Boy Scouts to allow girls

[Disney Ella]

I was a Brownie/Girl Scout for a few years and I was generally bored out of my mind, but I remember being totally envious of the stuff my cousin got to do in Boy Scouts. I remember him working to beat his time on some cool obstacle course type of thing, learning how to build fires, getting to carve things with knives, doing all kinds of nature activities, and it seemed like he was always going camping or rafting or... Meanwhile, my troop met in a church where we cut felt and glued cotton balls to construction paper and the highlight of the year was being forced to sell cookies. I wish I could've been a Boy Scout.

Me too! DH describes all the fun he had as a Boy Scout. At the same time, I was in Girl Scouts working on sewing and cooking badges and other things I considered lame. My troop never went camping or did anything beyond boring meetings.

 

[BLAZEY]

Moving up levels is based on age, not achievement. I think in my DD's case, the problem is that the leaders had their own agenda. I don't know if the GSA organization has any requirements for how to run a troop but if they do it was either ignored or was inadequate. My brother was involved in the BSA for many years, both as a scout and then as a leader. The structure there seemed to be much better defined and focused on what scouts should be doing.

Yes advancement is based on age, in Canada Guiding it's Sparks (age 5-6) Brownies (7-8) Guides (9-11) Pathfinders (12-14) Rangers (15-17). To advance there are core requirements that should be completed, however you can join at point.

 

[Magpie]

This sentiment was expressed perfectly not long ago by Mike Rowe (Eagle Scout, and TV host/narrator) when a father asked him to write a letter to his son to try an encourage him to complete his Eagle rank. Rowe wrote the letter, but not perhaps the tone of letter he had thought of:That pretty much sums it up. Afterwards, a self-described "not a very enthusiastic scout" Scout in Illinois wrote Rowe a response that said that he was "slightly offended" by Mike's words to Kebly. Rowe's response to the 2nd Scout was even more frank.

I was pretty good up to Mike's last line:

"Anyway, I have no idea if you would prefer an easy life of predictability and mediocrity, or if have the passion to follow the road less traveled. Only you get to decide that."

At which point, I'm like, "Dude, don't try to pretend you aren't trying to pull that reverse psychology bull!"

Because this line basically sums up everything he wrote to, "So, you can strive to be an Eagle scout, or you can just accept a boring, predicable, mediocre life. Pick one! And you should be very ashamed of yourself, if you pick the lesser of the two options."

I suspect the boy's father was very happy with Mike's letter. It pretends to give the boy a choice, while denigrating his character, ambition and drive, if he doesn't choose to become an Eagle Scout.

And while I respect Mike's obvious passion for scouting, it's true that we really don't know anything about this young man that he's writing too. Maybe his real passion lies in musical theatre, or app design, or trombone, or politics, and for years his dad has been trying to fulfill his own Eagle Scout ambitions vicariously through his son. It could very well be that the whole "Eagle Scout" thing is irrelevant to the life of high-flying accomplishment the boy is actually striving for. After all, lots of very accomplished, admirable people are not Eagle Scouts.

That said, my family is very proud of my severely autistic cousin, who did attain Eagle Scout, despite being non-verbal and living in a facility for adults with disabilities. It was quite an achievement!

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Bias alert:


Girl Scouts are a joke. I was a Girl Scout for many years as a kid. And had ODD in it briefly in elementary school. Big mistake. It did not work out very well for us. A close friend had her 2 DDs in Girl Scouts for many years and she was even a troop leader for much of that time. Nothing but drama between all of the GS moms. So much focus was on cookie sales. Badge activities were useless stuff like making a placemat and other dumb arts & crafts. What a previous poster said about the quality of the GS troop totally being based on the troop leader is totally true. Close Friend was the Cookie Mom for several years in a row. Tons of work and standing outside in all sorts of weather at grocery stores for 2 months' worth of weekends in a row to sell cookies. Bleh.

But the same is true of the boys. If the scoutmaster is bad, the troop is bad and the boys won't get much out of it. There were several troops in our council that were rather a joke.

