So, this was in the news today. My daughter did Brownies for awhile but very little scouting background in our family. I know many here have been heavily into scouting. What’s your take on this?
My D did Daisy and Brownie. I was more impressed with what our local Boy Scouts were doing and asked the troop leader if he would consider being a trendsetter and letting a girl in. This was not a trendsetter type of guy, LOL.
Ah well, he could have been ahead of his time.
We’ve had several girls join our troop (and pack) on campouts through the years. They were very disappointed with the Girl Scout program, with outings that seemed to them more like sleepovers. They were usually sisters of scouts who saw how much fun their brothers were having. BSA has had a Venture program that is coed and for youth over 14, so this isn’t entirely new to them. As @Dancingmom518 stated, leadership is key. Fortunately our troop was progressive, and recognized as BSA now does, that scouting should be family activity.
I think it’s great. We’ve been a scouting family for 20 years and my 4 sons all got so much from the program. My D did Girl Scouts for a few years, but got bored with selling cookies and doing pedicures. She begged us to get her into boy scouting, but the best we could do was family camping weekends. For the past 6 or 7 years, we’ve been involved in Venture Scouting, which is a co-ed program for boys and girls ages 14 - 21. I think it’s the wave of the future. I think that scouts will integrate from the top down by adding girls at the Tiger and Bear levels first and by turning troops into Venture type crews.
Scouting is a great program and although it’s not perfect, it has made great strides in recent years, with opening up to LGBTQ youth and family and now by going co-ed. The core values that Scouting teaches are things that are important to many families, such as mine. My sons learned self-reliance, team work and cool skills, like cooking in the woods (fondue, chocolate raspberry mousse and teriyaki sirloin, etc.), tying knots, sailing, hiking, they learned to appreciate nature. Two of them had their first jobs as scout camp counselors. They are still friends with boys they went through scouts with and there is a core group of about a dozen or so young men that ranges from a 28 year old that my oldest son met at his alternative HS in 2005 (and who now lives in my rental home) down to S17 and his cohort. These young men socialize, hang out and turn to each other for advice and friendship. The one thing they have in common is scouting. A couple of them even have girlfriends that they met through Venturing (different crews from ours as inter-crew dating is prohibited). I think that co-ed scouting will be even better because boys and girls can interact in a safe and healthy and supervised environment that will permit them to develop healthy relationships.
My D did GS for a while. They had a number of programs along the lines of take your daughter to work day and other things to promote women in the workplace. One year my D did GS sleep away camp and besides all the sports they also focused on good nutrition and becoming a healthy woman. I liked the female focus and I think my D did too.
I think my daughter would have stayed in scouting longer if her troop did more of the outdoorsy things the boys did. The leadership of her troop was locked down by a couple of really girly moms whose idea of an outing and use of troop cookie sale $$ was going to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, Ben & Jerry’s, and a sleepover, not camping in the woods. The only “camping” the girls did was one night in the troop leader’s backyard.
I was a Girl Scout leader for 10 years. I think the Boy Scout model of ongoing troops with different ages and even adults engaging as leaders with the same troops after they are grown has a lot to recommend it – wish the GS would adopt it.
GS troops are only as active as their leaders choose to be. We were a pretty outdoorsy troop – lots of camp experiences, rafting, birding, high ropes courses, horseback riding, trip to Colorado from the Midwest while girls were in high school, etc. D1 went on a “wider opportunity” 2 week canoe trip into Canada one year. But if the leaders aren’t into outdoor stuff, the troop won’t be. A troop is a smaller unit for GS, and I thought it was harder work to bring more varied adult skills to the troop.
The GS are also extremely (!!!) safety conscious. To the point where sometimes it was stifling the fun.
On the positive side, GS is a very inclusive organization. No sweat over being gay, for example – in fact, my troop coleader for a couple years was a gay woman whose daughter was in the troop.
I guess I see why the GS is suing. But they could do some things to strengthen their own model, too.
My daughter would have loved your troop, @intparent .
I always felt that too much of the troop leaders’ time and even the scouts’ time is consumed by the cookie sales and all that came with it in terms of prep, etc.
I absolutely agree with some of the previous posters on Girl Scouts - mostly our troop was making greeting cards, caroling and selling cookies (don’t get me started on the cookies).
Meanwhile, the boys were learning things like first aid and survival skills.
I know it all depends on the individual troop, but I don’t think the Girl Scouts have the same systems in place that support the kind of learning that takes place in Boy Scouts. Wish they had let girls in years ago.
My daughter had a great experience in Girl Scouts and my son had a lousy experience in Cub Scouts. Probably had to do with the leaders but it left a lasting impression on all of us.
