More about scouting
First I want to thank everyone who responded to yesterday’s post. It was really good to hear from so many people who had such positive things to say about scouting. Reading the responses spawned thoughts in my head and forced me to look closely at my feelings about scouting. My feelings are mixed, but most of the reasons are not logical at all. So I’m going to lay the thoughts out here so that anyone who wishes can comment and help me see things in a new way. One warning, many of these thoughts/opinions were formed when I was in my early teens and have never been re-examined since.
The bad things:
It was a club which, as a girl, I couldn’t join. Blue Birds and Brownies are not even close to the same thing. Sour grapes.
It was founded in the same era as the Hitler Youth. That parallel seems disturbing.
Lots of bad press about sexual abuse in scouting.
We have boxes and boxes of old scouting patches and books left over from Howard and his dad and even his grandfather. None of this stuff has any emotional meaning to me. It is all just clutter that I can percieve no future use for and I’m not allowed to get rid of.
In my youth I knew many young men who were required to earn their Eagle Scout badge before they were allowed to drive and were very angry about it.
I’ve known adult men who resented their past forced involvement in scouting. They didn’t like it and their parents made them do it anyway.
All too often with reward systems such as badge earning, the parents scramble to make sure that the boys earn badges. Supposedly this gives the boys a sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately an accomplishment is not something that can be given, it has to be earned. Do boys really feel accomplished when mom does most of the work?
If my son doesn’t earn his badges, he’ll feel like a failure. But he doesn’t yet have the discipline to earn them himself. So I have a whole new list of things to get done.
The good things:
I remember tagging along on with my older brother’s cub scout troop. My mom was the den leader and included me in most everything. Those are all happy memories.
Boys love badges and handshakes and silly skits and silly cheers.
Because I’m trying to help Link earn badges I’ll do stuff with him that would not otherwise have occured to me.
Every single badge is a valuable life skill.
Parents have to participate for a boy to earn badges. That parental interaction is worth far more than any badge.
Link is making social connections with other boys his own age.
Now that I write them out at least half of the “bad things” seem petty or ill informed and the “good things” seem solid and valuable. But I am interested in what you all have to say about scouting. I’m going to be involved in this program for years to come. What do I have to look forward to? What are the pitfalls? What are the benefits?