The chittering of birds, the smell of chlorine, the sting of a shoulder's sunburn. And, of course, the lazy, crazy, hazy days of catwalk prowling and eyelash curling.

Summer used to mean a time to daydream. Now it's a time to make some money off those dreams (if you're an entrepreneur) or live them out (if you're a kid whose parents are willing to fork out the dough). The latest kiddie camp to come to my burg, New York City, is Modeling Camp, a four-day, $999 spree of makeup tips and photo shoots. For the better part of a week, girls (and boys?) ages 13-18 can live the life once exclusively reserved for 6-foot 100-pounders and, on occasion, Barbie. (When she wasn't busy being an astronaut, which is, of course, another camp.)

The New York Post spent a day with the campy campers and overheard the staff cooing, "Great, darling!" and, "Smile wide!" to girls with braces and pimples. Call me old-fashioned (because "text me old-fashioned" just sounds wrong), but I still think camp is a place to DO things, summer things — swim, fish, tug that tug of war. It's not a spa.

Actually, even a spa does not sound as loathsome as Modeling Camp, because a spa lays its cards on the table: You are here to be pampered.

"Modeling Camp" suggests there are valuable lessons to be learned toward a viable career choice or even a viable pastime. True, no one ever was going to make a living selling lanyard or playing "Red Rover" — or very few, let's say — but at least those are bona fide activities. What is wannabe modeling other than primping and self-absorption legitimized as a hobby?

The most insidious part are the "great, darling!" exclamations because these give kids the idea that by showing up and trying to look pretty, they have "done" something. Not the something you do at camp when you wade across the river or make your own campfire. The something you do when you buy a lip gloss and apply it to your lips.

That's setting the bar pretty low. And the mirror pretty close.

Nonetheless, the arrival of Modeling Camp is not a big surprise in a society in which kids — at least mine — grow up listening to songs with lyrics like "I wanna be a billionaire" and dreaming of having things (fancy cars, pools) and being things (rich, famous) rather than making things (a treehouse) or figuring things out (how to capture the flag).

The other special-interest camps popping up — Computer Camp, Karate Camp, Culinary Camp, Losing the Fat From Culinary Camp Camp — also make me long for the days when kids could take a month or two off from extracurriculars. When they could do something that really would not advance them one whit in the college pool, but would open them to the world. Catch a firefly, say.

I'm sure Modeling Camp soon will become a normal part of the summer pantheon, just one of the zillions of options out there for our kids, who are increasingly unaware of that single, ancient option a lot of us recall every time we smell a pool or eat a ripe plum:

Hanging out. Spending a whole lot of time in the water. Not doing anything in particular for two months except enjoying them more than anything else on earth.

And getting a little sunburn.