Girl Guides / Boy Scouts?

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if any of you parents have put your little people in Girl Guides / Boy Scouts? (Girl Scouts, for our American Neighbours)

 

yes. my boys were in scouts for 4 years. it was GREAT - we had the best fun!! pick your pack wisely though, no two are the same, and you have to be able to enjoy the other parents too. we've recently moved, and my oldest has way too much homework so we aren't able to be involved this year - but i'm going to try to get back into it. i'd really like them to be eagle scouts someday...

 

What's an eagle scout??

 

I used to be in Rainbows and then Brownies. Until I quit that is, realised it was sexist and decided to be a feminist instead (have yet to grow out of that)

My brother never went for Scouts, if you met him you'd understand. He is so not Scout material.

Our parents never pressured us either way, and we're more than happy to go along with our fancies.

 

We're lifers, my brother and I. My dad was my brother's Scout leader, my mom was my Brownie leader... all these years later, my brother is working with a Venturer group, and in the fall I'm going to be a Brownie leader. Sage I'm so sorry Brownies didn't work out for you For me it was a positive experience...each guiding level brought something different to my development.

 

super grrl, an eagle scout is the top rank a boy can get - of course if they go on to be a leader, there's 'life scout'. to be an eagle scout, they have to complete a huge amount of work, and a major service project that they coordinate. a lot of scouting focuses on service to the community - our troop was awesome.

drumminmama, sorry you had such a bad experience - not all packs are the same. you do not have to go to the one closest to your house, or the one your school or church sponsers - you can go to any one that you are comfortable with. there should be good trained leaders, and you have to be willing to volunteer your time also. scouting is run by volunteers, so if you see a lack, it's there for you to step in and fill it. sometimes jobs/life doesn't let you participate as much, so you need to shop around for a better fitting group.

 

I used to be a boy scout...don't do it, for the love of God!

 

why not, john? for US, it has been awesome. and i made a lot of good friends, along with my boys.

 

I was in Daisies and Brownies when I was little. It was stupid. We just sat around for an hour making beaded bracelets and playing 7 Up. I could make beaded bracelets at home, and 7 Up? Christ, we played that at school when we had five minutes left before the end of class. I wouldn't join a club to play that stupid game.

I remember being so mad that we never went camping. My friend Seth is into scouting- I think he's either an Eagle scout or about to become one- and he said that there some other kids organization where the girls group does do fun stuff like going camping and hiking. I wish I knew about that then.

 

feministhippy, sounds like your pack sucked, seriously. that's such a shame. and brownies are DEFINITELY supposed to go camping, even if it's not as hardcore as the other kids. ugh, stories like that make me so sad!

 

I had to quit Girl Scouts when I was a Cadette (I think that's what it's called...) All my friends my age dropped out so I was going to high school when the rest of the troop was in the last year of middle school. I also was in marching band with my school so I couldn't go to any of the meetings. It was really sad I actually really want to get back into it if I can, or at least volunteer with younger girls.

Girl Scouts is much better than Boy Scouts... Boy Scouts is very negative against gays and generally seen as conservative, but Girl Scouts takes a much more accepting official viewpoint (always exceptions, but Girl Scouts allows lesbian troop leaders).

I love Girl Scouts... my troop leader was such a feminist. We went hiking and camping (although all the moms who came with us brought air mattresses ), we went to science museums, we went to all the Civil War and indian historical areas in North Georgia and parts of Alabama, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, spent a week at a marine science college on the ocean participating in experiments and checking out the city of Savannah GA, and just a ton of other cool things as well as quilting for homeless children, making pillows for breast cancer patients, and other stuff. I would recommend it to anyone, but like a few people have said, make sure you check out your troops. Some women use GS as a way to push their beliefs on the children so you have to watch out. I completely lucked out with a really openminded leader who, when she found out I was Jewish, she had me teach the troop about the religion and we would always have Jewish holiday celebrations along with the Christian ones. Ah... and you can't forget the cookies.

