I remember being like 8 or something and having the scouts come into my school and try to recruit people and they brought some older boys I think maybe middle school aged? Perceptions of age are weird when ur a kid. They seemed old to me at the time. One of the older boys would NOT leave me alone. Like he really wanted me to join. And so my pathalogical demand avoidance kicked in and I wouldn’t touch the organization with a 10 foot pole for the rest of my life. Guess that worked out for me considering what I’ve heard since.

Rife with sexual violence. I was sexually assaulted by another kid who probably was replicating what happened to him because we were both too young for sex (we were like 9-10). I don’t really blame him, it was a very strange experience. There are too many Mormons that create a terrible religious cult culture. There was a surprising amount of Zionist propaganda that I encountered as well. You are required to be religious and I knew people that were kicked for not being religious. They allegedly don’t care what religion you are, but you have to be something because it “creates discipline” or some nonsense.

I loved all the camping and stuff though before the SA happened. I think it’s incredibly important to know about your local environmental history, identify flora and fauna, and the scouts hoard that information. Not a big fan of the corporate paperwork aspects which are just grooming you to be a worker drone. Nor did I like the pro military propaganda and the grooming you to join ROTC -> military later. I was very close to making an early eagle but was just demoralized by it all at the end and quit.

Scouting in Western Europe has close associations with national socialists. In a way all children programs serve a propagandist purpose and I think a socialist scouting-like program could be beneficial for children and society.

I missed out on Scouts myself. The issue with pedophiles in the Scouts goes back a lot further than 2020. The scoutmaster in my local area was convicted in the 80’s and that put my parents off the whole thing. Really, any organization which puts people in a position of power over kids is going to have to deal with that problem. When my own kids were old enough, we gave Cub Scouts a go. They seemed to have reasonable protocols in place to avoid putting kids in danger, but neither child took to it anyway. We also didn’t mesh well with the “No really, we don’t push religion. But let’s all pray to yahweh” vibe. Also, the Scouts seemed truly talented at making camping and hiking not enjoyable.

We had our kids give it a shot because we really did feel that there are some good life lessons to be learned in the scouts. And it also gave the kids more opportunities to make friends and socialize. But, in the end it wasn’t for us. I wouldn’t begrudge someone who enjoys it and wants to do it though.

I was a Scout in the 90s. The pedophilia allegations were rampant back then, too. And the beginnings of the christo-fascist movement. And (in my troop) the paramilitary indoctrination. I lobbied all of my frustrations to my parents who made me stay in until Life, just before Eagle. I think they figured I’d just go ahead and finish it out. Nope.

I got SO many valuable life lessons from Scouts, but the organization itself is so disgusting it is hard to fathom. The dads that were there to help were great! The merit badges are simple paths to learning new skills. Friends your age sharing an experience, commiserating with boys at a fucking brutal time in your life, all good! But even with all that value, I still saw the organization for what it was. I got what I could out of it, but how can you reconcile the comradery you feel with the pain the Scouts are causing others?

Boys need a safe space.

I made eagle a little over a decade before you did

I think there’s probably a few different aspects to this question that need to be answered.

1. Overall scouting philosophy

Overall, I’m a big fan of the sorts of programs and methods that scouting uses. The idea of boys teaching/leading boys (or I suppose maybe it’s youths leading youths or something now that girls are part of the program, which I fully support btw) is huge and teaches valuable skills on how to work with others and how to be in a leadership role, how to work with other people and their strengths and weaknesses, how to give and take instructions, how to be a part of an organization, budgeting, etc.

It teaches and gives actual hands-on experience with a lot of valuable skills- first aid, cooking, tying knots, using tools, building and fixing things, etc. that a lot of people never bother to learn.

It gets kids out in nature so they can learn how to respect enjoy, and appreciate it.

It also gives them a lot of other opportunities to see and experience different things, different hobbies, different careers, different places, activities etc. and gets them off of their phones and other devices and outside being active.

It gets kids involved with community service and helping others, and helps teach them the roles they need to play as citizens of the world, their country and community.

And it’s a great opportunity to make friends, I’m not necessarily close to or even in regular contact with the rest of the guys from my troop, but I am close with some of them, and I’m confident that any one of the rest of them would gladly help me with anything I needed if they are at all able to. It’s also a great networking opportunity, a fair amount of my closest friends are fellow eagle scouts from other places, it’s something to bond over.

And in general, it helps make well-rounded, functional adults out of kids. There are of course other ways they can develop those skills, and have those experiences, I won’t say that scouting is for everyone, but for those who do match up with it, it’s a great way to get all of that experience in one place.

Things I’m less a fan of, and a lot of this is going to come back up in the rest of this comment as well

The BSA is a somewhat conservative organization. “God” is in the scout oath, and technically there’s a religious requirement to be a member. There’s also definitely a patriotic and semi-militaristic aspect to it, lots of saluting the flag, reciting the pledge, uniforms, etc.

2. The national organization

The BSA does have ties to the military, the NRA, and other organizations I don’t particularly care for, and the national organization where the overall direction and policies are set so those grievances I have basically come down from there.

They’ve been slow to change with the times, it took far too long to allow LGBTQ scouts and leaders, the religious requirement needs to go, girls probably should have been included in the program from the beginning, etc.

They definitely mishandled the sex abuse issue for far too long.

The current leadership are spineless cowards who have shown willingness to give into the current administration.

But a lot of that is happening at arms-length from the day-to-day scouting experience, which brings me to…

3. The local council and district

A lot of your scouting experience will vary depending on where you are in the country. My local council was pretty cool, others not so much. They actually tried to allow gay scouts back in the 90s but were made to stop by the national organization. Overall they made a solid attempt at insulating us from the worst of national’s bullshit.

