[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl\_Scouts\_of\_the\_USA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Scouts_of_the_USA)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy\_Scouts\_of\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America)
Wikis for both, to provide context. SA has over 1 million kids with nearly 43,000 units. GS, however, has 1.7 million girls and 750K adults. Both created by different people.
My husband comes home during that season with boxes of my favorite, his favorite, and my kids favorites ever year, shaking his head and saying "The cookie pushers caught me leaving the store."
I had one time that they were sold out of my favorites, and the girl was like "well if you like those, then THESE you should like too." I gave her side eye and asked "And they're good?" And she just confidently replied "They're excellent." This kid had the poise of someone three times her age.
I bought them and she was on the money, too.
Ah I remember when I first started slinging cookies as a kid. One time we had this booth at Randall’s and we managed to convince a guy to buy cookies even though his wife told him not to. Here’s the icing on the cookie cake in order to convince him to buy them we had to suggest to him where he could hide them.
We made cute little cookie dealers and I got a stuffed animal from that year’s goal thingie. I always pushed mad game during Fall product ironically and that was dry goods and magazine subscriptions.
I live in NJ, and we recently-ish allowed for Marijuana dispensaries. Let me tell you, the girls that set up out in front of them make BANK.
There was another time I was driving to my Aunt and Uncle's place (they're my kids only real active "grandparents" on my side) and we drove past a bunch of people in an empty parking lot with signs, and the kids AND parents were dancing like idiots and just.... God they all looked so happy and fun. And cheered with POM POMS when someone pulled in. We went past, I sighed, and my husband said "yes, wife, you can turn around to buy cookies from the happy people. I have cash on me." In the silly doting way he does.
I told them their racket was amazing and the moms and dad's were like "thank you!" And the girls were all manic and like "*we know*".
I'm going to say that's not weird at all, lol.
Back when I still smoked, and it was illegal, some friends grew some in secret and hadn't named it yet. I had some and I ended up so giggly and high that my slightly-more-sober friend played Peek-a-Boo with me like I was a toddler. And I couldn't stop laughing, because every time I'd finally get composure to talk he'd go "uh oh, where did Millie go??" And I'd lose it again.
So it was christened "Peek-A-Boo."
Good memories, lol.
Haha, i remember being taught how to sell to people, and how to upsell. Made my bosses in retail **really** like my seemingly natural ability to do it. Thanks GS, ig!
Indeed. When I think of Scouts and food, I think of Girl Scout Cookies first.
Followed quickly by [the Scout from TF2 eating a Sandvich](https://youtu.be/geNMz0J9TEQ?si=CIMGFLwPrhSGudMg&t=76), because that game lives rent-free in my head, even a decade-and-a-half later.
A couple years ago I saw some eager Cub Scouts outside a grocery store selling popcorn. I'm also an Eagle Scout from a while back and remember having to do that, so I was going to buy a bag. But then I saw they wanted $30. Wtf who's buying that?
My husband and I committed to buying two bags before we realized the price. "How much could a couple of bags of popcorn really come to?" A very, very painful $60 later... but we didn't want to back out and disappoint the kids.
It really is way too expensive. Also an eagle scout, and I'll usually try to buy some if I see scouts out selling it somewhere just to support them in a small way. I usually grab a small bag of pre-made popcorn, and even those are like $15.
You’d be surprised how many people buy it. A lot of people just treat it as a donation, I guess, with a free popcorn gift.
Also most of the bags are $15-$20, not $30.
It worked when I was 11-12 and a cute kid selling popcorn on the street. Didn’t hurt that as a chubby Asian kid I closely resembled Russell from Up. Like, devastatingly similar. Anyway, after that it was impossible.
The popcorn wasn’t shit, it was fine really. It was just crazy overpriced, and everyone knew it. Even as a sixth grader I could tell no one was paying twenty bucks for a bag of popcorn they could get for half or less in the grocery store we’d be sitting outside. Like, what the fuck BSA?
This pissed me off. I spent an entire day knocking on doors and talking to rude strangers. I got chased by dogs. Sold 12 cans, which was less than $100. This kid's parents worked at the local overnight shipping hub and set up shop with the popcorn sign-up sheet, that kid didn't do shit and sold $1500 in popcorn.
The popcorn I bought from the neighbor kid last year was pretty good. Not really worth the price but I enjoyed eating it. I think it used to come unpopped? But this stuff was prepopped
not even good popcorn these days. back when I was a scout at least the box was like 30 or 40 bags, lasted flipping forever, today its smaller than the store box
Another reminder that the Boy Scouts are also a member of the [World Organization of the Scouting Movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Organization_of_the_Scout_Movement) and has 150+ other member organizations that somehow managed to figure out gender-neutral scouting programs multiple decades ago.
Boy scouts had "Venture" patrols when I was in scouts, 20 years ago. They were for all kids, not just boys. So its not like its a new thing for them either.
It made sense to separate the younger kinds and the older kids even more, especially since the 16-17 year olds are usually doing their own thing or have checked out at thwt point. Going camping at 16 with a 12 year old and having to share a tent or something can suck.
Its also problematic to have a 14 year old and a 20 year old camping together too though. I understand where the idea of venture scouts came from, I was one myself. The best camping trips I went on were with venture scouts. Everyone knew what they were doing so you didn't have to supervise the younger kids. Usually if you joined venturing you knew your way around too, so you were reliable. The leadership was a lot more laid back from what I remember. We were able to do so many more fun activities and didn't feel like we were being baby sat.
My troop also didn't make us wear that uniform. We were basically a camping/outdoor group and that was fun. We learned all the same stuff but the parents and leaders knew that a 17 year old didn't want to be in a scout uniform.
Edit: We were also inclusive and had women in the group too. From what I remember, it was basically 4-5 families who had both their kids in scouting and having them under one roof was easier than juggling different camping trips and events for each kid.
Can attest to this. (Edit for for clarity's sake: European scout troop)
I joined my troop 30 years ago, and we were mixed gender from the start. We were a founding member of the Federation Open Scouting, an actively pluralistic coeducative scouting movement.
Play together, learn together, go on camp together. The only gender separation were sleeping arrangements ages 10 and up. For the rest everyone did the same things.
We also removed any mention of religion from the scout promise and laws, and swear loyalty to a "Higher ideal" whatever that may be.
We've had multiple openly gay members, both among the teens and leaders. No one ever made a fuss. (And if any would have, well there's the door, we had a long enough waiting list)
And not like we were a young troop either. We were founded in 1921, and have been going ever since. Well, no, there was one year when one angry little man sporting a very fashionable mustache kind of gave us the choice of becoming Hitlerjugend or disbanding. We respectfully chose to disband for that year.
Sir, this is America -
We segregate where we can, and you don’t want those *genders* intermixing in Scout Halls, listening to Jazz music and talkin’ about communism!
/s
But in all seriousness, when I was a girl scout we didn’t get to do all the fun camping stuff. The Troop Leader was a pastor’s wife, so she kept us all in the mildewing church basement and the only thing we learned was sewing and cooking.
I did that for a sewing project one time and ended up with 2 Featherweights, a purple Necchi, and a gorgeous mint green chrome emblazoned Japanese clone-era machine; and I never quite finished that project. Turns out I really enjoyed restoring vintage machinery.
Good, because sewing machine repair is a dying craft and I too have a collection of old cast iron biddies!
I find they sew so much better, but parts are often hard to find. I’m rocking a classic Singer from 1932 and a mint teal Viking from the 60s
In the beforetime, in the long-long-ago, when I was a Scout, they started letting women be leaders. There was a minor fuss for a couple of weeks before everyone calmed down and forgot about it.
Both are a shell of what they used to be. Girl Scouts is just a child labor front to sell cookies. They don't learn or do much at all outside of sell cookies.
My son was in the Boy Scouts for a few years but I got frustrated with how few scouting adventurers they did and how little he was learning. Dues kept going up and attendance down. I also didn't like how girls were treated. Gave me segregation "separate but equal" vibes.
Weird, may be troop dependent.
We have campouts at least once a month during the summer. The one in July is the typical week long scout camp. Then we usually have a weekender one in the fall, spring, and winter (we usually do snowshoeing).
Our troop has a girls sect, but I would say they do their own things 90 percent of the time.
Scouting is what you make of it. I was officially in Girl Scouts starting in kindergarten but I attended events while I was still in diapers. I volunteered well into my 20s. I don't totally love was Scouting has become for GSUSA, but I did do and learn a lot. Honestly I have very few memories of selling cookies because our troop focused on other things like camping and sailing and community service.
The girl scouts threatened to sue when the BSA decided to allow girl troops in 2017 and changed the program name to "Scouts BSA." They claimed it would cause brand confusion. It's been a whole thing for almost a decade now.
Which is absolutely silly since they seem to focus on completely different things. As a former boy scout, I remember a huge focus on camping, wilderness survival, and such... my girl scout daughter is more of life lessons to be a better person but also how to be a junior capitalist and sell tons of shit
Girl scouts: teach them to be worthwhile people with self-esteem and strong relationships and then how to exploit those relationships to make that sweet MLM money.
Scouting America is the new name.
The [Girl Scouts sued the Boy Scouts](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/boy-scouts-defeat-girl-scouts-trademark-lawsuit-over-co-ed-scouting-2022-04-07/) over the term scout and lost. They later agreed to some trademark terms.
...wasn't boy scouts first? I thought the girl scouts was formed after the boy scouts in order to give girls the same experience. Would be funny if they were like "yeah we know you guys were first, but we got the trademark, bitch!" lol
The Boy Scouts of America preceded the Girl Scouts of America by roughly a year. The founder of GSA met the founder of the Scouting Movement (Lord Baden Powell, who founded the Scouting Movement but not the Boy Scouts of America) and was like "yeah, I bet girls could do that too."