Boy scouts had Explorers when I was in high school and I belonged for a while. I liked Girl Scouts better. We did lots of camping, cooking, service projects. My girls were both in scouts and we did a lot of activities around town on our own - dinosaur ridge was a day of exploring with the units being taught by the women engineers from Colo School of Mines, absolutely the greatest Harry Potter parties when the new books were released, days at museums and art galleries, theater programs.
I don’t remember one manicure.
I think there is room for both groups. The Boy Scouts offer a very different experience from Girl Scouts and may not be for everyone. We’ve had many boys who did not put in the work to advance, or decided they didn’t like camping, but the young men I’ve seen progress to Eagle have all turned into amazing young men. Finishing an Eagle project and facing a Eagle board of review is true character building. I think it’s amazing that girls will now be able to achieve the rank of Eagle!
re post #2 that scouting be a “family activity”. NO, NO and NO! I resented being required to attend my kid brother’s cub scout activities. I did NOT want to attend potluck suppers or car/boat races at all. Or be bored with the silly ceremonies. Please, do not force the rest of the children to spend their time in an activity they do not enjoy and are not getting to participate in equally. Now, if I could have built the car and raced it with the cub scouts… At least girl scouts did not impose on their siblings every month, especially when homework beckoned.
Our son was a cub scout for a few years. He had to quit when he went from being a third grader to being a fifth grader- had been in a 3rd/4th grade class doing 4th grade work so a logical, easy transition. The cub scouts would not let him transition to be with his grade/class peer group. So, no more idiotic silly projects at meetings that were the main focus at that stage. The schools offered much more and it wasn’t missed. My son was never into getting badges by doing junky stuff (it may have useful for average boys, but son never did do the work he found useless in learning).
I’ll add to this the fact that among son’s cousins the ones who were Eagle Scouts are the least successful - no college or good jobs like those who did not do Boy Scouts beyond cubs. Parenting is one factor- the father involved as a parent et al also is messed up. The neighbor who was an Eagle scout I would not trust completely, he did get a degree. Therefore my impressions of reaching that eagle level are not that it means anything compared to others.
One thing that hasn’t been made very public is the decline in the number of boy scout troops, and who will support them. Many Catholic churches no longer support the troops (Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts) The biggest number of troops are sponsored by LDS and they are working on transferring to another type of youth activities. They aren’t adding girls.
Okay, gonna call you on that. Girls can earn their Gold Award, which is the GS equivalent of Eagle. Colleges recognize it as an equivalent Award in admissions. I know some Boy Scouts that did projects for Eagle that were really a lot simpler than the requirements the Gold Award candidates have to fulfill for the project portion. The BS do more badge work, but for the actual projects themselves the girls jump through more hoops with more project components and are required to interact with more people. So call me unimpressed that girls can now earn Eagle Scout. They do just fine with the GS equivalent.
No doubt it is driven by declining enrollment (girl scouts, too) rather than altruistic reasons.
“Now, if I could have built the car and raced it with the cub scouts…”
I thought the dads made a good chunk of them. 
I helped son, not my H with his- let’s just say he’s an excellent physician in the NONsurgical world. Still have that el cheapo hacksaw which I occasionally use. It’s mom who buys materials, sets up a place where the work won’t destroy an area et al. Dad did attend and was involved with parenting, it wasn’t the absent parent syndrome. He had a different experience as a cub scout in urban India decades before. Son never won, but it was HIS work. Oh, the things parents do to give their children childhood experiences.
Seeing the Mormon statement quote. We ignored some of the scouting tenants regarding god instead of fighting them on principal. Morals and ethics are not religion dependent.
Pretty sure I stated above that Boy Scouts is not for everyone. By family activity, the scouts mean that moms and sisters are welcome to join. No one is forcing you. Our troop has had more than its share of parents who dropped their kid at the curb and drove off with no interest in who their child was spending the weekend with. If that’s the kind of parent you are, at least the scouts now has youth protection training in place to make sure your child is safe. I think it’s great that, through scouting, those kids had the opportunity to go on outings their parents never would have taken them on.
I never pitted the Eagle against the Gold. Don’t know why you are @intparent. They are from two different organizations, and now girls have a choice which to participate in, which I think is great. I have sat on many Eagle boards. Some projects are better than others, but if the youth complete the requirements they are granted the award.
Scouts lost membership when LDS left, but LDS was the main reason homosexuals were not allowed into scouting for so many years, so now scouting can evolve without them.
So it is great that girls can get the Eagle, but still boys can’t get the Gold Award. And somehow you are fine with that. Sorry, but I still think your comments snub the Gold Award.
Then your issue is with the Girl Scouts.
I never even mentioned the Gold Award!