Not that they were perfect, there’s definitely room to criticize how they handled the sex abuse issue at their level as well, there were some instances in my area where that happened,

4. The individual unit

My troop was pretty great. We had no abuse issues. We paid some lip service to the religious requirement but it was never really harped-on. My leaders had pretty diverse political philosophies running almost the whole political spectrum. One of them was, if not quite openly gay, didn’t exactly try very hard to hide that fact. He was also very active at our district and council level, so again, locally they were pretty willing to bend the rules when it made sense.

And I think that’s something important I took away from it- that some rules should and others should not be bent. I actually first learned the term “plausible denial” from one of my leaders. They absolutely never compromised on policies that could put us in any danger. Part of the policy was 2-deep leadership, where no youth should ever be alone with an adult leader, and they absolutely kept to that without exception.

And when we did something stupid and dangerous, they would absolutely read us the riot act.

But the BSA has some weird rules about, for example , things like paintball, airsoft, and I think even laser tag, basically anything where you’re pointing a “gun” at another person. So if we found ourselves somewhere where that was an option, our leaders would say their piece about the BSA not permitting that activity, and then make sure to be nowhere near that activity so they wouldn’t see us if we chose to ignore that stupid rule.

And they knew their scoutcraft inside and out, and made sure we did as well. As I got older, I started to appreciate that they were basically just scouts who also got older. You could see that little mischievous glint in their eyes when they got to set something on fire or so something fun with an axe.

But not all troops are created equal, some are kind of eagle factories that forscus more on just rushing kids through the requirements to get eagle over actually putting on a good program. Some get byble-thumpy, or weird in other ways. Some just lack resources, money, equipment, knowledge, membership, etc. to put on a good program.

5. Little outside the shop of what you’re asking, but girl scouts

The girl scouts can actually put on a really cool program. I’ve seen girl scout troops that went far harder than my own troop did. When I did northern tier (a boy scout program canoeing in northern Minnesota/Canada) we crossed paths with some girl scouts doing a similar program, who were going further and longer than we were, and had heavier gear than we did. I’ve seen girl scouts backpacking along the Appalachian trail, some of their service projects put ours to shame.

But most girl scout troops, unfortunately, aren’t that. And a big part of it is that a lot of the troops are kind of temporary.

My troop is coming up on its 100 year anniversary in a year or two, and still going strong. Some of the leaders and committee members have been involved in the troop since before I joined, there are some 2nd and I think even 3rd generation eagle scouts whose father and grandfather earned eagle from the same troop. They have a garage full of gear, generations of experience on how to run a scouting program, money in the bank, a library of just about every merit badge book ever written, 2 offices dedicated to their own exclusive use in their charter organization’s building (a very liberal Lutheran Church with a gay pastor) and if all the leaders were to drag out every canoe, kayak, row boat, fishing boat, etc. they owned, it would probably put some countries’ navies to shame.

Not to mention ongoing recruitment efforts in schools and such. We had new kids joining every year even as older kids were aging out of the program.

Girl scout troops kind of tend to form from scratch when the girls are daisy or brownie aged, and tend to be just that one group of girls until they all either age out or quit.

So you lose out on the older kids helping to run the program and teach and lead the younger kids, because they’re all pretty much the same age.

And, at least 20 or so years ago, it could be hard to find an existing troop to join if you wanted to. I know there were some occasions my troop wanted to extend invites to other local organizations to take part in events we were doing, other troops are easy to find, the BSA has a website where you can find a local unit, their meeting schedule and contact info. At least back then, there wasn’t anything comparable for girl scouts, and even when we tried reaching out to their council we couldn’t get that info. If you didn’t already know who the local girl scout troops were and how to get ahold of them, you were SOL.

And you also don’t get those years and generations of built up knowledge and resources to pull from, which is part of why so many of them are so dependent on cookie sales to fund their program (not that there isn’t valid criticism of how the cookie money gets distributed and used)

And, a lot of times, the leaders tend to be the girls’ moms, and the sad truth is, a lot of women didn’t get the same opportunities to learn outdoors skills that a lot of men do, which further limits what they can do.

I’ve also heard, but can’t confirm, that some of their adult leader training is a bit excessive. Like there might be a training you have to do to take the troop camping, and another training if you want to have a campfire, and still another if you want to go on a hike or go fishing, etc. and I also remember hearing that you have to pay for all of those classes. Take that with a grain of salt, because I don’t have any firsthand experience with that.

But overall, when it’s run well, I do like what I’ve seen of the girl scout organization, and I like their values a little better than the BSA, they’re a bit more liberal.

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Long story short, I like the overall aims and methods of scouting. I have a lot of criticism of the organization overall. If I had kids, I’d hope they’d want to be in scouts but I’d also be a little choosey about which troop they joined.

I think programs like that can be hugely beneficial to youth. From discipline to solidarity, it helps. However, without extensive oversight to guarantee safety, it will always attract abusers and result in kids being abused.

I’m not really as liberal as most Lemmings (by no means conservative though) so take this as you will.

I was a cub scout. Was mostly indifferent to it but when my best friend at the time and cousin left, I didn’t see much reason to stay.

I think your reasons for support are valid. Some people had bad experiences. That’s unfortunate, but I’m not sure it should mean the whole organization needs to collapse. The Catholic Church (I’m a recovering Catholic, by the way 🙂) is a little different in that its hierarchy can send career staff to other locations to sweep things under the rug, whereas scouts tend to interact with other parent volunteers who are only there as long as their kids are.