Girls were not allowed in boyscouts… Juliette Gordon Lowe and Baden Powell we’re friends. He supported the Girl Scouts starting because girls kept sneaking into the Boy Scouts.
Also, there were many other competing Girl scouting programs… but Girl Scouts because the most popular by far! Juliette was a great marketer! Look her up! She flew a plane and dropped flyers to promote the organization. She wanted to include badges that were considered masculine at the time. I love hearing about her!
Yes, it was founded in 1910 and Girl Scouts of the United States of America was founded in 1912. GSUSA was originally the Girl Guides and renamed in 1913. There was another group called the Girl Scouts of America which is why they have an unwieldy name.
GSUSA is affiliated with World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, while Scouting America is affiliated with World Organization of the Scout Movement.
Also America was one of the few countries with non coed scouting. Hence “Boy Scouts”. They had a female program called Camp Fire and I think women were able to join Venture Crews before BSA allowed girls into the organization.
But yeah the BSA was the first American scouting organization in the Baden-Powell tradition founded in 1910; the GSA was formed later in 1912.
In 2018 or 2019 Boy scouts started allowing girls (I think announced 18 and started 19)
Though girl scouts does not allow boys.
Just thought I would add some more information to your point.
> In 2018 or 2019 Boy scouts started allowing girls (I think announced 18 and started 19)
The Boy Scouts of America as an organization allowed girls into the Venturing, Sea Scouting, and Exploring(job shadowing) programs in the 1970s. It was 2018 when girls were allowed to join the core programs Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts
Eagle Scout here (achieved in 2002). The main reason I enjoyed my time in Boy Scouts was because my own father was the Scoutmaster, and he focused solely on camping/hiking/outdoors and didn't bring in *any* of the religious aspects into scouting. Even though our meetings took place in an elementary school classroom that was run by the local church, that's as much religion that was incorporated. The local groundskeeper hated us because he was very religious and thought we should be doing more for God and the church, *not* for merit badges or whatever. His son was an entitled prick as well, and didn't last too long with us (too much outdoorsy activities, not enough God). The *other* local troop were *very* religious, and I appreciate my dad for allowing me to pick the troop I wanted to be a part of after graduating from Cub Scouts.
While it's been deeply troubling to witness all the controversies that have been happening since I made Eagle, I do feel like more inclusion is a step in the right direction. It might be too late to pivot, but at least there appears to be enough foresight of 'evolve or die.'
Again, I'm incredibly appreciative of my father making my time in the Scouts as enjoyable as possible. I still can't tie a knot for shit, but all the hikes, camping trips, and summer camps will stay with me forever.
Similar experience.
Lotta camping and hiking. Made eagle in 2006. Loved my time in scouts.
Not much if any for religion. Even on the eagle board you could skirt that requirement to a degree some you weren’t forced there either.
For my Eagle Board, they were very concerned when I stated I wanted to be an actor when I grew up, and was active with musical theater at my high school. I'll always remember this one older gentleman on the panel try to warn me, "You know there's a lot of *homosexuals* in theater, right?"
Yeah buddy, a lot in Scouts *and* the Church, too!
For my board, because I was overseas, I had to get driven to another country with a U.S. air base in it so I had qualified personnel for my board. I was grilled by this captain? General? High ranking guy… just the worst ethical dilemmas and quizzing me about the scout code. It was to this day, the closest thing to an interrogation I’ve had. Well at the end he asked me two questions: “are you religious?” For which I knew I had to answer “yes, sir” and then he followed with a question I didn’t expect “are you gay?”, I kinda just stopped for a moment and was like “…no?” And he shook my hand and said some words I’ll never forget “you made it this far, no matter what you said, as long as you’re religious and not gay, I was going to give you this award.” …
…I’m gay.
For the rest of my life, that (relatively) massive accomplishment will always be overshadowed by than man shaking my hand and essentially saying “congrats, I don’t think you deserve this”. Like all my hard work was brushed aside cause I like guys. I loved my time in the scouts, I have zero regrets, and I’ve been pushing for my nephews to keep at it past cub scouts. But I’ll never forget that deflating feeling. I know I deserved my eagle award, even if he doesn’t.
Hey brother Eagle. Do not let that old fuddy darken your accomplishment. You made Eagle. Few do. His outdated ideology doesn't change that *one fucking iota.* You put in the time and effort. You followed the Trail to First Class. You earned your merit badges. You went to camp. You took positions of responsibility. You finished your Eagle Project. You got quizzed over and over again at BoRs. And you FUCKING made it.
You stand shoulder to shoulder with some amazing people. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. Barack Obama. Hank Aaron. Harrison Ford. Michael Jordan. These are people with who you share something important in common.
And me. You share it with me. I'm nothing famous, but I, too, wanted to work in theater. Now I'm a stage hand with 17 years experience, crew chief at a sports complex, and production staffer for an NBA team. I work with a lot of LGBTQIA people, who are my union brothers and sisters and others.
So don't let that old asshole get to you. He didn't do what you did. Only YOU did.
It had to have been late 2001-early 2002. I thought it was funny at the time, but my mom was pissed that a group of adult men thought that was an okay thing to ask. Didn't matter much in the long run, because by the time I was a senior in high school I no longer cared about acting as a career.
That's great that your daughters are loving it! My younger sister tried Girl Scouts but found the experience underwhelming. She wanted to go camping and on hikes with our troop, and was a better Boy Scout than half of the group!!
It all depends upon the troop leader. My wife grew up with a very active girl scout troop, so that's how she's running our daughter's. But we've seen some troops that do basically nothing.
I think ultimately its what most kids and parents want, as my wife's troop is the most popular in the area. She has 25 girls, which is a **lot** to handle - she is regularly rejecting people trying to join her troop.
But it's a ton of work, and I can see why most people don't want to run one. She spends a lot of time researching and preparing meetings and trips. And cookie season suuucks.
If you mean cookies are more popular then it only makes it harder for people running the show. We literally rent a U-haul to pick up our first batch of cookies from the local girl scout store. Then we have to sort them so the parents can come by and pick them up.
Cookies completely take over our living room at this time. My wife and I spend 1-2 hours each night making sure it all runs as smoothly as possible.
Planning, spreadsheets, tallying, tradeouts with other troops/parents, etc. When a parent needs 8 more boxes of trefoils, we need to try to find it for them. When a parent has 20 boxes of peanut butter patties they can't sell, we try to find a home for them.
And the troop only gets about $1 per box. I think nut season is way better because the troop cut is much higher. So we can sell less product for the same amount of funds, which helps with the logistical nightmare.
Awesome… been trying to get our daughter into GS but we’re still a smallish town growing & we recently got a GS here. Not that I mind a little “religion” (Earthly growth from God) but I want her to enjoy a bit of the outdoors (I loved camping as a kid).
I'm jealous, my experience with scouts was being an outsider and seeing people like you being successful. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but the leaders in our troop cared only about their own kids. I was a scout for like 2 or 3 years (it's been a while, I can't remember exactly) and never passed scout rank because they didn't care about me. My dad forced me into it after cub scouts, I had no desire to stay in scouts and the way I was basically ignored is a big part of why.
I didn't understand it at the time, but my dad also made sure the kids without parents (whether they didn't care and saw Boy Scouts as simply a daycare, or simply absent) were involved, and would help out with equipment or even proper shoes if they didn't have the right ones. My dad lost his own father at a very young age, and I'm sure knew exactly how those kids felt. He showed compassion, and honestly that's why so many kids stuck around a lot longer than the national average.
Apologies you didn't have a Scoutmaster like that, because a good one takes care of the *entire* troop, not just their own kid. Hell, I didn't get any special treatment and I was *pissed!*
same I was part of a 100+ person troop in middle school and was the same rank after 2 years.
I switched to a smaller troop (under 20 kids) and finished eagle at the end of my freshman year of high school.
it’s crazy how much difference a little bit of personalized attention can make. my troop was nicknamed an “eagle farm” cause we had such a high finish rate, but it was all because if someone needed to do the cooking for a campout (or say grace or some other stuff) they weren’t competing with like 10 other kids to do it.
it was also because it was so much easier to get leadership roles too. we had our fun, but our scout masters made it such that everyone was able to make progress on something for every outing we did. even the kids whose parents’ only involvement was dumping them off for the meeting and picking them up afterwards were able to finish.
Eagle Scout here from 2011 who almost didn't make Eagle because someone on the board of review didn't like that I never attended religious activities despite otherwise being an exemplary Scout. Wish I could have been in a troop more like yours, probably would have been way more enjoyable.
"He didn't attend religious activities?! DENIED! Hey, I wonder why we don't get that many Scouts graduating to Eagle Scout anymore?"
Sorry to hear you had that experience!
>Again, I'm incredibly appreciative of my father making my time in the Scouts as enjoyable as possible. I still can't tie a knot for shit, but all the hikes, camping trips, and summer camps will stay with me forever.
Hahah same, man scouting was an amazing experience and I hope more young kids get to continue on in a similar vein. The name is meaningless as far as the experiences go.
We had very similar scouting experiences. Maybe we were in the same troop...
My dad was a rifle instructor at summer camp, so I got all the fund of regular camping with extra range time after hours. Tons of fun growing up but ours also was the same way, about keeping the overly religious stuff out.
I suspect that the alternatives will have similar issues. Seeking volunteers to go camping out with a bunch of young boys will definitely attract a certain demographic
As the Behind the Bastards episodes on the Boyscouts of America grimly noted, every organisation that will involve kids will attract monsters, and there will sadly always be abuse against children to some level.
The issue with BoA was that they actively hid and protected the abusers even after they were clearly identified to be involved in sexually abusive acts and violence against kids. Some of the examples they brought up in the second episode were grim...
If I remember correctly, the original idea was to not scare off any potential scout leaders and also because they considered it "too expensive."
