I’m thinking about working on this design… honest
A while back, we decided that J won’t be joining the Cub Scouts when he’s in school.
The biggest issue is, of course, the whole discrimination thing. I can’t in good conscience encourage him to join an organization that practices discrimination and even brags about it. It’s not something I want us associating with and it’s a short hop from ‘we won’t allow openly gay scouts or leaders’ to ‘we won’t allow leaders who aren’t christian.’ (Yes,I know how paranoid that sounds but look how they respond to scouts who refused to acknowledge God?)
There are other issues, like the way Scouting reinforces the whole jock/alpha-male hierarchy in the schools - but that’s mainly my own personal bagage from being the geeky brainy kid.
Scouting is big in this town. And I know it won’t be easy putting all this on poor J. He’s going to be the odd kid out when all the little Cub Scouts are wearing their uniforms in school on meeting day. He’s not going to understand these concepts, all he’s going to wonder is why he can’t get the cool uniform and hang out with the other boys.
And I almost might have given in and dropped my opposition. Until last week when I noticed that the local troop took over a storefront in town. They filled the empty store with scouting paraphenalia including a banner proclaiming ‘We Stand For Values.’ If that wasn’t offensive enough, there was another banner listing ‘Things Scouts Do.’ Number three was (believe it or not) dodgeball.
Dodgeball, the most ritualized form of the educational system’s distain for children. And the Scouting leaders here are proud of it.
So no Cub Scouts for J.
S and L on the other hand are going to look adorable in their Girl Scout Blossom uniforms….
Good for you. I think it’s absolutely repulsive that the Scouts claim to stand for values, yet routinely teach their recruits that it’s perfectly acceptable to exclude those who believe differently. They suck.
David, I agree with your opinion about BSA in pretty much all respects. The only issue I’d have is maybe one about living your politics through the kids. I know my wife and I talk about that a lot concerning our 2 (and third on the way) on things like schools, toys and what sort of activities we want/don’t want them to do. Sometimes there’s a strong pull between what they want and what we want. Add grandparents into the mix and it gets complicated pretty quickly.
It may all be for naught too, you know. I was in cub scouts as a kid, in Canada granted, but I don’t think I would have missed it if I weren’t. I can’t say I got anything out of it. At least nothing I can recall.
Hm. I can feel a blog entry coming on… :^)
scouting was a terrible experience for me. me and my brother actually watched two of our leaders get in a first fight over the scouting budget. IN A CHURCH. it’ll be no loss to your son.