 

[RangerPooh]

I do think that the experiences that one has in Girl Scouts is in part dictated by the personality of the leader. If you have a leader who does NOT like to be outdoors then she is more likely to encourage inside badge work/activities. Likewise, if you have a troop leader who is more comfortable in being outdoors and the girls are interested in pursuing the outdoor activities then you're more likely to have those experiences. There is badge work for all kinds of girls. Troops don't have to solely focus on the official badges but can also work in fun patches (purchased elsewhere) to represent other skills/activities completed. I was a Brownie/Junior/Cadette leader over the years, now I assist and am the troop cookie mom for our Cadette troop, and I didn't always follow the badge work as the girls were interested in skills. So I found fun patches on topics like knife skills, fire building, knots, and we learned and earned those. But knowing that gloomy cold winters means less outside time, I also mixed in the official badge work.

Successful leaders also need to ask the girls what they want to learn. You can provide them with a few options from the official badges and see who they rank them. This year our leaders decided that there were a few outdoors badges that we'll work on, but asked the girls to rank in order 6 other badges to possibly complete. The top 3 would be selected. They selected Woodworker, Field Day, and Animal Helper. This spring we plan to work on Trail Blazer, Night Owl, and Primitive Camper and conclude with a weekend camping trip. Most of our girls enjoy camping, those who don't can elect not to attend. Next month our Service unit is hosting a Camporee where the younger girls will learn basic outdoor skills, and the older middle/high school girls will learn emergency wilderness skills; intro to Wilderness first aid and emergency shelter building. Refreshers for fire, knives, open fire cooking, and knots will come into play. They will also assist in leading the activities for the younger girls. These are things that the girls indicated that they wanted to learn.

Journeys, I truly dislike them! The girls dislike them! We had to do one in order to earn our Bronze and Silver Awards, so we modified them to suit our girls and their interests. We made it work. That's what we do for all of the official badge work. The activities aren't always conducive to our girls interests or our meeting place but use what we have and their personalities to modify.

As for being family oriented. DH gets frustrated that he and the boys are not permitted on overnights through GS when BS allows the entire family to participate. It's a legal issue. I know from experience planning service unit events that any event that is attended my non scouts (including parents and other family members) does require additional insurance to be purchased in the event of needed legal action/representation. I think it just reduces issues by being exclusive to females only. It may also be a way t reduce competition that some males bring, as well as an opportunity to empower females to try things that they might not otherwise do.

Our household is mixed on BS allowing girls. You can recruit, and have girls ready to join but you'll still have the same issue that you do in GS, who'll step up to lead? I lead because there wasn't a Brownie troop for my daughter to move into after Daisies. But obtaining a co-leader was like pulling teeth where each only lasted a year, if that and we only met twice a month. Girl Scouts has also realized in recent years that no one likes the Journeys and that they have strayed too far from the outdoor activities. As a result the last two or three years have resulted in increased outdoor emphasis badge work. Cookie prizes are another source of contention for me. My girls don;t want the hair brush and nail kits, and there are a lot of angry moms out there who don;t want to see it offered. In fact there's a Change.org petition about this. Last year our council added backpacking gear at the higher prize point as a reaction to parents/girls wanting outside stuff. In the past soccer and volleyballs were offered but not in the last two-three years, at least not in our council.

Girl Scouts will need to adjust and adapt to Boy Scouts inclusion of girls. Perhaps it will result in better leader training and girl programming, as quality varies in each council. My training and girl programming in WA/ID was better than here TN. They will also need to step up their game in the outdoor arena. It's part of the wake up call that there are a lot of girls who join for the outdoor experience but are dissatisfied with that they find.

 

[BLAZEY]

As an atheist, my son is not welcomed in the Boy Scouts, so all this talk about whether or not to be inclusive is a little ironic to me. He has instead attended Camp Fire camps every summer, and I looked into establishing a Camp Fire group where I live, but you pretty much have to be a stay-at-home parent or not work full-time to establish a club. I used to be totally on the side of all-gender inclusive, and I do see the value in that as well. After all, we know how well "separate but equal" tends to work out (as in, it doesn't). However, my son (who will be turning 13 in February) has mainly friends who are girls, and I find myself wishing he had more friends who were boys. He has a couple, but I think there can be value in learning how to get along with a group of only boys. He can be somewhat sensitive and, as an only child, misses out on how to handle good-natured ribbing that often occurs with boys. My aunt sent her two youngest girls to a private all-girls school because she said she saw a huge difference in the amount of time and attention that actually went towards the academics as opposed to the drama, as opposed to her oldest daughter who went to a co-ed school. I think this is a really difficult, many-layered issue, with many grey areas. Not sure what the answer is here.