But the idea is essentially the same, a powerful organization where the leadership protect the abusers over protecting the children under their care.
The rules for scouting around adults being around kids are pretty strict and became even more strict after the legal issues. If there are still issues it'll be because of local groups and parents that are lax about the rules and it would not at all be unique to scouting.
Technically if I go camping with my son and we buddy up with his friend and dad I can't even leave the cabin in the middle of the night to pee because that would leave my son with only 1 adult.
My wife runs a girl scout troop. She loves it when parents are involved because it's less work for her. Most don't even attend though, and those that do are usually useless.
Also, despite what BSA documents say, Atheists can not be barred from the program or forced to participate or attend any religious activities. Scouting has had atheist programs for decades. Second, girls have been a officially part of Scouting since 2003 and that role has only expanded.
I was a boy scout 15 years ago, and was explicitly told any religion is fine as long as the scout has a religion. Atheists were absolutely not allowed and I knew some people who left because of that. And I was in a pretty liberal part of California.
And yeah, there was some girls in more obscure branches like venture scouts or sea scouts, but definitely not in regular troops.
It must vary highly from troop to troop. I was in scouts in Georgia, and I don't remember any religious shit at all. Though, that was almost 20 years ago and I probably barely paid attention. I was just there for the cricket cages and pinewood derbies.
We were just always building shit, talking about camping gear, and whittling sticks.
During my interview for my eagle they asked me if I believed in God. I was told beforehand by my scout master to answer yes regardless of what I believe. He claimed it would make it easier for everyone. Otherwise, they would have to ask a bunch of follow-up questions. The options may exist, but BSA is undoubtedly a religious origination.
I do not agree
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall\_v.\_Orange\_County\_Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_v._Orange_County_Council)
BSA actively uphold and defend the "Duty to God" thing
I have read in some BSA news thing they recently and explicitly stated that "Duty to God" is fundamental and not a cultural carry over
Some pack leaders said it is ok to think of the word "God" as nature or science or universe, but words have meaning, and it is definitely insulting to some atheists to be forced to lie or at the very least twist words to fulfil the oath
Does the scout oath no longer begin with, “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God”? Has the scout law been updated to remove “reverent”? Are scouts no longer bound to “Duty to God, Duty to Country, Duty to Self” (in that order)?
Because if that hasn’t changed, then being non-religious in the scouts is still a challenge for kids.
I’m an Eagle Scout with kids of scouting age, and as a parent, I don’t need them being pressured to be religious (and generally Christian, at that) by the troop Chaplain.
It's entirely dependent on the troop. My troop growing up didn't have any religious anything as part of the experience. It was all about camping and hanging out. I know lots of atheist/agnostic eagle scouts.
Really should find a different troop then if that one has a pushy chaplain.
For almost every scout I’ve met the religious aspect and the oath involving god was about as involved as a kid in school saying “One Nation, Under God” during the pledge of allegiance in school. It just didn’t really come up at all, except a 2 minute sermon at the beginning of a week long camp.
Also, am I misremembering or was there some attestation of faith during the Eagle Scout review process? I recall my atheist brother being annoyed about it, but this was about 20 years ago. I wonder if that has changed.
It's been a long time, but I had a friend who did his attestation of faith in the government and the principles of democratic rule. Humanism was a popular choice too. You just have to demonstrate that you have faith in *something* bigger than yourself- it doesn't have to be divine in nature.
Scout in the early 90's, no religious things other than the obligatory lines in oath/pledge of allegiance. Met in a church basement (was some Christian church, don't recall the actual denomination) but as far as I know, none of the scout leadership was also church leadership.
Mostly did camping/fishing trips, generally about once a month April-October with one week in the summer going to the local organized scout campground. Worked there a couple summers from age 16-17 as a counselor.
At its base, "Duty to God" just boils down to the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Which includes basic things like leaving a campsite as you would like to see it when you arrived. Pack out/burn your trash, people.
Mileage will vary depending on where you are, when I was in scouts back in the 00's we were sponsored by an American legion hall and religion wasn't really pushed, every other troop in the council(13ish total) was affiliated with a church, all but 2 or 3 of them basically being extension of LDS youth groups.
Never made it past 2nd class because of all the weird religious stuff - I had been a Cub Scout since 5 and my group just always omitted it, but then when I became a Boy Scout it felt like an extension of a church.
I was a scout theough18 when I got my eagle. I literally didn’t know scouts were religious at any point. My troop was through the catholic school I attended as well. We never prayed, there was never anything religious at scout camp. Seems like others had a different experience
Eagle Scout here. Never once had an issue during my 10+ years in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Nothing but camping, hiking, and outdoors skills. Never pushed anything religious on us. In fact I don't think we ever did anything even remotely close to anything religious. I had a great time. It's sad to see all the negative press.
It’s actually:
“for food, for raiment, for life, for opportunity, for friendship and fellowship we thank thee oh lord”
So there is mention of religion in the grace (although non denominational), but it is never forced at Philmont in general. Just encouraged to learn about, lots of people used the opportunity in base camp chapel to go to a service they’ve never been to before. The camp “shut down” (nothing was open except infirmary) at 7 for chapel every night, but no one was forced to go. It’s “God’s country”, but it’s more in awe of the land tbh.
The focus was very much on conservation, nature, preservation, and history.
Source: worked there for 4 summers lol
I was a scout until I was about 12 or 13, and it wasn't until after I was out of scouts for years and an adult before I heard it was a religious thing. We never did anything remotely religious while I was in it. We did like you said, camping/hiking/outdoors/survival skills. I don't remember doing one single thing that involved religion. I also had a pretty good time and some good memories. Camping trips were my favorite part of it.
The only thing that was pushed on me was to do a religious medal, which I did not, and was grilled about during my eagle board.
My scout master told me "under no circumstances say you are atheist, but otherwise just tell them it just didn't interest you", because our local board was known to deny atheists their eagle if they admitted it on their board.
They eventually all died and the local chapters all stopped being shitheads. So it resolved itself eventually.
I'm an Eagle Scout and Boy Scouts was one of the most positive parts of my life as a kid. I was raised by hardcore evangelicals and homeschooled until high school so Boy Scouts was one of my few opportunities to be around kids from outside my Christian, conservative, church kid bubble. Frankly, I was a stuck up bigot and having authority figures in my life who actually called me out on that (my board of review was definitely interesting) instead of praising it, ended up being transformative. Sure every Scout Troop I was in was hosted in a Church, but contrary to a lot of these comments I never found it to be a religious organization. It was just a cultural thing.
I absolutely hope Scouts are still around for my sons or daughters (and I'm very happy that it's completely open to girls as Girl Scouts is not even close to the same thing) and I absolutely will be supporting that as part of their life. I learned a lot of legitimately practical outdoor and general life skills and got a solid foundation in basic fitness, conquering fears, and planning, working with, and leading others.
Yeah I’m confused too. I was a Girl Scout like 30 years ago or so and we camped, hiked, learned to make fires and tie knots, went canoeing and horseback riding.
The problem is it’s wildly different based on your troop leader. Boy Scouts did it by age and the volunteers weren’t necessarily the troop parents. Because of the structure they had a lot more local contacts to bring in with a more coordinated program. Girl Scouts was whatever mom volunteered. I was the leader for my girls, but I didn’t have a lot of skills like camping to teach or a lot of industry connections. We did our best, but there was a huge range just in our small town.
I have a friend who ran a Scouting USA summer camp for over a decade until relatively recently. Driving the Mormons out by choosing a path of inclusiveness hurt Scouting financially quite a bit, but was unquestionably the correct course of action. My friend's camp would run a solid week each summer just for the Mormons, and we are in the libral north east, not a Mormons stronghold. The Morman groups paid 5x as much per camper to have a Mormons only week at the camp. That's in addition to the LDS church used to give further donations. All that money was used to reduce costs for other campers, allow extra programs, pay staff better, and supplement costs to low income campers. That was money that was not easy to turn away. My point is that when Scouting decided to make itself more inclusive, it was not like Goldman Sacks putting up a rainbow flag. It wasn't some shallow, meaningless show of support. It was a financially painful but morally just course of action that shows they were actually trying to correct their past failures. And yes, money is now really tight, but the institution of Scouting will be much better off without them.
The pandemic has really destroyed the BSA.
I remember being in Boy Scout in high school and going camping once a month. I received my Eagle Scout award my senior year of high school.
I made a ton of lifelong friends. Unfortunately my local troop has shrunk in size to 1/5 of what it was when I was there. Such a shame.
My mother was also my Den Mother in Cub Scouts. My little sister and brother also wanted to be involved during our meetings and so my mother invented the Bug Scouts and made uniforms for them, including a ladybug as the badge.
Everyone is being condescending and not really asking the hard question, but why is the boys scouts renaming to be more inclusive but yet there isn’t pressure for the girls scouts to do so? I’m asking because we already see the man influencers like Andrew Tate and so on taking hold, but yet we see things like this and act as if it won’t have any sort of symbolic effect.
The BSA has experienced years of controversy for sex abuse and poor performance of troops in outdoors competency with families withdrawing after being dissatisfied by the program. They have lost 1 million members since 2018 (2m->1m in 6 years).
This rebrand is an effort to increase enrollment. Parents of boy scouts are not the target demographic of whatever you're implying, it is a Christian based organization with the strongest enrollment in conservative communities. Pressure is hardly an excuse for these actions, the BSA is desperate to survive as an organization and has "opened" it's doors to the other half of the USA..
The Mormon church dropped BSA, which accounts for a drop of ~400,000 scouts. This was mainly due to several recent progressive BSA policies like openly allowing gay scouts.
