Opinions please from former Scouts and friends of Scouting

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For one thing the Girl Scouts leader's quote of "...been doing for the last 105 years" is not what we experienced with my daughter. Her experiences were nothing like her mother's, aunt's, or grandmothers, all of who were Girl Scouts.

She would have much rather been camping, hiking, shooting, and the other things her brother was doing, than the make-up parties, fashion discussions, and art-n-craftsy things that she was offered in Girl Scouts.

BTW - She participted in a lot of the Cub Scout activities because the whole family was included.

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Logan and 4 of his teammates (9-10) are here for burgers and hot dogs after their football game. Thinking of this thread, I asked them if they knew much about the scouts and if they had considered joining.

They had some knowledge of it but had no interest. They said it didn't have much of a cool factor and that between school and year round sports their dance cards were full.

If ya want a straight answer, ask a kid.
 
AGREE RUSTY, NOT A WHOLE LOT OF COOL FACTOR OR STREET CRED.

We all know kids can be cruel with the teasing/bullying. Belonging to a group named "BROWNIE" or WEBLOW is asking for trouble. My Fathers name was Richard & in the 30's to 50's his nickname Dick wasn't a big deal. Times change. Name your kid Dick today & see how that goes at school. ;) Just for the record a must have in a bug out/survival bag for me is a Boy scout handbook. My latest from 1911 even has first aid for apoplexy.
 
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I was only a Cub Scout. Kinda lost interest after that. My son wasn't really interested in scouting. Like a lot of other churches, ours has pulled out of BSA. They have started a group in a newish Christian oriented organization called Trail Life USA. I don't know much about it yet, but it sounds like a good alternative.

The thing I liked the most as a kid was called Indian Guides. I'm sure it no longer exists since it's not a PC name, but it was great fun. We learned a lot of the same stuff scouts did, but with an Indian theme. We had to build a totem character for the tribe's totem pole. I remember mine was a gallon tomato sauce can covered with plaster of paris fashioned into a face and painted in wild colors. I attached horns from a cow to it. Instead of merit badges we earned "bear claws," feathers, and beads to add to our necklaces.

Our annual campout was held at the gun club I'm now a member of.

Edited to add: I looked it up online, and Indian Guides still exists. I guess PC hasn't ruined everything yet.
 
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IT'S A PROVEN GENETIC FACT.

Women have smaller feet so they can stand closer to the stove,sink & washer/dryer. ;) Preparing young girls for a life of being the best Housewife they can be seems way too 1950's. Not to take anything away from June Cleaver and Donna Reed. A home economics class would have come in handy for me when I had to learn to cook & sew the hard way, in my 20's.
 
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I am a bit confused...

the Boy Scouts of America already has a coed group... it is called Venture Scouts... it is open to boys and girls over the age of 14 or 13 if they have completed the 8th grade... if my memory serves me correctly... so letting them into BOY scouts is not really necessary at all... and for the record... I was a Cub Scout and a Webelo with both my mother and father being my leaders... and I was then a leader for my son all the way thru - finally got my chance at being a Boy Scout and am a member of OA... i am very proud that he made Eagle... both of my brothers are Eagles... I was more interested in girls and cars so got a job to pay for one to get the other... besides the leaders at the time were terrible so I was never a Boy Scout... my sister was a Girl Scout and then a leader for my niece and she made it all the way to earn her Gold award... which is the highest level... similar to the Eagle... which her younger brother earned... my littlest nephew is just starting out in Cubs and I am not sure what my little brother - his leader - will be doing with this new turn of events... Scouting has been a part of my entire life.... I am just glad I am not going to have to make the choice of staying or going... I am retired and am planning on staying that way...
 
It's a different world now. Kids see everyone as an equal male or female, black or white.

I think it's a good thing to integrate scouts. I always wondered why our Boy Scout troop didn't do anything with Girl Scouts.

The Girl Scouts had a huge property in my home town, that us boys could not use. Seemed like a waste to me.

My sister would have enjoyed being part of my Boy Scouts troop, she tagged along as much as she could, and a lot of her school friends were in my troop.

FWIW, the Girl Scouts are not happy about the rule change.
 
