“Boys Scouts” encompasses all levels of scouting, @roethlisburger, under the Boy Scouts of America and that was what I was addressing. You seem to be talking about only one level. Additionally, most females go through puberty between the ages of 10-14 and most boys do so between the ages of 12-14. Regardless, yes, many girls can handle it, especially the ones inclined to participate in the first place. I stand by my comments.
Your information on puberty is out of date. New studies suggest males are beginning puberty around 10. https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20121020/earlier-puberty-age-9-10-average-us-boy
I hiked 10 miles a day with a 50 lb pack routinely in my teens, and I am female. Was an avid backpacker and climber for years.
Our son is an Eagle Scout and has said many times that he values his scouting experience and his Eagle award above all his accomplishments and probably always will. His appointment to USMA is hung below his Eagle award, and I suspect that it will also rank above his commission. He feels that scouting emphasized all of the traits important to becoming a man of character and integrity that will serve him well the rest of his life. Of course, he learned these first at home, but his troop was his herd and the lessons cemented growing up with those boys trump any other experience he has had yet in his life. His troop was his extended family. Whenever he is home on leave, he visits his troop (now over an hour away from our current neighborhood) to mentor the younger brothers of his troop family. He says he will always be a Scout at heart.
DH, a respectful atheist, was in troop leadership (both den and troop leader) during most of our son’s journey. Troops do differ on how they handle many of the issues others object to.
Personally, I no longer have a horse in this race, but isn’t the point of “Boy” and “Girl” Scouts to give both genders the opportunity to experience the benefits of scouting? I don’t see the point of integrating. If girls can become Boy Scouts, then boys should be allowed to become Girl Scouts and then you might as well just have one organization called “Scouts.” Maybe that’s the solution? I’m pretty sure though that just being with his “brothers” is part of what our son valued/s about the scouting experience. I know he’s pretty partial to girls, but his troop was one place he could loosen his virtual neckerchief and hang/learn with the guys. In his troop, we moms weren’t even part of the experience–dads and sons only, and I liked that.
“And I suspect that a non-religious kid could fake his/her way through the religious aspects. Though in out of the closet atheist would have a much tougher time.”
So their kids should have to lie to belong to the scouts?!?!
If only the world was so black and white and simplistic.
@roethlisburger There’s a difference between start/onset and “go through”. The bulk and size that boys put on during puberty isn’t their first sign of puberty. Regardless of age, and different reliable sources give different information, it’s all good though because the same factors that are causing earlier puberty in males are also causing it in females and, on average, females both start and complete the puberty cycle earlier. Take a walk around some 5, 6, and even 7th and 8th grade classrooms and you can tell the difference. Away from the puberty issue, as pointed out be me and others, even after puberty during the high school years, many females are quite capable of hiking 10 miles carrying their own equipment and sustenance. The boy scouts doesn’t have height/weight/strength requirements anyway for its boys. Plenty of boys are small for awhile and still hike successfully.
I have been a leader in both Boy and Girl Scouts (still am in Boy Scouts). I am married to an Eagle Scout and son is an Eagle. D dropped Girl Scouts to join Venturing Scouts.
Both Boy and Girl Scout troops are going to vary based on the leadership. Boy Scouts can go from troops that do extreme trips on a regular basis to ones that do a lot of fun and laid-back weekend camping trips rather than 50-mile backpacking. Lots of boys (and girls) do Philmont and Northern Tier - but there’s also Sea Base, which is not as extreme. My son loved camping and enjoyed Sea Base - but the idea of backpacking long distances was just not for him. D’s Girl Scout troop was very outdoor focused, but I’ve seen other troops where rather than camping they would take trips to the American Girl Doll store and go to Build-a-bear. Fun trips, but not really “Scouting” to me.
D, on the other hand, loves primitive camping. Give her minimal supplies and a trowel and she’s good to go.
What I like about Boy Scouts is rank advancement. In Girl Scouts you advance based on age. Boy Scouts rank advancement is based on earning certain merit badges and demonstrating many valuable skills, such as first aid, citizenship, camping, emergency preparedness, and now cooking is Eagle-required as well. I have lots of respect for those that have earned the Gold Award, but I wish there were guarantees the girls learned basic skills just like the boys. Lord Baden-Powell had a focus on teaching the skills necessary to be contributing members of society.