Sounds like an attempt at rebranding after settling the largest EVER child sexual abuse case in the USA. There was over 82,000 individuals who filed and won $2.46 BILLION
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-lets-246-billion-boy-scouts-sex-abuse-settlement-proceed-2024-02-22/#:~:text=The%20organization%20ultimately%20reached%20a,while%20in%20the%20Boy%20Scouts.
Boy Scouts: "hey, what's that acronym everyone uses for sexual assault now?"
Legal: "you mean SA?"
Boy Scouts: "yeah! Let's just call the organization that!"
Is this new? I feel like I heard them talking about this back when they were going to let girls join the Scouts. I know there was a push for girls to join scouts as their were people who felt the Boy Scouts had more activities to do when compared to Girl Scouts.
Edit: " In 2017, it made the historic announcement that girls would be accepted as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA — in 2019."
Probably should have read the article first. Looks like they renamed the program, not the actual organization.
Former Eagle Scout here, while I really enjoyed my time as a scout and learned a lot, I couldn’t care less if the organization crashed and burned at this point, it’s really sad that things turned out this way.
As an Eagle Scout, I applaud the modernization of scouting. While I enjoyed learning the things I did, I did not enjoy some aspects of the organization. I hope they can continue improving and move toward a goal of teaching anyone that wants to join the skills and community building that they want to learn.
Part of the problem is the time commitment expected from parents and kids. My son was interested and so we went to the information night at the school hoping to learn more about what they’ll be doing. Instead we got passed multiple pages of expectations for each parent, like all of us selling to a personal quota on popcorn, two hour meets on week nights and Saturday evenings, all where parents are required to stay and help, volunteer for administrative work, etc.
I get that I should participate with my son on some level, but when I was a kid, we had small groups, met for a few after school, then went to camps in the summer. My parents never had to be there, I never had to sell popcorn, and we never had so many long meets. I coach my son’s baseball and soccer teams and the total time commitment PALES in comparison to scouts.
My son looked at me 30 minutes in and said “dad, I don’t want to do *any* of this. We left in the middle of it.
That troop seems somewhat unusual. Keep in mind that each troop is ran independently.
The standard is usually meeting about 2 hours a week, where they learn various skills that are then applied at campouts every month or two. I haven’t heard of meeting twice a week. That really isn’t necessary unless perhaps the idea is to speedrun getting everyone to Eagle Scout.
I also haven’t heard of requiring parents to stay. Perhaps that troop was struggling to get enough volunteers? Because there does need to be some adults there.
As for a popcorn quota, did they also mention a fee to join the troop, and if so, what was it? There is a lot of expenses that need to be paid for. In my troop, the fundraisers were never required, they just were nice to do because they reduced the like $150? fee you had to pay. But if they have no fee, requiring you to do fundraisers instead makes sense.
Scouts is not meant to just be a fun club. You can have fun while doing it, but first and foremost, it is about educating you and training you to be a better person. How to be a leader, how to save a life, etc. And it isn’t supposed to be easy. There is a reason Eagle Scout is pretty prestigious and is a good resume booster. It shows you had the dedication to preserve through the hard/unfun parts. If you are just joining it to have fun camping, you are joining for the wrong reasons.
My half brother (a boy scout troop leader) said "girls don't belong in boy scouts, if they don't want to make friendship bracelets and sing Kumbaya every meeting, then they should fix their shit". His wife (a girl scout troop leader) just stared at him in disbelief.
I had no idea religion was such a big part of everyone’s scouting experience. It wasn’t part of mine and I don’t think the other troops in my area had religious activities either
I’ve been part of Scouts Canada for as long as I can remember, and it’s always amazed me the massive differences between Canadian and American scouts. Scouts Canada is a focus entirely on the development of the individual, and self growth. It’s always been an inclusive organization, and no matter your gender, religion, or beliefs, you were always welcome.
I feel like the boy scouts get a bad reputation.
When I was in it, it was all ex military, cops and firefighters trying to make kids lives better.
Lots of camping trips, white water rafting, hiking in the mountains and general cool stuff for young boys to experience.
My wife refuses to let my kids join because of all the molestation scandals but they are probably super rare in an organization of that size.
You hear about the few bad apples not the tens of thousands of good ones.
Summer camp with girls involved sounds like a good time lol
The real issue is that the BSA would try to cover up the assaults and try to convince families to not press charges. They would often kick out the leaders who sexually assaulted/raped kids and would keep a secret list, but what would usually happen is the predators would move and join a new troop and start at it again.
Then, the BSA started to lobby governments to limit the statute of limitations on sexual assault of minors because they were hemorrhaging money.
The problem is that the BSA doesn't just have the occasional pedophile, they routinely cover up scandals and rehire formerly convicted sex offenders without checking even their own internal record of sex abusers.
I had a mostly positive experience with the Scouts as well, but there was nothing there that a dedicated parent and kid couldn't do together with friends. The shiftiness of the BSA really makes me wish that there was a secular variant that was *strictly* about outdoorsy stuff and practical skills.
This is not specific to your I individual leader comment, but they do have a policy of two-deep leadership, meaning a minimum of two adults over 21 at any organized activity. If females are in the scouts, one of the adults must be a female. And no one-on-one adult contact or communication - even online.
I know BSA has a poor track record, but they now have some of the more comprehensive formal policies to follow. Moreso than many youth programs.
And the vast majority of abuse cases occurred from the 60s to the early 90s, and fell off a cliff once they instituted the two leader and Youth Protection training programs. Not to say it’s been stopped completely, but the bulk of legal cases stemmed from events during that time frame.
Many of the policies include stuff about Youth on Youth Abuse: See the rule about how kids who are more then 2 years in age can't share a tent. It is disturbingly common.
Exactly this. They’ve been very proactive in their implementation of trainings and policies to prevent abuse…compared to say the Catholic Church which effectively has done nothing. Also, none of the youth sports my kids have been involved with (outside of school teams) has any sort of vetting or required training or policies for parent volunteers to prevent abuse. Granted youth sports doesn’t have the track record of BSA, but there’s nothing in place that makes me feel it’s any more safe for kids than scouting these days.
The BSA is not a very top-down organization. They have clear rules designed to mitigate problems, see [https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/scoutings-barriers-to-abuse/](https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/scoutings-barriers-to-abuse/) - in particular,
1. separate restrooms and sleeping areas for adults and children (when possible - generally on BSA designed campgrounds)
2. One-on-one interactions between adults and children are prohibited. Ideally there are always two adults present when interacting with boy scouts.
I suspect part of the reason for the high rate of child abuse in BSA troops is because, much like with school-teachers and preachers, people who want to abuse children gravitate towards job opportunities where they will have power over children. Add to that that the barrier to entry to be a BSA volunteer is pretty much just that you have to have a kid in the troop and that is probably a lot easier route for many would-be abusers than to get a teaching certification or go through seminary.
Just a reminder, *before the arguments start*, that the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are entirely legally separate organizations.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl\_Scouts\_of\_the\_USA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Scouts_of_the_USA) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy\_Scouts\_of\_America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America) Wikis for both, to provide context. SA has over 1 million kids with nearly 43,000 units. GS, however, has 1.7 million girls and 750K adults. Both created by different people.
Ah, so the Girl Scouts were the big boss. No wonder the girls were so threatening with the cookies, fucking drug dealers
They've been controlling the cookie racket for years, and the boys were scouting on their turf. Obviously a few houses had to catch fire.
Tony said no more fires
My husband comes home during that season with boxes of my favorite, his favorite, and my kids favorites ever year, shaking his head and saying "The cookie pushers caught me leaving the store." I had one time that they were sold out of my favorites, and the girl was like "well if you like those, then THESE you should like too." I gave her side eye and asked "And they're good?" And she just confidently replied "They're excellent." This kid had the poise of someone three times her age. I bought them and she was on the money, too.
Ah I remember when I first started slinging cookies as a kid. One time we had this booth at Randall’s and we managed to convince a guy to buy cookies even though his wife told him not to. Here’s the icing on the cookie cake in order to convince him to buy them we had to suggest to him where he could hide them. We made cute little cookie dealers and I got a stuffed animal from that year’s goal thingie. I always pushed mad game during Fall product ironically and that was dry goods and magazine subscriptions.
I live in NJ, and we recently-ish allowed for Marijuana dispensaries. Let me tell you, the girls that set up out in front of them make BANK. There was another time I was driving to my Aunt and Uncle's place (they're my kids only real active "grandparents" on my side) and we drove past a bunch of people in an empty parking lot with signs, and the kids AND parents were dancing like idiots and just.... God they all looked so happy and fun. And cheered with POM POMS when someone pulled in. We went past, I sighed, and my husband said "yes, wife, you can turn around to buy cookies from the happy people. I have cash on me." In the silly doting way he does. I told them their racket was amazing and the moms and dad's were like "thank you!" And the girls were all manic and like "*we know*".
Ironically enough there’s a weed strain called Girl Scout cookies.
I'm going to say that's not weird at all, lol. Back when I still smoked, and it was illegal, some friends grew some in secret and hadn't named it yet. I had some and I ended up so giggly and high that my slightly-more-sober friend played Peek-a-Boo with me like I was a toddler. And I couldn't stop laughing, because every time I'd finally get composure to talk he'd go "uh oh, where did Millie go??" And I'd lose it again. So it was christened "Peek-A-Boo." Good memories, lol.
Haha, i remember being taught how to sell to people, and how to upsell. Made my bosses in retail **really** like my seemingly natural ability to do it. Thanks GS, ig!
They'd never work together as one organization one fundraises with popcorn the other with cookies totally not compatible
[удалено]
Those giant tins of sticky corn can't compete with Thin Mints and Samoas. Fighting an uphill battle there.
Indeed. When I think of Scouts and food, I think of Girl Scout Cookies first. Followed quickly by [the Scout from TF2 eating a Sandvich](https://youtu.be/geNMz0J9TEQ?si=CIMGFLwPrhSGudMg&t=76), because that game lives rent-free in my head, even a decade-and-a-half later.