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I was a cub scout, then a boy scout, then an assistant scout master and a scout master, then back to assistant scout master and finally a troop committee member assigned to sit in on the Eagle boards of review. I had over 40 years in scouting. During the time when I was assistant the first time then scoutmaster, our oldest boy was a scout, earning the rank of EAGLE SCOUT. Our youngest scout went thru cub scouts then joined boy scouts but lost interest after a year. He turned out not to be an outdoors person. He is now an I.T. guy at a local college, working under his brother the EAGLE SCOUT.
I also earned Wood Badge and received the District Award of Merit as a leader.
I was also an explorer leader for a co-ed explorer group. There the co-ed seemed right but I'll never be in favor of girls in the boy scouts, and I'm not against girls, I just don't think 11-14 yr old boys should be mixed with girls yet, too young and too inquisitive, let them mature a little before being combined in camping experiences. I realize there would need to be both male and female leaders, but I know young boys, there will be law suits when a 12-13 yr old girl gets pregnant at scout camp. There's no way the leaders could keep that from happening in my opinion, kids will sneak around and do what comes naturally when given the chance.
Bad idea.
 
Eagle Scout and Order of the Arrow here, a long time ago. My experience in scouting was extremely sectarian and un-militaristic. We focused on wilderness skills; woodcraft, desert survival, etc.
I have long disapproved of what has happened to the local troops I am aware of here. They all seem to have been co-opted by a particular church and there is ongoing subtle indoctrination. I can also think of at least two incidents of child abuse in one troop.
If I were looking for a scout troop to put a child in, I wouldn't be able to find one.
Accepting girls seems to me to be an attempt at remaining relevant on the part of an organization that is losing ground. I don't know if that's good, or bad, but I know quite a few young ladies who could kick the average boy's backside on a 50 miler.
 
I left the scouts just before the "life" rank because I foolishly thought it hurt my street cred with the girls. If I was born 45 years later I could have stayed in the scouts and still gotten girls.

Seriously, I pushed my kids to stay in karate to get their black belts at a minimum. I told them it was something they earned on their own and no one could take it away from them. I likened it to becoming an Eagle scout. Every time I said that I regretted my decision to leave before I achieved my Eagle rank.

In my humble opinion, with this decision the BSA has tarnished the hard work and personal achievement of every young man who ever repeated the oath.
 
richardw said:
We live in different worlds I think. Do you really believe that men and women Marines are having a lot of sex together? If you do, your imagination is out of control. As for scouts do you really believe that mingling boys and girls in a combined activity will result in an increase in sexual behavior? I hope not, but if you do, I think you need some help.
Click to expand...

I don't need any help. I don't believe that men and women Marines or Army are having rampant sex issues. These are trained and disciplined, responsible adults.

I don't think there is any problem in having girls and boys doing activities together. Actually that is a good thing. The problems arise during extended outings of more than one day. At night when everyone is supposed to be sleeping, but some aren't, is what I'm talking about. When hormones are at an all time high, and kids are wanting to be together, sometimes things get out of hand. Have you never heard of teenage pregnancy? It seems you may be a bit naive about teenage behavior.
 
All you GUYS worried about teens having sex, if they want it they will find a way, true. Maybe some of you should look back on your misspent youth.
Were you ALL male virgins until you were 20 yrs. old? I highly doubt it.

Teen pregnancy is at its lowest rate in over 20 years.

Scouting and other youth groups (in general) should be a vehicle to give teens a chance to interact with each other without the peer pressure to
"just do it" whether that be sex, drugs, drinking, bullying and whatever.

Are girls going to be fully integrated into the entire Boy Scout program?
I don't think that is the intent.

Just some Sunday thoughts.........
 
...I don't think girls would have done well in South Denver Troop 88...we met in a church basement...and tried to keep meetings short so we could get down to the real business at hand...playing "sock hockey"...

...we would take our shoes off which made it possible to slide across the church basement floor...made a hockey puck out of aluminum foil...and goals were set up between folding chairs...then we would proceed to batter and bruise each other into bloody pulps...not a thing the girls of our era cared to join into...

...if that wasn't enough...when leaving the meeting...someone would usually yell "dog pile!"...and tackle the guy nearest him...and the rest of us would jump on top and see how high a pile we could form...leaving the guy on the bottom struggling to breath...not a top ambition of those of the feminine gland it seemed...

...political correctness has damaged or ruined a lot of things...scouting will be or has been added to the list...we were so politically incorrect in the 60s that we had a Confederate Flag on our neckerchiefs...
 
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raised two boys from tiger to eagle. i was den leader, cubmaster, asst scoutmaster and currently troop secretary. daughter did the girlscouts and got her silver award. IMO, this is a good move. forget about the SJW aspect, i don't think its there. the BSA is a great program, perfectly suited for boys and girls. if they had allowed this when my daughter was growing up, she would have been an eagle, guaranteed. this will open the program up more for families and get more people involved. if more people were exposed to, and lived by the tenants of the oath, law, slogan and motto, this would be a much better world.
 
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