Context: I was a Boy Scout for a number of years, making Eagle in 2020 right as COVID was really kicking off.
It was right afterwards, however, that the CSA scandal started popping up everywhere (which thankfully I was never exposed to or involved in during my time), and lately it seems like the organization & movement as a whole has fallen by the sociocultural wayside.
I would say that my time as a Scout did me objective good; I learned a decent amount about first-aid & survival-craft, participated in a number of volunteer & civic projects, and it generally made me a more well-rounded person. However, there’s no denying the impact that something “bigger than the Catholic Church scandal”, as I’ve heard it described, has on an institution such as this.
I’d like to get the community’s opinion, however; were any of you Scouts? How was your experience? What is your opinion of the institution today?
I honestly don’t really have one. I’m sure one could think of numerous benefits and dangers.
In girl scouts we just sold cookies, or met to talk about the cookies, or for our moms to get the cookies.
So with the child rape on the boys end, and exploitation on the girls end, I’d say it’s not good. I wouldn’t trust a man involved in leading boy scouts with my kids. I mean, my sons elementary school coach just got fired for staring at 5th grade girls, and they look for that kind of thing hard-core before hiring.
It’s cool you could do that and didn’t get raped like the other boys, but your family could have been teaching you how to exist in nature and do neat things.
It’s not something that fits with the world we have now, the world is more “caters to the predator,” rather than “let’s do something nice for the kids.”
Great experience. Mother was a den mother. Did a bunch of crafts. Then boy scouts and I never progressed any badges. Was fun! There were two troops that behaved very differently in our town. One was all about rules and mine was all about relaxing and letting us kids do whatever we want most of the time. I understand the greater Scouting org was and is… problematic. Personal experience, it was good.
Mid-2010s Eagle Scout here. I think Boy Scouts as a whole did teach me a lot of genuinely important skills, both physical and mentally, but that was mostly due in my opinion to my troop being more unconventionally scout-ran compared to the other troops in our council, which leaned more adult-ran. We had pretty much free reign over our itinerary and direction as a troop, so if decided we didn’t want to do something or we wanted to, but didn’t plan for it, it didn’t happen. The inverse with stuff we wanted to do and then it happening was also true. That taught me a lot more about life than any merit badge or rank advancement could.
Unfortunately being an Eagle Scout isn’t something I always bring up when talking about myself. I think part of it is all the scandals that went public like you said, but also another part is, again in my experience, “Boy Scout” carries a message about my ideals and politics that aren’t actually in line with my ideals and politics. Either you were really into nature (minority) or you were really into the wrong side of WWII (majority).
Boy scouts need to find something better to sell than popcorn to match the girl scout cookies.
What should they sell?
Idk crackers? Chips? Snack foods are a good idea, but popcorn feels too limiting compared to cookies.
Especially when the last 3 years the popcorn we’ve had to sell has gone bad.
I was in scouts very briefly. Our troop/chapter/whatever it was lasted less than a year because the scout leaders were caught embezzling funds and everything got shut down.
From my limited experience in scouts, I found it boring.
My son has been in Cub Scouts for a few years and I help lead the pack. It’s been good for him and his friends, but fuck nationals. If our local pack agreed with the national organization’s right-wing politics and religious mandate I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it. But we make it pretty clear to the parents that we just ignore the rules that we think are not in line with our values.
I don’t love being part of an org with values that contradict ours, but If we abandon every problematic organization it will be very hard to find things to be a part of. And we can discuss with the kids the things that we don’t agree with, and also work from within the organization to improve it. If nationals ever came down on us we would probably just join one of the other scouting organizations that doesn’t hold right-wing views. And if the rest of the pack leader is caved to nationals I would pull my son out of the program.
Cub Scouts has a reasonably good education program for keeping kids safe from abuse, and it’s a requirement each year for parents to discuss these things with their kids. So most of the conversations I’ve had with my son about abuse has been because the Cub Scouts require it. In that sense, I feel like it has prepared him somewhat to get himself out of a bad situation if he ever find himself in one.
We’ll see if he wants to continue at the troop level. I will support him if he wants to, and the conversations we’ve had due to Cub Scouts make it less likely that anything abusive will happen while he’s camping with them.
I think it’s great!