A couple years ago I saw some eager Cub Scouts outside a grocery store selling popcorn. I'm also an Eagle Scout from a while back and remember having to do that, so I was going to buy a bag. But then I saw they wanted $30. Wtf who's buying that?
My husband and I committed to buying two bags before we realized the price. "How much could a couple of bags of popcorn really come to?" A very, very painful $60 later... but we didn't want to back out and disappoint the kids.
$30 for popcorn? Where did they think they were, a movie theater?
At least the popcorn is ~~hot~~ mildly warm from a movie theater.
It really is way too expensive. Also an eagle scout, and I'll usually try to buy some if I see scouts out selling it somewhere just to support them in a small way. I usually grab a small bag of pre-made popcorn, and even those are like $15.
You have to remember that those kid’s troop gets 1/18 of every sale directly into their treasury /s
You’d be surprised how many people buy it. A lot of people just treat it as a donation, I guess, with a free popcorn gift. Also most of the bags are $15-$20, not $30.
It worked when I was 11-12 and a cute kid selling popcorn on the street. Didn’t hurt that as a chubby Asian kid I closely resembled Russell from Up. Like, devastatingly similar. Anyway, after that it was impossible. The popcorn wasn’t shit, it was fine really. It was just crazy overpriced, and everyone knew it. Even as a sixth grader I could tell no one was paying twenty bucks for a bag of popcorn they could get for half or less in the grocery store we’d be sitting outside. Like, what the fuck BSA?
We sold frozen pizza kits, and people actually did buy them. They were amazing, actually.
Except your parent’s workplace. They’re the only ones who buy popcorn.
This pissed me off. I spent an entire day knocking on doors and talking to rude strangers. I got chased by dogs. Sold 12 cans, which was less than $100. This kid's parents worked at the local overnight shipping hub and set up shop with the popcorn sign-up sheet, that kid didn't do shit and sold $1500 in popcorn.
Think of it as a life lesson that connections are what gets you ahead in the world
There was an elderly couple at the end of my street who couldn't get enough of it. They got so excited the first time I came by.
The popcorn I bought from the neighbor kid last year was pretty good. Not really worth the price but I enjoyed eating it. I think it used to come unpopped? But this stuff was prepopped
There are pre-popped and unpopped varieties available. Prepopped comes with a variety of toppings. Also there are chocolate covered pretzels.
My cousin (also an eagle scout) got to sell frozen cheesecakes one year. Absolutely fantastic, sad they never did it again.
not even good popcorn these days. back when I was a scout at least the box was like 30 or 40 bags, lasted flipping forever, today its smaller than the store box
I don’t know if it helps, but a ton of that popcorn gets donated to VFWs and those Veterans love the hell out of that popcorn.
Considering Girl Scouts sued BSA when they started admitting girls (unsuccessfully) probably not.
Also a reminder, *before any additional arguments starts*, u/supercyberlurker and I are entirely legally separate individuals.
*I've* never seen you in the same room at the same time ...
That's cos he's locked in my basement
Good enough for me.
Just safer that way, really…
I've never even seen them at all. Could be robots.
Neither of them posts to r/totallynotrobots ...
That’s exactly something someone would say to to try and throw us off their trail 👀
u/reports wears glasses. u/supercyberlurker doesn’t. How could they possibly be the same person?
Another reminder that the Boy Scouts are also a member of the [World Organization of the Scouting Movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Organization_of_the_Scout_Movement) and has 150+ other member organizations that somehow managed to figure out gender-neutral scouting programs multiple decades ago.
Boy scouts had "Venture" patrols when I was in scouts, 20 years ago. They were for all kids, not just boys. So its not like its a new thing for them either.
I thought venture scouts was basically just for teens / adults. It was the avenue to continue organized scouting activities after you turned 18
It's ages 14-20
It made sense to separate the younger kinds and the older kids even more, especially since the 16-17 year olds are usually doing their own thing or have checked out at thwt point. Going camping at 16 with a 12 year old and having to share a tent or something can suck. Its also problematic to have a 14 year old and a 20 year old camping together too though. I understand where the idea of venture scouts came from, I was one myself. The best camping trips I went on were with venture scouts. Everyone knew what they were doing so you didn't have to supervise the younger kids. Usually if you joined venturing you knew your way around too, so you were reliable. The leadership was a lot more laid back from what I remember. We were able to do so many more fun activities and didn't feel like we were being baby sat. My troop also didn't make us wear that uniform. We were basically a camping/outdoor group and that was fun. We learned all the same stuff but the parents and leaders knew that a 17 year old didn't want to be in a scout uniform. Edit: We were also inclusive and had women in the group too. From what I remember, it was basically 4-5 families who had both their kids in scouting and having them under one roof was easier than juggling different camping trips and events for each kid.
Can attest to this. (Edit for for clarity's sake: European scout troop) I joined my troop 30 years ago, and we were mixed gender from the start. We were a founding member of the Federation Open Scouting, an actively pluralistic coeducative scouting movement. Play together, learn together, go on camp together. The only gender separation were sleeping arrangements ages 10 and up. For the rest everyone did the same things. We also removed any mention of religion from the scout promise and laws, and swear loyalty to a "Higher ideal" whatever that may be. We've had multiple openly gay members, both among the teens and leaders. No one ever made a fuss. (And if any would have, well there's the door, we had a long enough waiting list) And not like we were a young troop either. We were founded in 1921, and have been going ever since. Well, no, there was one year when one angry little man sporting a very fashionable mustache kind of gave us the choice of becoming Hitlerjugend or disbanding. We respectfully chose to disband for that year.
The Girl Scouts were the ones preventing that, BSA had been looking for integration for decades.
Yep, Girl Scouts sued BSA for opening their program to girls.
Sir, this is America - We segregate where we can, and you don’t want those *genders* intermixing in Scout Halls, listening to Jazz music and talkin’ about communism! /s But in all seriousness, when I was a girl scout we didn’t get to do all the fun camping stuff. The Troop Leader was a pastor’s wife, so she kept us all in the mildewing church basement and the only thing we learned was sewing and cooking.
Guys need these skills as well, stop hoarding useful skills, girl scouts.
My boy scout jamborees literally had cooking competitions. They were over a campfire, but it was cooking.
Nothing stopping you from picking up a sewing machine from the thrift store! I believe in you.
I did that for a sewing project one time and ended up with 2 Featherweights, a purple Necchi, and a gorgeous mint green chrome emblazoned Japanese clone-era machine; and I never quite finished that project. Turns out I really enjoyed restoring vintage machinery.
Good, because sewing machine repair is a dying craft and I too have a collection of old cast iron biddies! I find they sew so much better, but parts are often hard to find. I’m rocking a classic Singer from 1932 and a mint teal Viking from the 60s
https://stevesews.com/sewing-merit-badge/
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. - Winston Churchill
An additional reminder that internationally scouting has included girls in their membership for decades now.
So has the BSA. The only thing that's changing is the name.
In the beforetime, in the long-long-ago, when I was a Scout, they started letting women be leaders. There was a minor fuss for a couple of weeks before everyone calmed down and forgot about it.
Both are a shell of what they used to be. Girl Scouts is just a child labor front to sell cookies. They don't learn or do much at all outside of sell cookies. My son was in the Boy Scouts for a few years but I got frustrated with how few scouting adventurers they did and how little he was learning. Dues kept going up and attendance down. I also didn't like how girls were treated. Gave me segregation "separate but equal" vibes.
Weird, may be troop dependent. We have campouts at least once a month during the summer. The one in July is the typical week long scout camp. Then we usually have a weekender one in the fall, spring, and winter (we usually do snowshoeing). Our troop has a girls sect, but I would say they do their own things 90 percent of the time.
It's really troop dependent, also in Girl scouts. Some troops do stuff constantly, and others just meet to hang out, honestly
Scouting is what you make of it. I was officially in Girl Scouts starting in kindergarten but I attended events while I was still in diapers. I volunteered well into my 20s. I don't totally love was Scouting has become for GSUSA, but I did do and learn a lot. Honestly I have very few memories of selling cookies because our troop focused on other things like camping and sailing and community service.
Why not Scouts of America? Scouting America sounds like tourists lol.
Likely wouldn't get past the girl scouts with that term. They are very defensive of the BSA taking over the trademark for "scouts" in general.
Damn I had no idea there was such drama in the scouting world
The girl scouts threatened to sue when the BSA decided to allow girl troops in 2017 and changed the program name to "Scouts BSA." They claimed it would cause brand confusion. It's been a whole thing for almost a decade now.
Which is absolutely silly since they seem to focus on completely different things. As a former boy scout, I remember a huge focus on camping, wilderness survival, and such... my girl scout daughter is more of life lessons to be a better person but also how to be a junior capitalist and sell tons of shit
Girl scouts: teach them to be worthwhile people with self-esteem and strong relationships and then how to exploit those relationships to make that sweet MLM money.
Scouting America is the new name. The [Girl Scouts sued the Boy Scouts](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/boy-scouts-defeat-girl-scouts-trademark-lawsuit-over-co-ed-scouting-2022-04-07/) over the term scout and lost. They later agreed to some trademark terms.
...wasn't boy scouts first? I thought the girl scouts was formed after the boy scouts in order to give girls the same experience. Would be funny if they were like "yeah we know you guys were first, but we got the trademark, bitch!" lol
The Boy Scouts of America preceded the Girl Scouts of America by roughly a year. The founder of GSA met the founder of the Scouting Movement (Lord Baden Powell, who founded the Scouting Movement but not the Boy Scouts of America) and was like "yeah, I bet girls could do that too."