As for religion, it was a huge part of Baden-Powell’s life so is a core tenet in Scouts - but there are troops out there that are respectful of athiests and agnostics and don’t require them to deny who they are. Just like there have been troops that didn’t throw out boys or leaders for having a non-heterosexual orientation. I’m proud to say our troop is one!
Both of my kids worked several years at Boy Scout camp. D met her fiancee there! D did physically demanding work at Boy Scout camp that never would have been asked of her at Girl Scout camp.
I’m sad to think of what this change will do to Girl Scouts, but excited at the opportunities of Boy Scouts being available to everyone!
Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and venturing are separate programs even if they all fall under the BSA umbrella.
http://www.scouting.org
Yup. Well aware. Are you going to tell me that most 11 year old boys have a huge size advantage over 11 year old girls, or any advantage at all?
NOLS courses and Outward Bound programs don’t divide by gender even for their most rigorous trips.
I agree with the comments regarding rank advancement. Having the boys sit down with a couple of adults to discuss their progress is valuable on so many levels. Issues outside of scouting like homework and extracurriculars are also discussed, which allows the boy to ponder where he is and where he is headed. By the time they sit for their Eagle board they are so much more poised and thoughtful than they were when they started as Scout. College and job interviews are a piece of cake after you’ve gone through that experience. Sorry to hear the Girl Scouts don’t use a similar format.
I suspect BSA has moved toward the co-ed policy in part because of recent gender-identity cases. I believe they have some pending lawsuits that this should dismiss. I doubt they wanted to undercut the Girl Scouts, but see it as necessary for survival given the changing social environment.
I haven’t read all the comments, but I was a Scoutmaster for a while and here is my 2 cents.
Venture Troops gave a bit of a trial run for the coed camping and other Scout activities. I haven’t done any of it, but seriously I think everyone is making too big a deal about it. Plus as was mentioned before, Boy Scouts has been coed in most countries for some time. This should be a non-issue.
I have 2 girls who tried to do girl scouts. I REALLY wanted them to be able to do it and get some of the experiences out of it that my boys were getting. This is my only experience with Girl Scouts, but from what I can tell it was much more decentralized and up to the local leader what the Troop does. I would hear occasionally about some of the other Girl Scouts doing fun activities, but my girls never did. They both really tried to like it, and I tried to support it. But it just wasn’t there. I don’t recall the details, but my wife and daughter did go “camping” once at a Girl Scout run camp in cabins. That pretty much sealed the deal for both of them. My daughter was miserable, and my wife put her foot down that she was not going to force her to continue. We had given it enough time and it was getting worse not better. If I could have taken them (and a few other girls) with me on some of our Boy Scout activities I think they would have had a much better experience.
Girl Scouts seemed much more “girl power” focused. I like that part. But at least what I saw that meant that they were pretty opposed to the dads having any involvement at all. Boy Scouts was the opposite. It was primarily dads involved, but one of our most active assistant Scoutmasters was a mom, and a few other moms would occasionally accompany on scouting trips or help with various things. Even if a dad had a skill he could show the girls, he was not welcome to do so because it was supposed to be about girls, not letting a boy show them anything. I would like say that this was a weird isolated incident with one leader, but it wasn’t.
Boy Scouts was ridiculously late to the LGBT acceptance. I didn’t quit over this, but was close on more than one occasion. I thought they were teaching my boys several valuable lessons. I thought they were also teaching intolerance, at least indirectly. The “God” issue I felt the same way about, but less strongly. It is pretty ambiguous, you basically just are supposed to acknowledge that there is some higher power. If you are anything but a hard core, no compromise, I’m definitely right and you are definitely wrong atheist it is pretty easy to get by. You have to just let a couple pretty ambiguous statements slide by. I was at a few events that got a little too focused on being Christian in my opinion, but none of it was ever forced on the boys so I let it go. And honestly in this part of the country you are going to be in an uncomfortable situation as a non-Christian occasionally. Learning to deal with that is part of growing up. If you feel the need to confront everyone who espouses a religious belief, you aren’t going to have many friends or hold a job, at least around here.