 

damn, silverclover, seems like i'm always arguing with you - you should not make such encompassing statements. Boy Scouts ROCK!!! and we NEVER even discussed gays, for or against in our troop. what the national council does is not part of the everyday boy scouting experience.

 

Well.. I just know that around here (could be because I'm in Georgia), every troop my brother was in was very insensitive to him being Jewish and also was not very open-minded towards gays or "alternative" lifestyles as they called it. I have a friend who just reached Eagle Scouts and he has always told me about the gay bashing that's been allowed to go on within his troop. This is just what I've been around and most people that I know who have been part of boy scouts in various states and countries have not had a good experience if they did not fit the cleancut boyscout cookie-cutter profile. But hey, each troop is different.

 

^^^exactly - each troop IS different, because it's run by the parents who volunteer. if your brother had such a hard time, your folks should have volunteered their time to be there - a lot of bigots are also cowards, and them just being there would have shut their mouths (maybe).

we were very lucky, we had the best group, i made so many good, life long friends - and we had a very culturally diverse group. i couldn't tell ya if we had jews or not in it cuz i've never been really good at discerning ethnicity - not a skill i've ever practiced. i do know we never bashed anyone - we played practical jokes on each other pretty regularly though.

 

I was a cub scout, and my main priority at the meetings was trading hockey cards. When we went camping, I waited till everyone was asleep and snuck out and pulled the pegs on everyone elses tents so they all collapsed, but they somehow figured out it was me, maybe cuz my tent was still up. My only other memory was falling off a dock into the lake in my uniform.

It was something to do, although I never got really into it.

 

I've heard too about Boy Scouts being homophobic, buying into that whole "gay men are pedophiles" thing (which is SUCH a load, obviously) but again it would depend on your group. Hopefully your group would have leaders who were able (and willing) to put an end to that kind of behaviour the moment it begins. I've never seen harasment about sexual orientation and things like that in Girl Guides....the girls tend to pick on eachother for other things, like not having a boyfried (even in brownies or guides!) or still being flat-chested. Damn, girls are mean...but we always did everything we could to ensure that kind of stuff didn't happen.

 

I was never involved in it as I was too obsessed with dancing and cheerleading and that left little time for much else, nor was my husband, although he said that he probably would have been into it as a kid. My sister was once a Brownie, but she didn't stick with it for too long, it just wasn't "her thing". She didn't care for it, and she hated camping, it scared her at the time.

If my kids show an interest, I'll be more than happy to see that they get involved. Right now my oldest son informed me just the other day that he wants to play football, basketball, baseball and soccer, that he wants to do them all. Can we say overwhelming schedule? *lol*

 

the name of the organization is Campfire USA, or Campfire Boys and Girls. My Nana was a leader of a campfire troop for years. I like the concept much better than girl or boyscouts because it does not discriminate on the basis of anything, INCLUDING sexual orientation. And it's co-ed. i tend to believe that children who are involved in an organization that includes both genders learn to become friends with people of both genders and have better relationships with the opposite sex as they grow up. segregating the genders is exactly why men and women "don't understand each other." plus, the campfire organization does expose kids to doing really fun things.

i was in girl scouts for upwards of 7 years. while i liked some of the projects we did, i always wanted something more, like a little more camping or outdoors stuff. the boy scouts get to do plenty of that. we did mostly domestic type stuff like crafts and sewing and projects having to do with babysitting. my Nana lives in another city than where i grew up, and they had a Campfire council, but we didn't, so when it came to a club or organization it was either scouts or 4-H. i also did 4-H for a couple years, but it was too redneck-ish for my tastes.

anyway, i guess the girlscouts and boyscouts can be positive for some people. i did get to go on some cool field trips over the years, and i made some damn cool bracelets and christmas ornaments. but i feel if i had the opportunity as a child to be in a club, i would choose either Campfire or the Boys and Girls club.

 

I was a girl scout and i was in 4h.... for some reason i went to 2 h4 meetings and they never called me back. fuckers!! i wolda been a damn good 4h...er