 
except curling during the 2022 
Winter Olympics, but decided to 
withhold my skepticism. 
At that point, the advice gig 
was coming to a close. The 
columns fizzled out quickly, and 
I wrote other pieces during that 
semester to fill the time. When 
the fall 2022 semester arrived, 
I transferred to The Statement, 
and my advice column prospects 
dissipated along with the change. 
But it wasn’t gone from my mind.
I 
felt 
like 
I 
had 
failed. 
Submissions never took off, and I 
only answered about three or four 
questions. It left me considering 
the philosophy of advice itself: 

What made me think I was 
qualified for the position? Did 
readers feel they could trust me? 
What do we look for in an advice 
column? How could I — how can 
anyone — do this right?
My first experience with an 
advice 
column 
was 
through 
American 
Girl’s 
monthly 
magazine, 
with 
little 
scoops 
on 
classroom 
crushes 
and 
embarrassing 
moments. 
From 
there, my tastes matured. Even 
now, when I think of the classic 
advice column, my mind turns to 
’80s and early 2000s magazines 
and online forum submissions, 
like Reader’s Digest — women 
writing to other women about 
their husbands, boyfriends, diets 
and bodies. But glossy print 
magazines certainly weren’t the 
OG advice columns. 
The 
first 
English 
advice 
column was published in 17th 
century England by John Dunton, 
editor in chief of the Athenian 
Mercury. According to writer 
Carolina Ciucci of Book Riot, 
London newspapers at the time 
“answered letters about current 
events and history, but Dunton 
also entertained letters about 
such disparate topics as botany 
and premarital sex.”
Both men and women were 
allowed to submit questions, 
and Dunton created not only a 
women’s section of the Mercury, 
but 
eventually 
a 
magazine 
dedicated solely to women: the 
Ladies Mercury. Though, this 
avenue ultimately barred women 
from conversations about the 
“arts and sciences, history, the 
world” and relegated them to “the 
purely personal.” 
For the next two centuries, 
advice for women took the form of 
conduct books. Unlike etiquette 
books, which stressed manners 
for young women, conduct books 
intended to “mold the character 
of a young woman and teach her 
how to think, act, and speak in a 
way that was both morally and 

socially proper,” as clarified by 
writer, Rachel Dodge, in a blog 
post on Jane Austen’s World. 
These books took the form of 
manuals, letters and pamphlets. 
Conduct books written by both 
white men, and eventually white 
women, reinforced gender roles 
and 
white 
assimilation. 
For 
example, in “A Father’s Legacy to 
His Daughters” by John Gregory, 
he advises “modesty, which I 
think so essential in your sex, will 
naturally dispose you to be rather 
silent in company, especially in a 
large one … One may take a share 
in conversation without uttering a 
syllable.” 
The advice column we know 
today is closely aligned with 
the work of Beatrice Fairfax, 
a pseudonym for the late 19th 
century 
journalist 
Marie 
Manning. She created an outlet 
where “people could write about 
their personal troubles — love and 
domestic — and receive unbiased 
opinions.” The Fairfax column 
was key in establishing this genre 
of journalism, leading to iconic 
columns just as Reader’s Digest 
and Dear Abby. 
While 
the 
advice 
column 
has developed from its original 
habits rooted in white patriarchy, 
the modern advice column is, 
nevertheless, 
poised 
towards 
a white, female, middle-class 
audience. I think this history is 
fundamental when considering 
how to invite inclusivity and 
diversity into submissions. What 
sort of topics does the writer 
express interest in discussing? If 
their focus is narrow, are there 
other writers covering the wide 
spread of questions?
This history is also not without 
consequence for men. It is not 
that men, particularly white men, 
were excluded from the genre, 
but rather they initiated a level 
of control that made them the 
authorities of advice, especially 
with the publishing of conduct 
books. Over time, as women-only 

sections developed and indulged 
readers in frivolous matters, the 
advice column as a whole took 
on that reputation. I would argue 
the advice column is not women-
dominated today because women 
need the most advice, but because 
men are conditioned to view 
seeking out advice as a feminine 
activity, if not a weakness. 
We must also consider how 
this 
history 
influences 
the 
writer. 
What 
gives 
someone 
the credibility to pen an advice 
column? Is it many years and 
experiences under their belt? Is it 
a degree in sociology, psychology 
or social work? How do you 
account for differences in age, 
gender, race, sexuality and so on? 
As much as we may try to 
imagine, there is no picture-
perfect 
advice 
columnist. 
Credibility for an advice columnist 
is different from the credibility 
of a news journalist. Advice 
relies on opinion and personal 
experiences, and it’s much harder 

to reflect one’s common sense and 
empathy without facts and data as 
evidence supporting their ability. 
I would argue it is less about 
experience or education and more 
about character. This is not a 
solution; degrees and experiences 
can be reflective of intelligence 
and wisdom, but even then, the 
qualities that make someone good 
at giving advice are intangible 
and vary from person to person. I 
believe empathy and the ability to 
be honest about your perspective 
and shortcomings make someone 
an admirable advice columnist. 
So what makes a good advice 
column? What makes an opinion 
good advice? If you can believe 
it, I have some advice to give. I 
hope my credibility comes across 
through my previous attempts at 
advice giving and recognition of 
the problematic history of advice 
writing in the English language. 
Here is what I believe are the 
basic necessities for a well-
written advice column:

Number one: An advice column 
is not timeless. Rather, all advice is 
timeless. The definition of advice 
is “an opinion that someone 
offers you about what you should 
do or how you should act in a 
particular situation.” In this case, 
the advice you give is particular, 
so it shouldn’t be aimed at fixing 
all related issues. But at the 
same time, good advice may be 
abstracted and applied to other 
problems by readers. So with that 
said, even these suggestions are 
subject to change. 
Number 
two: 
Everyone 
in 
this exchange (the writer, the 
asker, the third-party reader) is 
vulnerable. These feelings are 
exacerbated in a college setting, 
and not just for men. I find one 
of the struggles with asking for 
advice among peers, especially in 
a competitive college setting, is 
the fear of seeming weaker or less 
intelligent than others. 

Design by Leah Hoogterp

Words from a failed advice columnist

ELIZABETH WOLFE
Statement Columnist

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