You son would be welcomed with open arms in Scouts Canada as the units are not aligned or sponsored by churches. My husband is an atheist too. There was a badge you could earn with regard to religion but it was an interest badge that was the scouts choice to earn or not.

 

[Magpie]

You son would be welcomed with open arms in Scouts Canada as the units are not aligned or sponsored by churches. My husband is an atheist too. There was a badge you could earn with regard to religion but it was an interest badge that was the scouts choice to earn or not.

While you're right that the troops are not church-aligned or sponsored, and the boy would certainly be welcome, Scouts Canada is not entirely 100 percent atheist-friendly.

This is the official statement:

"You must have a basic spiritual belief. Spirituality has been one of the three main principles of Scouting around the world since its inception more than 100 years ago. Scouts Canada is proud of its commitment to diversity and welcomes members of many different faiths and denominations.

You need not belong to an organized religion, but all members must take the Scout Promise in good faith and leaders may include some form of spirituality in their program for the youth. “God” represents spirituality and for some may represent an actual deity, but it may also mean an expression of your personal spirituality."

For example, the Beaver Scout Promise says, "I promise to love God and to help take care of the world."

And The Cub Scout Promise:

I promise to do my best,
To love and serve God,
To do my duty to the Queen;
To keep the law of the Cub Scout Pack;
And to do a good turn for somebody every day.

There's a lot of freedom to define "God" however you like (including as an expression of personal spirituality and not as a deity), but it's still in there.

Atheists in Scouts Canada, while welcome, do have to make some accommodations.

 

[Geoff_M]

And while I respect Mike's obvious passion for scouting, it's true that we really don't know anything about this young man that he's writing too. Maybe his real passion lies in musical theatre, or app design, or trombone, or politics, and for years his dad has been trying to fulfill his own Eagle Scout ambitions vicariously through his son. It could very well be that the whole "Eagle Scout" thing is irrelevant to the life of high-flying accomplishment the boy is actually striving for. After all, lots of very accomplished, admirable people are not Eagle Scouts.

Rowe addresses some of those points in the 2nd letter. He states that "The Rank of Eagle guarantees you no measure of long-term happiness or success whatsoever. The world is full of gifted athletes, academic geniuses, decorated war heroes, and former Eagle Scouts who have gone on to lead miserable lives of failure and regret. Make no mistake about that."

That said, my family is very proud of my severely autistic cousin, who did attain Eagle Scout, despite being non-verbal and living in a facility for adults with disabilities. It was quite an achievement!

That's cool. I've sat on Eagle Board of Reviews for Scouts with special needs and it's a neat experience. The pride that they've exhibited in what they've accomplished really makes you smile.

 

[BLAZEY]

Hm... I'm Canadian. My kids, both the boy and the girl, were in first Beaver Scouts, then Cub Scouts. Scouting here is both co-ed and non-denominational. It wasn't, at least 15 years ago, non-religious, but it was trying to be open to all faiths.

I put my daughter in Scouts, rather than Guides, for the simple reason that it was easier to coordinate getting the kids to one meeting, versus two. Both our local Girl Guides and Scouts Canada seemed to have similarly outdoorsy type programs, and badges, though Girl Guides put a little more emphasis on self-actualization. If I'd had two girls, instead of a girl and a boy, I might have considered Guides.

The children had a good experience in Scouts. They built and raced little cars, went hiking and camping and rock climbing, played games and collected their badges. When we took the kids out to a sleepover at the football stadium, boys slept on one side of the conference room, and girls slept on the other, with several adult chaperones sleeping with them. Facilities were never an issue.

Personally, I very much support co-ed scouting. Unfortunately, what the US Scouting movement is putting in place does not seem to be co-ed scouting. And I'm not a big fan of the whole "separate-but-equal" thing that BSA seems to be aiming for. I can definitely see why GSUSA is upset, as it really does look like the BSA is trying to directly compete with them by offering very much the same thing.