I’m have three kids in scouting and I’m an ASM myself. I find it’s very dependant on the troop. I didn’t have a very good experience as a kid with mine, so I didn’t think I’d bring my kids into it. But when they were interested, we found a troop that turned out to be everything mine wasn’t as a kid. We accepted girls before it was officially allowed, and we’ve built a very strong, open and positive community. Enough that when they asked me to become an ASM, I happily accepted since my opinion of scouts had completely turned around.
There are still some pockets of the old guard that don’t like the direction of scouting these days. But with a good troop, it can be an amazing experience. My kids have grown and learned so much from their involvement. Me too.
Life scout here. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a huge positive force on my childhood and created lifelong friendships.
When i was a kid, i was so enthused by the idea of scouting. When i finally joined up i realized quick it was all a front to recruit kids to the church and I got out of there as fast as I could. I have hated the scouts ever since
I hadn’t even considered that angle when I was looking for a cub scout troop for my son a few years ago. I was fortunate enough to be a part of BSA when my dad was stationed in Germany so we were essentially sponsored by the base and there was no connection to a church organization. In the US I am finding that all troops are associated with churches and since I (as an atheist) am raising my son to be a free-thinker I figured there would be friction at some point since we don’t go to church. I was honestly less concerned about gropey scout-masters since I intended to be with him on each trip and am handy with a hatchet.
IMO and in hindsight, there is also a level of over-the-top christo-patriotism that I basically overlooked when I was younger that makes me want to cringe now as an adult. These factors have been enough for me to take a more informal route to teach him outdoorsman-ship via campouts at state parks since I can’t find any secular scouting options in my area. Its a shame since I did have some great experiences in scouting but I can’t give him anything like the opportunities I had as a military brat in Europe.
I learned a lot in scouts, but I wasn’t comfortable with the nationalism, pseudo military and Christian overtones.
I just went camping instead.
FWIW, I found that scouting mostly stayed out of religion. There are badges for each religion that you’re encouraged to pursue with your parents and religious leaders so I took it as more encouraging you to follow whatever you believe.
Granted they assume you have a religion
If it makes you feel any better, the Evangelicals had their own version (think of like Christian music but for boy scouts) that explicitly intertwined religion and nationalism into it. Was straight up child indoctrination.
I’m not sure why that would make you feel better lol. That said, I wasn’t molested, and I actually did learn quite a bit about survival etc. and a lot it has stuck with me. So it could have been worse.
What I encountered were a lot of boys with absent fathers. But we did help out elderly people with shopping and a holiday kitchen. But the same groups that make free holiday meals support politicians who want to fuck the poor the other 364 days.
I was a kid asking, “but what about all the other meals these people need?”.
I’m a fellow Eagle scout and I have an intrinsic bias toward other scouts that have completed their Eagle. It shows me that they hold values consistent or similar to my own. Namely the scout law and oath. Scouting taught me a deep emotional connection to nature and the way I interact with it. As with any organization, there’s going to be failures and tribulations, but I treat BSA guidelines as I do Catholic morality. It is what I make of it and if I take the core values that are meant to be gleaned from what it’s supposed to teach, then it’s difficult to argue that it’s had a negative impact on me or the people around me.
I would love to see a scouting Renaissance in the next few decades with the inclusion of women and queer members. There’s few other organizations or programs that are as well equipped to teach youth about nature and what it has to offer.
I managed to get my Eagle scout badge right before I aged out so I can appreciate what I think you are saying. As a parent, I initially planned on getting my son into scouting but the mess with BSA was enough to keep us away. That said, I still try to embody many of the values that I learned as a scout like always being prepared and respectful and ethical behavior.
What I think we could use more of is something like the Baden-Power Scouting Association or Navigators USA since they appear to be much more inclusive but I wasn’t able to find a chapter in my area.
Yes, I was a scout when I was a kid and consider it a valuable experience.
Yes, I also encouraged my kids to sign up and I believe they had good/valuable experience as well. Some of that overlapped the scandal, but as an actively involved parent , I didn’t really see where things could go wrong.
One of the differences (maybe this is specific to our pack/troop) was no burgers and dogs allowed on campouts because they’re too easy: you’re not learning anything. They were really good about different experiences and learning
To the contrary, the response to the scandal was really frustrating. Scouting was pretty strict that there must always be a second adult involved in any activity. I get the reason, but for example, I couldn’t supervise cooking on the grill in public in the middle of camp in front of dozens of witnesses, unless there was a second adult?
Military recruitment program.
