BSA - a once grand organization
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I have seen this writing on the wall, but pushed for and hoped it wouldn't come down. Thinking about it critically, I have not come up with a solid reason that this is good for the organization. Inclusivity is not always the right way to go.
To back up my post. I am currently acting Scout Master, been in the program for 30+ years, am an Eagle Scout and have raised a Son who attained that rank. I have seen the program change and adapt, but believe this is going to detrimentally affect the program. This was the last bastion...the last organized program that was solely designed to take young boys and give them life skills to be productive men.
James
I am glad I was a Scout in the 70's. I was in between the age of 13 and 15. Adding girls to the club is going to cause major problems. Are the girl scouts disbanding? Can boys join the girl scouts now? What about thin mints?
Well, it's not "BSA" anymore...
Girls need something like this. The Girl Scouts has turned into an anti-American organization in the past few years and is not worthy of the cookies that they sell.
At this time the BSA allows older girls to participate as members of Venture Scouting. Venture Scouting is open to boys and girls of age 13 to 21.
Why is it that females are always trying to get into males activities?? If men tried this to women they would go ballistic.
^^^ because "anything boys can do, girls can do better"...
You mean like sperm donors?
Aww. A few snowflakes are upset that girls want to be scouts. Fact is, women will save this world. It's high time we gave the fairer sex a chance to do whatever boys can do. Including scouts
"It's high time we gave the fairer sex a chance to do whatever boys can do."
Like kick your lil scrawny ass?
It's called Girl Scouts! Girls need to be able to be involved in activities with other girls. There's a lot they can learn from other girls going through life and dealing with the same issues. Both need to be able to spend time with adults of the same sex to train them in outdoor activities without the distraction of the opposite sex. By the time boys turn 13 they are useless if girls are around. Combing kids in every activity out there has done nothing but confusing generations of kids. What happens when they run out of alphabet letters to call ther supposed gender?? I have three kids, two boys and a daughter. She graduated from college and enlisted in the army. Represented her company in the pudgal stick competitions. She scored 96 on her ASVAB test and went into Army Intelligence. Trained in Intellegence gathering (interrogation) by Israeli Mossad. She is now a mother of five and would tell anyone that girls and boys need to have their own activities like scouts
Right out of Communist Manifesto (God-deniers little red book he keeps in his skinny jeans). Parents need to pull their boys out and do program themselves w some like-minded families. Screw them. Rex Tillerson brought this crap in to BSA. Great job Rex! Hope Trump dumps you soon. Mad Dog
So, to be fair they will all be sleeping in the same tent? Good thing the girl scout motto is "Be Prepared".
Too bad. Nothing wrong with boys being boys and girls being girls. I'm fine with girls and boys sharing activities but that doesn't mean separate stuff doesn't have its place. My son's hockey team is at the age they don't check yet but can have some pushing and shoving contact fighting for the puck. The sweet little 11 year old girl on his team is a force to be reckoned with. She spends her share of time in the penalty box.
what is the motto.....On my honor to do my best to help the girl scouts get undressed. A girl scout told me that decades ago. I was never a boy scout. The local scout leader was a liberal and knew about as much about the woods as I know about brain surgery. The boy scouts wanted to camp on a woods that a friend of mine owned. There was a cable across a canal that you had to cross to get there easily. They were afraid to use the cable. I was fishing nearby and they asked me to guide them to the cabin which was a long walk down a rail road track and through a marsh. I took them to the cabin and went back fishing. BTW, just for kicks I caught some bluegills, cleaned them, started a fire and cooked them in an old cast iron skillet that I kept there for just that reason. I was about 12 years old. I used to use that cabin all year and cooked fish, rabbits and squirrels on a camp fire. I had salt, strike anywhere matches and wax paper stored there. Nothing like wax paper to start a fire, even in the rain. Great memories and it seems like yesterday.
Co-Ed camping will increase participation. Well, for the dudes, anyway.
"Fact is, women will save this world."
Nope. Wrong again. It will take the union of a man and woman acting as one that will save the world.
I was a cub scout for one year. I went into it thinking, "GREAT! Camping, woodslore, canoeing, horseback riding!" But all we did was make stuff in someone's basement with an occasional field trip to a museum. Whoopie-frickin'-do.
So I quit and worked at a horse farm, and started trapping. When I wasn't doing that my friends and I would be in the woods making forts, or fishing in the farm pond on the other side of town. By the time I was 15 I knew my way around the woods like an Eagle Scout.
""Fact is, women will save this world""
They were in charge at one time, that's why there are not anymore, it seems our ancestors were not happy with human sacrifice.
Oh come on now, women are responsible for civilization. If not for women, men wouldn't bathe, work, shave, use a bathroom or even dress for that matter. Why bother? We'd still be in caves.
Scouts was for "townies".. Never knew a farm boy that belonged.
That may have been true, bluedog. But another truth was that it was for boys only, too. :-)
But the problem may be that the "girls" who become Boy Scouts may only be girls in their imagination.