If this is a step to full integration, that's all to the good. But, it's a wobbly first step, at best.

Funny story - one of the leaders were guiding the children through the oath, and took a moment to carefully explain that they could choose to swear it to God, "however your family defines the concept of deity, or whatever your religious practices are". Which went entirely over the heads of this group of 5 and 6 year olds, almost all of whom - including my son - stared at her blankly. But my daughter bounced right up, and announced loudly, "Then I'm swearing MY oath to Aphrodite, because she's the PRETTIEST!"

I'm Canadian too, DD8 is a Brownie as that's what my grandmother, mother and I were. She loves it! I get the impression from reading these comments that Canadian Guiding and Scouting are very similar programs, but that BSA and GSA have seem to have diverged in their programs and that BSA is opening up to girls to fill the void created by the divergence. Like your children, many of the girls I know in Scouts Canada happen to do it because they have older brothers and it made scheduling easier to have both kids in the same troop.

 

[BLAZEY]

While you're right that the troops are not church-aligned or sponsored, and the boy would certainly be welcome, Scouts Canada is not entirely 100 percent atheist-friendly.

This is the official statement:

"You must have a basic spiritual belief. Spirituality has been one of the three main principles of Scouting around the world since its inception more than 100 years ago. Scouts Canada is proud of its commitment to diversity and welcomes members of many different faiths and denominations.

You need not belong to an organized religion, but all members must take the Scout Promise in good faith and leaders may include some form of spirituality in their program for the youth. “God” represents spirituality and for some may represent an actual deity, but it may also mean an expression of your personal spirituality."

For example, the Beaver Scout Promise says, "I promise to love God and to help take care of the world."

And The Cub Scout Promise:

I promise to do my best,
To love and serve God,
To do my duty to the Queen;
To keep the law of the Cub Scout Pack;
And to do a good turn for somebody every day.

There's a lot of freedom to define "God" however you like (including as an expression of personal spirituality and not as a deity), but it's still in there.

Atheists in Scouts Canada, while welcome, do have to make some accommodations.

In Guiding they have removed the word God from the Brownie/Guide promise.

I Promise to do my best,
To be true to myself,
my beliefs and Canada
I will take action for a better world
And respect the Brownie (Guide)Law.

 

[Geoff_M]

There's a lot of freedom to define "God" however you like (including as an expression of personal spirituality and not as a deity), but it's still in there.

Sounds a lot like the BSA. As I've told my Scouts, per the BSA all you have to believe is that there's some power out there that's larger than yourself. It can be a "god", or "gods", or even a bush. It just has to be something.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

Thanks for the information. I wholeheartedly agree that the Gold Award is on the same plane as the rank of Eagle. I would like to add a few perspective items from my side of the fence, so to speak. "Push" is a relative term. From the leadership side it's more like encouragement. From the youth side, it's can be more like peer-pressure. You can find 16 year-old 2nd Class Scouts (next rank after Tenderfoot), but they will get occasional ribbing from their higher-ranked age peers that they are languishing back with 11 or 12 year-olds in terms of rank. Each Scout it presented the rank ladder, how far they go up it is their decision alone.

As for Eagle, there should be as little pushing a possible. Support yes, "pushing" no. Just like Gold, the kid has got to "want it" for themselves. It's up to them to take the initiative present to them. I last thing I want, as a leader and Eagle Scout, is to see a kid "pushed" or "drug" over the finish line. I have two sons... the oldest got his Eagle, the younger one stalled a couple of rungs down and turned 18. I wasn't about to push the younger one (though my wife would have liked it if I had done so). Eagle review boards are also trained to be on the lookout for "pushed" candidates and ours has a strict policy that they will only communicate with the candidate and not his mother, father, or leader. This sentiment was expressed perfectly not long ago by Mike Rowe (Eagle Scout, and TV host/narrator) when a father asked him to write a letter to his son to try an encourage him to complete his Eagle rank. Rowe wrote the letter, but not perhaps the tone of letter he had thought of:That pretty much sums it up. Afterwards, a self-described "not a very enthusiastic scout" Scout in Illinois wrote Rowe a response that said that he was "slightly offended" by Mike's words to Kebly. Rowe's response to the 2nd Scout was even more frank.