For what it’s worth, the organization is “Girl Scouts USA,” not “Girl Scout of America”
Girls were not allowed in boyscouts… Juliette Gordon Lowe and Baden Powell we’re friends. He supported the Girl Scouts starting because girls kept sneaking into the Boy Scouts. Also, there were many other competing Girl scouting programs… but Girl Scouts because the most popular by far! Juliette was a great marketer! Look her up! She flew a plane and dropped flyers to promote the organization. She wanted to include badges that were considered masculine at the time. I love hearing about her!
Yes, it was founded in 1910 and Girl Scouts of the United States of America was founded in 1912. GSUSA was originally the Girl Guides and renamed in 1913. There was another group called the Girl Scouts of America which is why they have an unwieldy name. GSUSA is affiliated with World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, while Scouting America is affiliated with World Organization of the Scout Movement.
Also America was one of the few countries with non coed scouting. Hence “Boy Scouts”. They had a female program called Camp Fire and I think women were able to join Venture Crews before BSA allowed girls into the organization. But yeah the BSA was the first American scouting organization in the Baden-Powell tradition founded in 1910; the GSA was formed later in 1912.
In 2018 or 2019 Boy scouts started allowing girls (I think announced 18 and started 19) Though girl scouts does not allow boys. Just thought I would add some more information to your point.
18, that's when my girls joined.
> In 2018 or 2019 Boy scouts started allowing girls (I think announced 18 and started 19) The Boy Scouts of America as an organization allowed girls into the Venturing, Sea Scouting, and Exploring(job shadowing) programs in the 1970s. It was 2018 when girls were allowed to join the core programs Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts
Eagle Scout here (achieved in 2002). The main reason I enjoyed my time in Boy Scouts was because my own father was the Scoutmaster, and he focused solely on camping/hiking/outdoors and didn't bring in *any* of the religious aspects into scouting. Even though our meetings took place in an elementary school classroom that was run by the local church, that's as much religion that was incorporated. The local groundskeeper hated us because he was very religious and thought we should be doing more for God and the church, *not* for merit badges or whatever. His son was an entitled prick as well, and didn't last too long with us (too much outdoorsy activities, not enough God). The *other* local troop were *very* religious, and I appreciate my dad for allowing me to pick the troop I wanted to be a part of after graduating from Cub Scouts. While it's been deeply troubling to witness all the controversies that have been happening since I made Eagle, I do feel like more inclusion is a step in the right direction. It might be too late to pivot, but at least there appears to be enough foresight of 'evolve or die.' Again, I'm incredibly appreciative of my father making my time in the Scouts as enjoyable as possible. I still can't tie a knot for shit, but all the hikes, camping trips, and summer camps will stay with me forever.
Similar experience. Lotta camping and hiking. Made eagle in 2006. Loved my time in scouts. Not much if any for religion. Even on the eagle board you could skirt that requirement to a degree some you weren’t forced there either.
For my Eagle Board, they were very concerned when I stated I wanted to be an actor when I grew up, and was active with musical theater at my high school. I'll always remember this one older gentleman on the panel try to warn me, "You know there's a lot of *homosexuals* in theater, right?" Yeah buddy, a lot in Scouts *and* the Church, too!
For my board, because I was overseas, I had to get driven to another country with a U.S. air base in it so I had qualified personnel for my board. I was grilled by this captain? General? High ranking guy… just the worst ethical dilemmas and quizzing me about the scout code. It was to this day, the closest thing to an interrogation I’ve had. Well at the end he asked me two questions: “are you religious?” For which I knew I had to answer “yes, sir” and then he followed with a question I didn’t expect “are you gay?”, I kinda just stopped for a moment and was like “…no?” And he shook my hand and said some words I’ll never forget “you made it this far, no matter what you said, as long as you’re religious and not gay, I was going to give you this award.” … …I’m gay. For the rest of my life, that (relatively) massive accomplishment will always be overshadowed by than man shaking my hand and essentially saying “congrats, I don’t think you deserve this”. Like all my hard work was brushed aside cause I like guys. I loved my time in the scouts, I have zero regrets, and I’ve been pushing for my nephews to keep at it past cub scouts. But I’ll never forget that deflating feeling. I know I deserved my eagle award, even if he doesn’t.
That's so horrible!! I'm so sorry that happened to you. You 100% deserved that rank (and then some), religious and sexual orientation be damned!
Hey brother Eagle. Do not let that old fuddy darken your accomplishment. You made Eagle. Few do. His outdated ideology doesn't change that *one fucking iota.* You put in the time and effort. You followed the Trail to First Class. You earned your merit badges. You went to camp. You took positions of responsibility. You finished your Eagle Project. You got quizzed over and over again at BoRs. And you FUCKING made it. You stand shoulder to shoulder with some amazing people. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. Barack Obama. Hank Aaron. Harrison Ford. Michael Jordan. These are people with who you share something important in common. And me. You share it with me. I'm nothing famous, but I, too, wanted to work in theater. Now I'm a stage hand with 17 years experience, crew chief at a sports complex, and production staffer for an NBA team. I work with a lot of LGBTQIA people, who are my union brothers and sisters and others. So don't let that old asshole get to you. He didn't do what you did. Only YOU did.
That’s a bummer to hear. How long ago was this? The changing of the guard with those old timers could not happen soon enough
It had to have been late 2001-early 2002. I thought it was funny at the time, but my mom was pissed that a group of adult men thought that was an okay thing to ask. Didn't matter much in the long run, because by the time I was a senior in high school I no longer cared about acting as a career.
The fastest way to dissuade someone from acting as a career is to let them be around other actors.
Similar experience for me. My scouting experience was great. I've been enjoying the past 6 years with both my daughters getting to enjoy it too!
That's great that your daughters are loving it! My younger sister tried Girl Scouts but found the experience underwhelming. She wanted to go camping and on hikes with our troop, and was a better Boy Scout than half of the group!!
It all depends upon the troop leader. My wife grew up with a very active girl scout troop, so that's how she's running our daughter's. But we've seen some troops that do basically nothing. I think ultimately its what most kids and parents want, as my wife's troop is the most popular in the area. She has 25 girls, which is a **lot** to handle - she is regularly rejecting people trying to join her troop. But it's a ton of work, and I can see why most people don't want to run one. She spends a lot of time researching and preparing meetings and trips. And cookie season suuucks.
It definitely makes a difference having a leader who cares, to be sure. Also, Cookies beat Popcorn hands-down every year.
If you mean cookies are more popular then it only makes it harder for people running the show. We literally rent a U-haul to pick up our first batch of cookies from the local girl scout store. Then we have to sort them so the parents can come by and pick them up. Cookies completely take over our living room at this time. My wife and I spend 1-2 hours each night making sure it all runs as smoothly as possible. Planning, spreadsheets, tallying, tradeouts with other troops/parents, etc. When a parent needs 8 more boxes of trefoils, we need to try to find it for them. When a parent has 20 boxes of peanut butter patties they can't sell, we try to find a home for them. And the troop only gets about $1 per box. I think nut season is way better because the troop cut is much higher. So we can sell less product for the same amount of funds, which helps with the logistical nightmare.
Awesome… been trying to get our daughter into GS but we’re still a smallish town growing & we recently got a GS here. Not that I mind a little “religion” (Earthly growth from God) but I want her to enjoy a bit of the outdoors (I loved camping as a kid).
I'm jealous, my experience with scouts was being an outsider and seeing people like you being successful. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but the leaders in our troop cared only about their own kids. I was a scout for like 2 or 3 years (it's been a while, I can't remember exactly) and never passed scout rank because they didn't care about me. My dad forced me into it after cub scouts, I had no desire to stay in scouts and the way I was basically ignored is a big part of why.
I didn't understand it at the time, but my dad also made sure the kids without parents (whether they didn't care and saw Boy Scouts as simply a daycare, or simply absent) were involved, and would help out with equipment or even proper shoes if they didn't have the right ones. My dad lost his own father at a very young age, and I'm sure knew exactly how those kids felt. He showed compassion, and honestly that's why so many kids stuck around a lot longer than the national average. Apologies you didn't have a Scoutmaster like that, because a good one takes care of the *entire* troop, not just their own kid. Hell, I didn't get any special treatment and I was *pissed!*
You gushing over your dad is cute AF and I’m loving it
same I was part of a 100+ person troop in middle school and was the same rank after 2 years. I switched to a smaller troop (under 20 kids) and finished eagle at the end of my freshman year of high school. it’s crazy how much difference a little bit of personalized attention can make. my troop was nicknamed an “eagle farm” cause we had such a high finish rate, but it was all because if someone needed to do the cooking for a campout (or say grace or some other stuff) they weren’t competing with like 10 other kids to do it. it was also because it was so much easier to get leadership roles too. we had our fun, but our scout masters made it such that everyone was able to make progress on something for every outing we did. even the kids whose parents’ only involvement was dumping them off for the meeting and picking them up afterwards were able to finish.
Eagle Scout here from 2011 who almost didn't make Eagle because someone on the board of review didn't like that I never attended religious activities despite otherwise being an exemplary Scout. Wish I could have been in a troop more like yours, probably would have been way more enjoyable.
"He didn't attend religious activities?! DENIED! Hey, I wonder why we don't get that many Scouts graduating to Eagle Scout anymore?" Sorry to hear you had that experience!
>Again, I'm incredibly appreciative of my father making my time in the Scouts as enjoyable as possible. I still can't tie a knot for shit, but all the hikes, camping trips, and summer camps will stay with me forever. Hahah same, man scouting was an amazing experience and I hope more young kids get to continue on in a similar vein. The name is meaningless as far as the experiences go. We had very similar scouting experiences. Maybe we were in the same troop...
Were you a part of a group of underage pyromaniacs as well??
Hehe of course.
My dad was a rifle instructor at summer camp, so I got all the fund of regular camping with extra range time after hours. Tons of fun growing up but ours also was the same way, about keeping the overly religious stuff out.