I thought Cub Scouts was lame, and so did my boys for the most part. The reason is that the parents are too involved. Boy Scouts was much more fun, and much more about self reliance. When things are done properly in a Boy Scout Troop, the adults are just there to make sure things stay on track. It is a bit of a throw back to the “free range parenting” that some of us grew up with. I would talk with the SPL (basically think president) before the meeting about what needed done, then I would try to keep my mouth shut, and keep the other parents to do the same. Ultimately what killed the experience for my family was the inability of a few families to see that in our Troop. They needed to see things done correctly, which is not the way learning 12-16 year olds do things all the time. These parents kept trying to take over, and I got tired of the fight. My boys were involved in too many things anyway, so we dropped Scouts. I still miss it, and think there is a lot of good about the program.
Here is a quote from an earlier post that I find chilling:
It would be my hope that we are teaching our children to accept people of other beliefs, not to find it okay and somehow their fault if they are “uncomfortable,” and think that it is okay to dismiss someone from their job for being an atheist if they have the nerve to admit it.
An atheist and a non-atheist can be friends. As a matter of fact, my husband’s best friend since college is a Methodist minister, as is his wife, and their children are religious. We are atheists. We are good friends and even have gone on vacations together several times. We mostly talk about other things, but sometimes we explore one another’s beliefs and are fascinated by the differences. We appreciate one another.
No child should have to deal with intolerance.
Yes, the Boy Scouts have the right to define themselves as a faith-based organization, but being accepting is a good thing. My son’s camp is Catholic. The camp leads a prayer at arrival and at lunch, but they don’t make anyone say it (even as a counselor), and they emphasize concepts that are much like the other parts of the Boy Scout and Girl Scout oaths— respecting yourself, others, and your environment. They recognize that campers are there for many reasons and not all campers are there for the religious aspect. I am sure that the Boy Scouts could manage to do the same as this wonderful camp that models acceptance and appreciation of all.
Girls can’t hike 10 miles with 50 lb. packs? Are we still in the 1950s?
My girls cross country team is is better equipped to do a 10 mile hike with a pack then probably 95% of the Boys at our HS.
@TheGreyKing I think I may have been misunderstood there. I am not saying intolerance is ok, as i said in other parts of that post that was one of my biggest problems with Scouts.
However, part of tolerance is being accepting that others believe things that you don’t. I’m sure that you don’t confront your Methodist minister friend about his beliefs. He has his beliefs, and you have yours. And that’s ok. My point is that I think for most people Scouts can be treated the same way you treat your Catholic camp. At your camp there is probably an occasional prayer said, and a number of crucifixes around. For some people, that is what would make them uncomfortable. I’m guessing you tell your son something like “Yeah, they teach a lot of good things there, but we don’t believe that part. Here’s why…” and it isn’t really that big a deal at your house. He doesn’t confront them and tell them why they are wrong. That’s pretty much the way I handled Scouts.
Also I wasn’t saying that people would be fired for being atheist. I’m sure it happens, but I’m guessing not much. But if you feel the need to confront your coworkers, customers and bosses with the fact that their religious beliefs are wrong then you are frankly going to be a pretty unpleasant person to be around, which will get you fired. Same if you are a vegan who feels the need to confront everyone who microwaves a chicken breast in the breakroom, or a fundamentalist Christian who needs to point out to everyone in the office that gays are going to Hell. My point was that kids need to learn how to deal with situations where they may have the minority view. There are times where that merits standing up and stating your beliefs. But there are also times when you just need to let things slide by. Otherwise you are going to have a pretty miserable life, and so will the people around you.
I wasn’t referring to the general program, I actually had 2 particular times in my mind when I thought people crossed the line. Both situations were with particular people who I think overstepped and were pushing their personal agenda. One instance happened in my Troop and I was able to stop it going forward. In the other it was an outside speaker who had been brought in to talk to boys from several Troops who hadn’t been properly instructed on what he was supposed to do. I was one of very few people (maybe the only one) in the group who didn’t share his beliefs. So I let it go and just made a mental note to never have him talk to my Troop. and to make sure anyone I had come in knew the boundaries.
I don’t understand what you mean @dadof4kids. An athiest is not allowed to join the Boy Scouts. That is the official position of BSA. They have a right not to allow in athiests. But are you suggesting that athiests should join the Boy Scouts and lie when they take the oath involving a God? We tell our children that it’s wrong to lie. We would never have allowed them to that oath because to do so is in our view immoral.
