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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Oh, Boy Scouts, You Keep on Breaking My Heart

You know, I hate to say it, but the Boy Scouts just keep breaking my heart.
I love Scouting.  I really, really do.  I see all the good it can do in a child's life, and I believe in that good. I want to see that good.
It's hard, though, when the organization that is supposed to do all that good keeps doing things that make me sad.
The Boy Scouts have banned obese kids from their Jamboree this year.  This makes me very sad.

I love Girl Scouts.  I realize that no organization is perfect, it isn't possible, but Girl Scouts does so many things right.  My girls love it.  The Biggest One just came back from a week at camp, and she has decided that she wants to get her Gold Award, stay in scouts until she graduates from High School, and then work at the camp during the summer as her job when she isn't in school.  She loves it that much.

So, I looked at her, and told her, very basically, about what the Boy Scouts just did.  I didn't tell her who had done it.  I ask her if the Girl Scouts did this, how would she feel.  She immediately started to tear up. Her heart broke.  She said it was incredibly mean to leave people out like that.
I let her know that Girl Scouts didn't really do that, but Boy Scouts did.  We talked about it.  The Biggest One thought that was a horrible thing to do.  The Boy Scouts think that their new rule will be a motivational, and make the kids want to lose weight to go.  So, I ask her, would she be willing to work harder to go to camp, if there was a rule like this that would affect her, mind you she isn't obese at all.  She said it would make her not want to go to camp all together.  She wouldn't even want to be a part of it.  This, from the same child who just told me her goal was to be a part of that same camp forever.

See, Boy Scouts, you did it all wrong.  How about letting the fat kids come, and then trying to get them to be healthy there.  Did you also ban obese Scout Masters?  I mean, if you want to set a good example, how about starting there?
The Boy Scouts don't really have a good history with banning people. Perhaps they should have thought about how a ban on anyone worked out for them in the past, and considered the fact that bans on segments of your population tend to divide and not bring people together in a positive way.

Right now, I am doubly thankful for fact that I don't have to deal with all of this.  Girl Scouts wants to bring us together, not tear us apart, and I love them for that.
I sincerely hope that The Boy Scouts get things figured out quickly.  Like I said, I love scouting.  I love what it has the potential to do, and i would love to see that potential be brought back in all its glory with The Boy Scouts.

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