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First I want to thank everyone who responded to yesterday’s post. It was really good to hear from so many people who had such positive things to say about scouting. Reading the responses spawned thoughts in my head and forced me to look closely at my feelings about scouting. My feelings are mixed, but most of the reasons are not logical at all. So I’m going to lay the thoughts out here so that anyone who wishes can comment and help me see things in a new way. One warning, many of these thoughts/opinions were formed when I was in my early teens and have never been re-examined since.

The bad things:
It was a club which, as a girl, I couldn’t join. Blue Birds and Brownies are not even close to the same thing. Sour grapes.

It was founded in the same era as the Hitler Youth. That parallel seems disturbing.

Lots of bad press about sexual abuse in scouting.

We have boxes and boxes of old scouting patches and books left over from Howard and his dad and even his grandfather. None of this stuff has any emotional meaning to me. It is all just clutter that I can percieve no future use for and I’m not allowed to get rid of.

In my youth I knew many young men who were required to earn their Eagle Scout badge before they were allowed to drive and were very angry about it.

I’ve known adult men who resented their past forced involvement in scouting. They didn’t like it and their parents made them do it anyway.

All too often with reward systems such as badge earning, the parents scramble to make sure that the boys earn badges. Supposedly this gives the boys a sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately an accomplishment is not something that can be given, it has to be earned. Do boys really feel accomplished when mom does most of the work?

If my son doesn’t earn his badges, he’ll feel like a failure. But he doesn’t yet have the discipline to earn them himself. So I have a whole new list of things to get done.

The good things:
I remember tagging along on with my older brother’s cub scout troop. My mom was the den leader and included me in most everything. Those are all happy memories.

Boys love badges and handshakes and silly skits and silly cheers.

Because I’m trying to help Link earn badges I’ll do stuff with him that would not otherwise have occured to me.

Every single badge is a valuable life skill.

Parents have to participate for a boy to earn badges. That parental interaction is worth far more than any badge.

Link is making social connections with other boys his own age.

Now that I write them out at least half of the “bad things” seem petty or ill informed and the “good things” seem solid and valuable. But I am interested in what you all have to say about scouting. I’m going to be involved in this program for years to come. What do I have to look forward to? What are the pitfalls? What are the benefits?

When Link turned 8 he joined our local cub scout troop. He was ecstatic with his uniform and manual. My feelings were more mixed. I thumbed through the book and looked at all the secret handshakes and promises and oaths. All of that stuff is there to create a sense of unity for the boys, an “inside knowledge” kind of thing. It felt a little… creepy. But the actual application of these things is anything but exclusionary. In fact Link runs off to his den meetings every week with high spirits and comes home to babble about the cool things he did. “We made a rattle out of aluminum cans!” Then once a month at pack meeting the whole family goes to play games with the boys and applaud at the boys who have earned badges. When I see the values that are taught and the actual effect that it is having on Link’s life I love scouting. I don’t feel ready to devote my whole life to it, but I definitely support it. It is as wholesome and character building as team sports, probably more so.

Tonight was den meeting. Link earned his first badge. He was very excited. In fact he has been very excited and counting down the days until this meeting for more than a week. Those scout people are smart though. For every badge the scout gets, the scout’s mother gets a pin. They know who really works to make sure the badges get earned. I guess in theory I’m supposed to wear this pin proudly because it gives me bragging rights. “My boy is a bobcat!” I can now picture a row of 1950’s mothers trying to upstage each other with the number of scout-badge pins they have. The scout people are clever to give the moms jewelry, but they made an error. It is ugly jewelry. My pin is a little square piece of metal with a bas relief bobcat head on it. I don’t really picture myself wearing it anywhere. But it doesn’t matter because we have pictures of Link’s ear to ear grin as he recieved the badge. Now of course I have to sew the badge on to his shirt. Whee.

Today was a really effective day. I got a lot done. Unfortunately very little of it was house cleaning. This means that I feel rumpled and unsucessful because all the things I didn’t get done are lying around and accusing me of sloth. At least I managed to shut most of the dishes up by shoving them into the dishwasher where they will be scalded with hot water as punishment. Hah! Take that dishes!

I will ignore the rest of the accusitory voices because I know I did good work today. Besides they’re all things that are easily accomplished while NotMyBaby is here tomorrow morning. Well okay, not “easily,” but at least they’re physically possible in between moments of snatching small things out of his mouth. I’d forgotten how hands-on toddlebabies are. I’ll be relieved when this babysitting gig ends in June.

What did I do today? Made breakfast, got kids out of bed, supervised morning homework for Kiki, started a load of laundry, sent Link to school, welcomed NMB, sent Kiki to school, hung wet laundry & started a new load, sent Gleek to preschool, took Patches and NMB on two errands and then to the library, put NMB down for a nap, hung more wet laundry, started a third load, started the dryer, ate a snack, did a little recreational reading, got NMB up from his nap, carried NMB on a walk to retrieve Gleek from preschool, handed NMB back to his mom, fed sandwiches to Gleek & Patches, read email, took Gleek & Patches with me to the grocery store, unloaded groceries, drove to pick up Link, ate another snack while reading, separated Gleek from her beloved friend because we had to leave, drove to pick up Kiki, started Kiki on afternoon homework, worked on a sewing project, made dinner, made kids eat dinner, started regular homework time, enforced regular homework time, went to a committee meeting, nudged Kiki to finish up homework, put kids to bed, loaded the dishwasher, and here I am.