^This isn’t a perfect analogy, but sometimes non-Catholics attend Catholic schools for a variety of reasons. The kids may have to attend religious class and parents may tell their kids to say prayers like the other students to avoid causing an issue at the school. The reality is most Boy Scout troops have been de-emphasizing the religious aspect for a long time, and that’s a minor part of the experience.
What is the basis for the statement that most Boy Scout troops have been deemphasizing the religious aspect for a long time? I am familiar with 3 local troops and they are very much different than each other. Not only in terms of religion but how strictly they follow BSA rules, how often they camp, etc. And have a somewhat lesser familiarity with our area Council in general as a pack master for several years. All part of the same Council but very much unique in how they are run. Maybe the religious aspect of given troops varies by area of the country?
I agree with the posters who said the level of outdoorsy stuff depended on the GS leader. Not only was I a GS as a girl, my daughters were GS, and I was the leader of Daisies & Brownie troops in England. And a leader of a Junior troop here in the states. I currently belong to an outdoor women’s organization full of previous GS leaders and all we do is outdoorsy stuff. Stuff my military husband shakes his head at.
My girl scouts did all kinds of outdoors stuff…camping, hiking, nature walks, outdoor education and survival classes, etc. The activeness of the troop definitely depended on the leader. I will also say that GS does place a ton of safety regulations and it was often a headache to deal with. I put my son in Cub Scouts and he hated it. The leader wasn’t very good, imaginative or organized. Meetings were canceled, too much focus was placed on fundraising, and the dads involved didn’t want women (whether they had scouting experience or not) involved with the troop. I also did not appreciate some of the discussions that were occurring in earshot of the boys.
So I am concerned about this change. GS is an inclusive group. I just don’t see the BS as inclusive as GS. I also appreciate GS history and the focus on the needs of girls. I hope that girls choose to continue to participate and enjoy girl scouts.
I think the BS are becoming much more inclusive. LGBT was a step, this is another. The fact that LDS is not going to be using them in the future in my opinion will be a big step this direction. That seemed to be one of the hold ups. Nationals did not want to risk losing such a large number of Scouts. Now that ship has sailed, so they can focus on doing the right thing instead of making that group happy.
In my opinion, the LDS was an odd fit anyway. They modified the program, and it was just overall run very differently. We have an LDS Troop in our town (not a huge town), and I never even met the leaders from the group. They had nothing to do with the other Troops in our Council (except presumably the other LDS ones). I have no problem with them doing whatever they want to do. But I didn’t like the fact that the overall program was being influenced by a minority member. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but it’s a little like how the Cuban expats have an outsized role on the US relationship with Cuba.
My experience with GS and BS was opposite of @4MyKidz . BS was very inclusive of any adults who could contribute, GS basically wanted dads to stop at the door and leave their girls behind. I did stay to quietly watch one meeting and it was pretty uncomfortable, I was definitely not wanted there. I would have left but that would have upset my daughter so I just tried to disappear into the corner.
@maya54 The Boy Scout Oath is “On my honor, I will do my best. To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” If you don’t believe in God, then I guess your duty to God is zero so I think you are upholding your oath.
I get where you are coming from on this, but honestly I don’t think it is that big of an issue. Is it lying? I don’t know, I would say it is shading the truth a bit but you aren’t outright being forced to say that you believe in God. If I didn’t participate in organizations that I didn’t 100% believe in I wouldn’t participate in much, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to vote. Sometimes I think you have to say something is 90% positive, and I am willing to deal with the 10% negative. Plus if the dissenters never participate, then that just reinforces to the participants that they don’t have a problem, since no one in the group disagrees
I do find it somewhat ironic that I seem to be defending BS, which lots of my Scoutmaster friends would think this is hilarious. I argued with them for years that BS should admit girls, that LGBT should be a non-issue for scouts or leaders, and that that the religious aspect should be tweaked to explicitly make room for atheists. I only gave money to the local Troop or the Council, never to Nationals because of their policies. Through absolutely no doing of my own, they are 2/3 of the way there. I hope they complete the transition, because there really is a lot of good to come out of the program. They just need to not be excluding people for reasons that are more in touch with 1917 than 2017.