I agree with some of his letter, but I don't like his second response where he advises the kid to quit scouting. There are several boys in our troop who won't even try for Eagle. They don't care. They are in it to have fun. They get a lot of great experiences just by being part of the troop. I see nothing wrong with that.

My oldest excelled at scouts and became Eagle at 15. He's now a junior assistant scoutmaster. My youngest loves scouts, and he gets so much out of it. I'm really crossing my fingers he will get Eagle. He's kind of stalled out at life scout right now. He's not motivated, and my husband doesn't push him. He still has 2 years to go so we will see.

As for the girls in scouts, my boys don't think it's a big deal. I'm not entirely sure on my feelings. I don't think our small town is going to have enough girls to join to have an all girl den or troop.

 

[Geoff_M]

Well, the GSUSA has finally reacted to the BSA news of yesterday... and they've come out swinging punches:

In a strongly worded statement, they condemn the Boy Scouts move to include girls.

They tell ABC News: "The Boy Scouts' house is on fire. Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA's senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls."

Seems like a bit unhinged reaction to me.

 

[Colleen27]

I don't believe for a second that this is only being done as some sort of publicity stunt while knowing that no actual change will take place. This reminds me of when it was announced that the BSA would allow women to be Boy Scout Troop leaders back in the 80's. The reaction in some circles is what we're hearing now regarding the next step to the BSA going full co-ed. As with female leaders, I'm sure that there won't be a large rush to make Packs co-ed. But some units will adopt the change... and over time I think it will become more and more the norm. Women boy scout leaders were once a novelty too after that change was adopted.

As for the "facilities" argument. Again, that "It won't work" protestation was raised with female Boy Scout leaders. However, over time each camp has development facilities to accommodate both males and females in terms of showers and bathrooms. Time slots may have to be implemented for the sharing of shower houses, but it can be managed. I've seen it done before with minimal issues. If what you predict is true, and there is not rush of girls that will join Packs, then there shouldn't be too much of a strain on the female facilities at camps.

Also, "kicking the decision down" has been used before when it comes to "sensitive" changes that the BSA has made. As I'm sure you know, each Cub Pack is "owned" by the sponsoring organization and is in fact operated as part of their larger program. So, any change that the BSA makes has the potential to "force" that change on the sponsoring organization against its will. This was also done with the decision to remove the prohibition against gay leaders. Though its critics weren't satisfied that the BSA didn't demand that all troops accept such leaders, they didn't opt to do so because such a move would have forced sponsors like the LDS church to accept gays as leaders of one of their youth programs. So they let it be a local decision for each troop. That prevented a full-scale exodus of LDS and other units sponsored by organizations that would have rejected the mandate.

I wouldn't call it a publicity stunt. I don't think that's the primary purpose of the announcement, which is what it would take for me to apply that label, and I do think they anticipate that in some packs change will begin to happen. But I think they're also very aware that in many packs, nothing will change. It has been 30+ years since BSA opened up leadership to women and our local pack still doesn't have female leaders beyond the den mother level - the men involved in running the pack have been proactive in developing younger male leaders to pass the torch to so there is no "need" to include women. I don't think female scouts will fare much better. And I think the facilities argument is naysaying nonsense since the scout camps around here host family events several times a year and allow school groups to rent space for their own camps at certain times. It is just reflective of local attitudes within the BSA community that girls don't have a place in the org.

I understand, with so many sponsoring organizations being religious or fraternal in nature, that there's a need to walk a certain line when it comes to inclusiveness. But at the same time, that means that they are essentially okay with a certain level of discrimination, whether against homosexual leaders in LDS-sponsored packs or against women in packs that prefer to hold on to the old ways.

And I kind of hate that this is such big news right now. My daughter's class does CNN for Students in school and they talked about this today... which led to several of the girls announcing that they were going to join BSA like their brothers. Well, no, they aren't. Not unless their parents are willing to move to a more progressive area or deal with a nice long commute to the nearest pack that is open to the idea of including a girls' den.

 

[Geoff_M]

I wouldn't call it a publicity stunt. I don't think that's the primary purpose of the announcement, which is what it would take for me to apply that label, and I do think they anticipate that in some packs change will begin to happen. But I think they're also very aware that in many packs, nothing will change. It has been 30+ years since BSA opened up leadership to women and our local pack still doesn't have female leaders beyond the den mother level - the men involved in running the pack have been proactive in developing younger male leaders to pass the torch to so there is no "need" to include women. I don't think female scouts will fare much better.

