Nobody likes camping. They say they like camping, but they really don’t. Camping is like a 2-hour Jazz Concert, or the “Complimentary continental breakfast.” It just sounds better than it really is.

The truth of the matter is that it’s the idea of camping that sounds appealing… the smell of pine trees and marshmallows roasting, enjoying God’s creation by being one with the outdoors. It’s the little details they don’t mention—dirt in your tent, bugs in your tent—that represent the realities that make camping frankly, and sometimes literally, a pain in the neck.

I look at it this way. Thousands of years of human evolution — also known as “progress” — have led mankind in a clear direction AWAY from everything that characterizes camping: lying on the ground, running from wild animals, living in a constant state of dirtiness, picking bugs out of food, and sleeping without air-conditioning or heat. Think of how little time it took Eve to figure a way out of the garden.

I understand the problem I’m creating for women with this level of truth. Women experience the peer pressure of being “good sports” and “low maintenance” because we don’t want to admit that we hate using a pine tree as a bathroom. Actually, I believe that 90% of the men who profess to “love to go camping” would fail a lie detector test. At my house, “roughing it” means he can’t find the remote and has to walk up to the TV to turn it off…

So call me a party pooper. However, I refuse to believe that I am a bad mother and wife because I prefer a roof over my head in a home limited to the human species and domesticated animals.

After all, the average day in my house sees more than its share of wildlife. I married the bear I have to hide food from, we bought a coyote-size mutt that howls in the middle of the night, and gave birth to two varmints that tear up our home site faster than I can clean it.

What I will tell you is that, as the mother of two boys, I will eventually find myself out there, braving the elements in the pursuit of that oh-so fleeting title of “Cool Mom.” Somehow, I will manage to put the worm on the hook, whip up a meal of “beanie weenies” and trail mix, and share a tent with boys that smell like sweat and bug spray. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.