And that’s all the thoughts I have right now besides a “things to do tomorrow” list with which I’ll not bore you good folks.

Gleek’s birthday party: It takes place one week from Saturday. I’ve got to figure out how to plan it without spending any money beyond what was already spent acquiring gifts for her.

The Schlock Mercenary book: I really wish this were a done deal rather than a pending one. Failing to get out a book asap spells the end of this cartooning endeavor.

The garage sale list: I’m not making any progress accumulating it, but I keep thinking that I should be.

Homework time: Link and Kiki both have heavy loads tonight. I wish their homework didn’t add stress to my life.

Bedtime: This is looming too.

All of that and a myriad of loose thoughts fill my head and prevent me from composing a satisfying journal entry. Sigh.

I have a wonderful neighbor. She and her family moved into the house behind ours last year. We quickly determined that taking a section of fence down was the only smart thing to do. I love being able to send Gleek and Patches out the back door to their friend’s house. I also love having a friend. I think it was just this time last year that I was wondering what it would be like to have a female friend to just hang out with. Now I know and I feel really really lucky. I’ve learned so much from J. She’s lived on a really tight budget for years and so frequently drops tidbits of info that I can imediatedly put to use. She is also incredibly considerate of everything and everybody. She’s even considerate of the feelings of the dog she unwillingly inherited from relatives. It is no surprise that J very quickly became the dog’s favorite person. I’m learning so much about how to be a good friend by just watching her. The home preschool group that has been so wonderful for Gleek would not have happened without J.

One thing I’m still learning from her is the wealth of free resources that are available in our community. I’ve lived here for 15 years now and yet J knows more about free concerts and lectures and museums than I do. She knows where to look to find this information. The really nice thing is how balanced our friendship is turning out to be. I balance the things I’m learning from her with my garage sale knowledge and my gardening knowledge. It feels good to give too.

The reason I’m singing the praises of my friend today is because in one stroke she resolved one of my fears for the coming summer. She gave me a family zoo/museum pass. With this pass I can get into 300 zoos and museums all across the country without having to pay an admissions fee. I was worried about this coming summer because money will be tight and we won’t be able to afford a big vacation trip. Now I can take my kids to the local zoo and museums as many times as I want all summer long. All year long in fact. And if we finagle a trip to Idaho we can do the same thing there. If there is some unlikely windfall that gets us all to my parents house in California there are a dozen zoos and museums we could go to. I’m really excited about having this pass.

My kids were watching a Dora The Explorer video this evening. Dora is one of those shows that encourages the audience to yell at the screen. “Where is my star?” asks Dora confusedly with the star sitting next to her foot “Can you tell me where it is?” Then she pauses to give kids a chance to yell at the screen before discovering that her star is in fact right there. My kids eat this up. They love it. They were happily watching and shouting through two episodes. Amusingly Kiki, who is 10, was the loudest shouter. Isn’t 10 the age when kids are supposed to decide this kind of show is stupid?

Then the shouting turned angry.
Kiki: “I got the wish!”
Gleek: “I got the wish!”
K: “No! I did!”
G: “No! I did!”
K: “Me!”
G: “Me!” It repeated with increased volume until I came up the stairs to play mediator. It turns out that at the end of the program Dora tossed a wish out for the audience to catch. My 10 year old and my 4 year old were arguing over who had caught this wish. I laughed and asked “Could you find something even sillier to argue about?” Kiki and Gleek grinned sheepishly. No, they didn’t think they could find anything sillier. Problem resolved I turned to head back downstairs.
G: “I caught the wish!”
K: “No I did!”
Hmm. Obviously the fight would continue unless I mediated further. Usually when there is contention over a toy and no clear rightful ownership, I confiscate the toy. So I marched up to Kiki and demanded that she hand over the wish. She reached into her pocket, pulled out an imaginary wish, and placed it into my hand. I repeated the process with Gleek. I then announced that the wishes were going to jail and they needed to find something else to play. I found that after carrying these wishes downstairs in my hand I had to throw them in the direction of the jail box before I could be done with them. How do kids make imaginary objects so real?

Later this evening Gleek put on her thinking cap to assist with her reading. This was a detailed process of setting the cap on her head, twisting something near her temple, and then tapping her temples with her index fingers while squinting her eyes. It was definitely a very thinking face. She gave me a long explanation that the twisting was what sorted her thoughts and lined them up. Then she could see what she needed. When we were done reading she carefully took off the cap and placed it on the shelf. “I just can’t sleep with it.” She informed me with a charming sideways tilt to her head as if this fact were obvious. I suppose not. No one wants to be too thinky when they’re trying to sleep.

Through the years we’ve had a pocket sized imaginary friend named Louie, a magic washing machine, a myriad of imaginary animals, and lost “hugs” that we needed to search all over the house to find. It might seem that finding a lost imaginary object would be easy, but no, the kids delight in making grown-ups search all over. They definitely see things that I don’t. I can remember doing that. I remember pretending so strongly that I could see/feel/hear everything I was pretending. Sometimes if I’m not paying attention I can still do it. I think that unselfconsciousness is the key. Or at least a key. Roleplaying provides a venue for this sort of thing as does acting. I don’t have much time for roleplaying or acting in adult forms. So I guess I’ll just stick to confiscation of contentious wishes.