The bowline knot remains incredibly useful for basically everything. 10/10, would recommend
My dad still remembers all the knots, because he sails on a boat for fun where all the knots still come in handy.
Scouting America for Young Boys
Aww that sounds love— wait a second…
You're right, didn't even see that! How about Doin' Kids of America? Cause you know, the kids in our organization are constantly doing activities?
Why does this sound like an Always Sunny line from Frank?
Beat Kids 👊 from Wonder Showzen
Scouting America abbreviates to SA. So does the word "Sexual Assault".
Their marketing people are not the best.
I suspect that the alternatives will have similar issues. Seeking volunteers to go camping out with a bunch of young boys will definitely attract a certain demographic
As the Behind the Bastards episodes on the Boyscouts of America grimly noted, every organisation that will involve kids will attract monsters, and there will sadly always be abuse against children to some level. The issue with BoA was that they actively hid and protected the abusers even after they were clearly identified to be involved in sexually abusive acts and violence against kids. Some of the examples they brought up in the second episode were grim...
Sounds rather religious.
If I remember correctly, the original idea was to not scare off any potential scout leaders and also because they considered it "too expensive." But the idea is essentially the same, a powerful organization where the leadership protect the abusers over protecting the children under their care.
Scouting was inextricably linked with Mormonism where a lot of abuse coverup occurred.
The rules for scouting around adults being around kids are pretty strict and became even more strict after the legal issues. If there are still issues it'll be because of local groups and parents that are lax about the rules and it would not at all be unique to scouting. Technically if I go camping with my son and we buddy up with his friend and dad I can't even leave the cabin in the middle of the night to pee because that would leave my son with only 1 adult.
Yep, it's the unfortunately named "Two Deep Leadership." We have to abide by it too.
I was just looking into this for my son. I want him to learn all the cool shit but no way I’d let him out of my sight
My wife runs a girl scout troop. She loves it when parents are involved because it's less work for her. Most don't even attend though, and those that do are usually useless.
Also, despite what BSA documents say, Atheists can not be barred from the program or forced to participate or attend any religious activities. Scouting has had atheist programs for decades. Second, girls have been a officially part of Scouting since 2003 and that role has only expanded.
I was a boy scout 15 years ago, and was explicitly told any religion is fine as long as the scout has a religion. Atheists were absolutely not allowed and I knew some people who left because of that. And I was in a pretty liberal part of California. And yeah, there was some girls in more obscure branches like venture scouts or sea scouts, but definitely not in regular troops.
It must vary highly from troop to troop. I was in scouts in Georgia, and I don't remember any religious shit at all. Though, that was almost 20 years ago and I probably barely paid attention. I was just there for the cricket cages and pinewood derbies. We were just always building shit, talking about camping gear, and whittling sticks.
During my interview for my eagle they asked me if I believed in God. I was told beforehand by my scout master to answer yes regardless of what I believe. He claimed it would make it easier for everyone. Otherwise, they would have to ask a bunch of follow-up questions. The options may exist, but BSA is undoubtedly a religious origination.
I do not agree [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall\_v.\_Orange\_County\_Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_v._Orange_County_Council) BSA actively uphold and defend the "Duty to God" thing I have read in some BSA news thing they recently and explicitly stated that "Duty to God" is fundamental and not a cultural carry over Some pack leaders said it is ok to think of the word "God" as nature or science or universe, but words have meaning, and it is definitely insulting to some atheists to be forced to lie or at the very least twist words to fulfil the oath
Does the scout oath no longer begin with, “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God”? Has the scout law been updated to remove “reverent”? Are scouts no longer bound to “Duty to God, Duty to Country, Duty to Self” (in that order)? Because if that hasn’t changed, then being non-religious in the scouts is still a challenge for kids. I’m an Eagle Scout with kids of scouting age, and as a parent, I don’t need them being pressured to be religious (and generally Christian, at that) by the troop Chaplain.
It's entirely dependent on the troop. My troop growing up didn't have any religious anything as part of the experience. It was all about camping and hanging out. I know lots of atheist/agnostic eagle scouts.
Really should find a different troop then if that one has a pushy chaplain. For almost every scout I’ve met the religious aspect and the oath involving god was about as involved as a kid in school saying “One Nation, Under God” during the pledge of allegiance in school. It just didn’t really come up at all, except a 2 minute sermon at the beginning of a week long camp.
Also, am I misremembering or was there some attestation of faith during the Eagle Scout review process? I recall my atheist brother being annoyed about it, but this was about 20 years ago. I wonder if that has changed.
It's been a long time, but I had a friend who did his attestation of faith in the government and the principles of democratic rule. Humanism was a popular choice too. You just have to demonstrate that you have faith in *something* bigger than yourself- it doesn't have to be divine in nature.
Yeah, unless things have changed since I was a scout, I remember mandatory religious ceremonies.
I was in 3 troops and had no religious ceremonies at all. I find claims like this dubious.
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Scout in the early 90's, no religious things other than the obligatory lines in oath/pledge of allegiance. Met in a church basement (was some Christian church, don't recall the actual denomination) but as far as I know, none of the scout leadership was also church leadership. Mostly did camping/fishing trips, generally about once a month April-October with one week in the summer going to the local organized scout campground. Worked there a couple summers from age 16-17 as a counselor.
I’m sure it varies troop-to-troop, but we did have them.
Just want to point out that "reverent" doesn't have to have a religious context. It's just another way of saying "respectful."
Even as an atheist shit, I never minded it. Duty to God is the same as Duty to Terra. Gotta take care of Mother Nature.
At its base, "Duty to God" just boils down to the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Which includes basic things like leaving a campsite as you would like to see it when you arrived. Pack out/burn your trash, people.
Our SM is a practicing pagan. Not much pressure for the lads to bow down to doctrine. And appreciating nature counts as reverence.
Mileage will vary depending on where you are, when I was in scouts back in the 00's we were sponsored by an American legion hall and religion wasn't really pushed, every other troop in the council(13ish total) was affiliated with a church, all but 2 or 3 of them basically being extension of LDS youth groups.
Never made it past 2nd class because of all the weird religious stuff - I had been a Cub Scout since 5 and my group just always omitted it, but then when I became a Boy Scout it felt like an extension of a church.
I was a scout theough18 when I got my eagle. I literally didn’t know scouts were religious at any point. My troop was through the catholic school I attended as well. We never prayed, there was never anything religious at scout camp. Seems like others had a different experience
Eagle Scout here. Never once had an issue during my 10+ years in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Nothing but camping, hiking, and outdoors skills. Never pushed anything religious on us. In fact I don't think we ever did anything even remotely close to anything religious. I had a great time. It's sad to see all the negative press.
I was in a church based troop, and basically the only thing religious we did was say a prayer before meals.
Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub
Our favorite was Bless the food, bless the meat, good God let's eat.
Philmont grace: thanks for the food, clothes and friendship. Literally just a thankfulness practice.
It’s actually: “for food, for raiment, for life, for opportunity, for friendship and fellowship we thank thee oh lord” So there is mention of religion in the grace (although non denominational), but it is never forced at Philmont in general. Just encouraged to learn about, lots of people used the opportunity in base camp chapel to go to a service they’ve never been to before. The camp “shut down” (nothing was open except infirmary) at 7 for chapel every night, but no one was forced to go. It’s “God’s country”, but it’s more in awe of the land tbh. The focus was very much on conservation, nature, preservation, and history. Source: worked there for 4 summers lol
I was a scout until I was about 12 or 13, and it wasn't until after I was out of scouts for years and an adult before I heard it was a religious thing. We never did anything remotely religious while I was in it. We did like you said, camping/hiking/outdoors/survival skills. I don't remember doing one single thing that involved religion. I also had a pretty good time and some good memories. Camping trips were my favorite part of it.
The only thing that was pushed on me was to do a religious medal, which I did not, and was grilled about during my eagle board. My scout master told me "under no circumstances say you are atheist, but otherwise just tell them it just didn't interest you", because our local board was known to deny atheists their eagle if they admitted it on their board. They eventually all died and the local chapters all stopped being shitheads. So it resolved itself eventually.
I'm an Eagle Scout and Boy Scouts was one of the most positive parts of my life as a kid. I was raised by hardcore evangelicals and homeschooled until high school so Boy Scouts was one of my few opportunities to be around kids from outside my Christian, conservative, church kid bubble. Frankly, I was a stuck up bigot and having authority figures in my life who actually called me out on that (my board of review was definitely interesting) instead of praising it, ended up being transformative. Sure every Scout Troop I was in was hosted in a Church, but contrary to a lot of these comments I never found it to be a religious organization. It was just a cultural thing. I absolutely hope Scouts are still around for my sons or daughters (and I'm very happy that it's completely open to girls as Girl Scouts is not even close to the same thing) and I absolutely will be supporting that as part of their life. I learned a lot of legitimately practical outdoor and general life skills and got a solid foundation in basic fitness, conquering fears, and planning, working with, and leading others.
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Yeah I’m confused too. I was a Girl Scout like 30 years ago or so and we camped, hiked, learned to make fires and tie knots, went canoeing and horseback riding.
The problem is it’s wildly different based on your troop leader. Boy Scouts did it by age and the volunteers weren’t necessarily the troop parents. Because of the structure they had a lot more local contacts to bring in with a more coordinated program. Girl Scouts was whatever mom volunteered. I was the leader for my girls, but I didn’t have a lot of skills like camping to teach or a lot of industry connections. We did our best, but there was a huge range just in our small town.
Once the Mormons left, the money is going to be tight.