They kicked me out of Boy Scouts for eating too many "Brownies"!
Yes, let's mix teenage boys and teenage girls in tents in the woods, with very few adults supervising.
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What could possibly go wrong ?
Well Bluedog, now you do. I was raised on a farm and by any definition you can contrive, I'm a farm boy. The scouting program meshes with the rural principles I was raised with, You get what you earn, you work hard to get what you want, You treat others with respect and you respect those in positions of authority, and you look for ways to help others. The outdoor skills are a small part of what makes up scouting. It's the fun part that "hides" the training of the important stuff.
James
If there are too many issues with teen boys and girls camping together the solution will probably be banning boys from Boy Scouts.
James..... always thought the Scouts would have been rewarding and enjoyable. Glad you were able to take part.
Where i grew up, and it was another era, the 50s, there was no way because of transportation issues. Driving a child to a meeting and the going back and picking him up after just wasn't a consideration.
And for many the work on the place was a more important thing than Scouts also .
Scouts is a great organization until the adults messed it up and forgot about the kids.
Their policies made it tough on some Churches and they are pulling out. This is their last hope to keep afloat. If this doesn't work the BSA will no longer exist.
This is what happens when gov't infringes on an organization to make it "fair" and forget this is about the kids.
Stupid adults.
Sage, I agree completely. A grand organization, that shaped more solid leaders than any other, began to cow to the pressures of "society" (albeit the minority in society) to conform. When the bar starts to get lowered, it just doesn't stop. My heart is breaking for an organization that I have cared deeply for, served and have seen transform a whole lot of lives. This is not a good move and it falls squarely on the shoulders of men in this country. The slide down started when not enough men stepped up to fill critical positions, thus creating an opening for women to become leaders in a men's organization. This is where it started, then through the decisions to conform, we have this latest decision. It will not be long and the last bastion of scouting will also fall....believe in a higher power. A God (it doesn't even state the God any longer). That too will fall and the entire Scout Oath and Law will have to be rewritten. I am grieving.
James
My wife worked at a jr high years back. They decided to have co-ed PE. The girls withdrew from PE and would not participate because the boys were, well being boys. Over aggressive according to girls. So normal behavior.
A little "humor" on the BSA.
I'm wondering if some of you even read the article on how this is to be implemented? Or if you just read the headline and jump to the conclusion that this was something new and awful and the token of doom that you all make it out to be? I would recommend reading the entire article, including how they came to make this decision.
Starting next year, girls will be allowed to join a GIRLS-ONLY Cub Scout den, and can either start a GIRLS-ONLY Pack or join with a Pack that has decided to host both BOYS-ONLY and GIRLS-ONLY dens. At no time will they meet together in Den Meetings, though perhaps they will meet together in Pack Meetings if they so choose. That is up to the Chartering Organization. The girls have to do the same requirements that the boys do, so it is the same exact program.
The Boy Scouts already allows for Co-ed Venturing, including High Adventure where they are hiking and camping together, and for the STEM program they started a few years ago. I have yet to hear of any problems associated with it, and I'm sure that the supposedly unbiased press would have gleefully reported any problems. I would speculate, based on the way the Cub Scouts is being set up, that the Boy Scouts MAY set it up as girl-only Patrols or perhaps Troops. The badge and rank advancement requirements will still be the same.
Personally, I am still trying to make up my mind about if I think it is a good thing or a bad thing. I can see both sides, as I served as Scoutmaster for 16 years and have served in Scouting in some capacity for over 30 years, plus I am an Eagle Scout. There are many benefits of allowing boys to be with boys and with men while following the Scout program. I also raised 3 girls who would have loved to have gone camping and hiking and learned Scoutcraft, but the girls programs (not Girl Scouts btw) that they were involved in didn't do very much of that. They can still pitch a tent in the dark and light a fire when needed though. I am waiting to see how it plays out, to see how it is planned to be implemented, before I decide to condemn or abandon the BSA. I do know that the principles of the Scout Oath and Law are great principles to teach all children (and adults, too, btw), not just boys.
I don't think it's a bad thing as it's the ONLY thing to keep the organization afloat. If they hadn't done this the BSA would be done in a few years.
In the next few years they are going to lose about 45-50% or more of their sponsored troops. If they can get girls to participate they may survive.
Seems to me that there is a concentrated attack on the institutions that make America. Marriage,. Faith in God, Christmas, Even sports, The military institutionalizing homosexuality agenda and integration of females to the battlefield and attempt to infiltrate the B SA , failed but now trys to break it down by integrating girls . Next homosexuals again. It is a relentless breaking down of national pride by attacking the morals, the flag, and the institutions. Next they will say that the Rodeo is too dangerous and the girls cannot fly the flag off the horses , or the bulls will refuse to buck or the ropers will all take a knee. We are in a fight for this country and for our way of life. Its being broken down bit by bit./
God bless, Steve