Interesting, that hasn't been our experience in our part of the state. Female leaders are fairly common for us, so it might be a case of "your results may vary." They were a common sight at our summer camps, and when I was contingent SM for the Jamboree in 97 one of my ASMs was a female (and not a mom of one of the boys either). We also had a lot of women active in our Woodbadge Association when I was active... and that's saying a lot for a group that was notorious for being uptight old codgers.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

If the Girl Scout program in my area did all the fun things that the Cub Scouts did my daughter may have stayed with it. They only did boring crap so she quit within 4 months of joining.

I'm ok with girls joining the Cub Scouts. I was a big volunteer with them until my son moved into Boy Scouts - at that point they didn't really want woman volunteers and discouraged us.

The only issue I can think of is with camping but I guess at Cub Scout age parents are there too so it would be ok.

 

[Skippy918]

We’ve had a good experience with Girl Scouts so far. Dd is a 2nd year daisy (1st grade). We had a camping trip in the spring and one coming up in the fall. For daisies, a parent or guardian is required to accompany the daisy and you have options if you want to stay the whole weekend or just go for the day. We only went for the day and it was fun. We were limited with camping activities like horse back riding and archery because of the age.
We have meetings 2x a month and they do different activities to earn their daisy petals. The troop has also done a service project. This year it’s marker recycling.
Our service unit puts on a lot of different events which are optional and most have a slight cost. This is where the girls can meet other Girl Scouts. I do like that some events are drop off which works well for me.

 

[cruiser21]

I guess since there's no difference between girls and boys anymore so this is totally appropriate??? We might as well let boys join the girls scouts too. I guess it's all part of the big picture to demasculate men. It's really sad what's happening to this world with all the gender politics. I'm really starting to hope my kids never have kids. I'm serious I really don't want them too. It's bad enough now. I can't imaging what it's going to be like 10 years from now.

Go ahead send me all your hate posts. You won't sway me away from my conservative values.

My dh was a boy scout until age 17. I'm sure all those teenage boys would have loved to have teenage girls in their scout group. I'm sure the teenage girls would loved that too. I don't think it a bad thing for teens with raging hormones to be segregated into their own clubs. Just a thought.

 

[CarolAnn856]

I guess since there's no difference between girls and boys anymore so this is totally appropriate??? We might as well let boys join the girls scouts too. I guess it's all part of the big picture to demasculate men. It's really sad what's happening to this world with all the gender politics. I'm really starting to hope my kids never have kids. I'm serious I really don't want them too. It's bad enough now. I can't imaging what it's going to be like 10 years from now.

Go ahead send me all your hate posts. You won't sway me away from my conservative values.

My dh was a boy scout until age 17. I'm sure all those teenage boys would have loved to have teenage girls in their scout group. I'm sure the teenage girls would loved that too. I don't think it a bad thing for teens with raging hormones to be segregated into their own clubs. Just a thought.

Respectful discussion is a good thing. Hopefully this thread will stay this way, no matter what your position is. And I hope nobody takes the bait of anyone who cares more about the act of debating versus actual discussion.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Sounds a lot like the BSA. As I've told my Scouts, per the BSA all you have to believe is that there's some power out there that's larger than yourself. It can be a "god", or "gods", or even a bush. It just has to be something.

DH told his boys that even a thought that there wasn't anything out there counts as a belief.

As far as girls in Scouts, I am torn. I like that boys had a place to be boys, without having girls around (and vice versa, btw). My son had a 5th grade math class with a male teacher, and only 5 girls in it...and while it was the rowdiest, loudest class he'd ever been in, it was also the one he learned the most in, and enjoyed the most. (The opposite class, which had just a few more girls than boys, was the "lower" math class, with students who needed more teaching, than my son's math class.)

Will having girls involved change the pack/troop? yes it will. Will it be a big change? Not as much at the cub level, but definitely at the troop level.

I would like it if they put the girls in their own dens, not mixed with the boys, and with separate camping from the boys, especially at the troop level.