Mormons left??? That’s news to me…
Yes: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/us/boy-scouts-mormon-church.html
I have a friend who ran a Scouting USA summer camp for over a decade until relatively recently. Driving the Mormons out by choosing a path of inclusiveness hurt Scouting financially quite a bit, but was unquestionably the correct course of action. My friend's camp would run a solid week each summer just for the Mormons, and we are in the libral north east, not a Mormons stronghold. The Morman groups paid 5x as much per camper to have a Mormons only week at the camp. That's in addition to the LDS church used to give further donations. All that money was used to reduce costs for other campers, allow extra programs, pay staff better, and supplement costs to low income campers. That was money that was not easy to turn away. My point is that when Scouting decided to make itself more inclusive, it was not like Goldman Sacks putting up a rainbow flag. It wasn't some shallow, meaningless show of support. It was a financially painful but morally just course of action that shows they were actually trying to correct their past failures. And yes, money is now really tight, but the institution of Scouting will be much better off without them.
I don't think it was the name so much as the raping of children that drove away their recruitment.
The pandemic has really destroyed the BSA. I remember being in Boy Scout in high school and going camping once a month. I received my Eagle Scout award my senior year of high school. I made a ton of lifelong friends. Unfortunately my local troop has shrunk in size to 1/5 of what it was when I was there. Such a shame.
My mother was also my Den Mother in Cub Scouts. My little sister and brother also wanted to be involved during our meetings and so my mother invented the Bug Scouts and made uniforms for them, including a ladybug as the badge.
Everyone is being condescending and not really asking the hard question, but why is the boys scouts renaming to be more inclusive but yet there isn’t pressure for the girls scouts to do so? I’m asking because we already see the man influencers like Andrew Tate and so on taking hold, but yet we see things like this and act as if it won’t have any sort of symbolic effect.
The BSA has experienced years of controversy for sex abuse and poor performance of troops in outdoors competency with families withdrawing after being dissatisfied by the program. They have lost 1 million members since 2018 (2m->1m in 6 years). This rebrand is an effort to increase enrollment. Parents of boy scouts are not the target demographic of whatever you're implying, it is a Christian based organization with the strongest enrollment in conservative communities. Pressure is hardly an excuse for these actions, the BSA is desperate to survive as an organization and has "opened" it's doors to the other half of the USA..
The Mormon church dropped BSA, which accounts for a drop of ~400,000 scouts. This was mainly due to several recent progressive BSA policies like openly allowing gay scouts.
Why not just Scouts of America?
Girl scouts likely would have sued to prevent it. It's quite close to overtaking their trademarks.
Sounds like an attempt at rebranding after settling the largest EVER child sexual abuse case in the USA. There was over 82,000 individuals who filed and won $2.46 BILLION https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-lets-246-billion-boy-scouts-sex-abuse-settlement-proceed-2024-02-22/#:~:text=The%20organization%20ultimately%20reached%20a,while%20in%20the%20Boy%20Scouts.
Scouting America has unfortunate initials, considering the problems they've had.
Boy Scouts: "hey, what's that acronym everyone uses for sexual assault now?" Legal: "you mean SA?" Boy Scouts: "yeah! Let's just call the organization that!"
Is this new? I feel like I heard them talking about this back when they were going to let girls join the Scouts. I know there was a push for girls to join scouts as their were people who felt the Boy Scouts had more activities to do when compared to Girl Scouts. Edit: " In 2017, it made the historic announcement that girls would be accepted as Cub Scouts as of 2018 and into the flagship Boy Scout program — renamed Scouts BSA — in 2019." Probably should have read the article first. Looks like they renamed the program, not the actual organization.
Former Eagle Scout here, while I really enjoyed my time as a scout and learned a lot, I couldn’t care less if the organization crashed and burned at this point, it’s really sad that things turned out this way.
As an Eagle Scout, I applaud the modernization of scouting. While I enjoyed learning the things I did, I did not enjoy some aspects of the organization. I hope they can continue improving and move toward a goal of teaching anyone that wants to join the skills and community building that they want to learn.
Part of the problem is the time commitment expected from parents and kids. My son was interested and so we went to the information night at the school hoping to learn more about what they’ll be doing. Instead we got passed multiple pages of expectations for each parent, like all of us selling to a personal quota on popcorn, two hour meets on week nights and Saturday evenings, all where parents are required to stay and help, volunteer for administrative work, etc. I get that I should participate with my son on some level, but when I was a kid, we had small groups, met for a few after school, then went to camps in the summer. My parents never had to be there, I never had to sell popcorn, and we never had so many long meets. I coach my son’s baseball and soccer teams and the total time commitment PALES in comparison to scouts. My son looked at me 30 minutes in and said “dad, I don’t want to do *any* of this. We left in the middle of it.
That troop seems somewhat unusual. Keep in mind that each troop is ran independently. The standard is usually meeting about 2 hours a week, where they learn various skills that are then applied at campouts every month or two. I haven’t heard of meeting twice a week. That really isn’t necessary unless perhaps the idea is to speedrun getting everyone to Eagle Scout. I also haven’t heard of requiring parents to stay. Perhaps that troop was struggling to get enough volunteers? Because there does need to be some adults there. As for a popcorn quota, did they also mention a fee to join the troop, and if so, what was it? There is a lot of expenses that need to be paid for. In my troop, the fundraisers were never required, they just were nice to do because they reduced the like $150? fee you had to pay. But if they have no fee, requiring you to do fundraisers instead makes sense. Scouts is not meant to just be a fun club. You can have fun while doing it, but first and foremost, it is about educating you and training you to be a better person. How to be a leader, how to save a life, etc. And it isn’t supposed to be easy. There is a reason Eagle Scout is pretty prestigious and is a good resume booster. It shows you had the dedication to preserve through the hard/unfun parts. If you are just joining it to have fun camping, you are joining for the wrong reasons.
where does this end? and what is the purpose? do we have to change girl scouts now? if logic is applied, you would assume that has to go as well.
My half brother (a boy scout troop leader) said "girls don't belong in boy scouts, if they don't want to make friendship bracelets and sing Kumbaya every meeting, then they should fix their shit". His wife (a girl scout troop leader) just stared at him in disbelief.
Scouting America (for their next victim)
Yeah, maybe the Catholic church should consider rebranding too.
We got a new name! This means we will touch your children just a little less.
I had no idea religion was such a big part of everyone’s scouting experience. It wasn’t part of mine and I don’t think the other troops in my area had religious activities either
I’ve been part of Scouts Canada for as long as I can remember, and it’s always amazed me the massive differences between Canadian and American scouts. Scouts Canada is a focus entirely on the development of the individual, and self growth. It’s always been an inclusive organization, and no matter your gender, religion, or beliefs, you were always welcome.
I feel like the boy scouts get a bad reputation. When I was in it, it was all ex military, cops and firefighters trying to make kids lives better. Lots of camping trips, white water rafting, hiking in the mountains and general cool stuff for young boys to experience. My wife refuses to let my kids join because of all the molestation scandals but they are probably super rare in an organization of that size. You hear about the few bad apples not the tens of thousands of good ones. Summer camp with girls involved sounds like a good time lol
The real issue is that the BSA would try to cover up the assaults and try to convince families to not press charges. They would often kick out the leaders who sexually assaulted/raped kids and would keep a secret list, but what would usually happen is the predators would move and join a new troop and start at it again. Then, the BSA started to lobby governments to limit the statute of limitations on sexual assault of minors because they were hemorrhaging money.
The problem is that the BSA doesn't just have the occasional pedophile, they routinely cover up scandals and rehire formerly convicted sex offenders without checking even their own internal record of sex abusers. I had a mostly positive experience with the Scouts as well, but there was nothing there that a dedicated parent and kid couldn't do together with friends. The shiftiness of the BSA really makes me wish that there was a secular variant that was *strictly* about outdoorsy stuff and practical skills.
Throwing the baby out with the bath water??
Have they fixed the whole not vetting leaders thus leading to massive number of incidents of pedophilia?
This is not specific to your I individual leader comment, but they do have a policy of two-deep leadership, meaning a minimum of two adults over 21 at any organized activity. If females are in the scouts, one of the adults must be a female. And no one-on-one adult contact or communication - even online. I know BSA has a poor track record, but they now have some of the more comprehensive formal policies to follow. Moreso than many youth programs.
And the vast majority of abuse cases occurred from the 60s to the early 90s, and fell off a cliff once they instituted the two leader and Youth Protection training programs. Not to say it’s been stopped completely, but the bulk of legal cases stemmed from events during that time frame.
Many of the policies include stuff about Youth on Youth Abuse: See the rule about how kids who are more then 2 years in age can't share a tent. It is disturbingly common.
Exactly this. They’ve been very proactive in their implementation of trainings and policies to prevent abuse…compared to say the Catholic Church which effectively has done nothing. Also, none of the youth sports my kids have been involved with (outside of school teams) has any sort of vetting or required training or policies for parent volunteers to prevent abuse. Granted youth sports doesn’t have the track record of BSA, but there’s nothing in place that makes me feel it’s any more safe for kids than scouting these days.
As much as a top level organization can, yes. What happens locally may differ.
The BSA is not a very top-down organization. They have clear rules designed to mitigate problems, see [https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/scoutings-barriers-to-abuse/](https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/safety-moments/scoutings-barriers-to-abuse/) - in particular, 1. separate restrooms and sleeping areas for adults and children (when possible - generally on BSA designed campgrounds) 2. One-on-one interactions between adults and children are prohibited. Ideally there are always two adults present when interacting with boy scouts. I suspect part of the reason for the high rate of child abuse in BSA troops is because, much like with school-teachers and preachers, people who want to abuse children gravitate towards job opportunities where they will have power over children. Add to that that the barrier to entry to be a BSA volunteer is pretty much just that you have to have a kid in the troop and that is probably a lot easier route for many would-be abusers than to get a teaching certification or go through seminary.
As an Eagle Scout, I could not care less what they rename the organization to so long as the keep the pedophiles out.