qwazse

I have far too many points, because the problem is far bigger than the BSA. The bitter truth, Americans, is no matter where you go, there you are. Deconstruct every organization that one or two predators may infiltrate, and thousands will flourish given this nation's nuclear family structure. The manuals on how to do this are encoded in some of the vilest American literature and pop culture. Read that literature, find the family beleaguered by life who "needs a friend", whose kids aren't doing much with others, infiltrate. There is no patriarch or matriarch monitoring whose spending too much time with whom across multiple families in the tribe. Fewer families are part of organized groups where underprivileged parents can learn "the signs." We are in a culture where kids grow up isolated and the ones who should urgently "call that number" are terrified to because the media the watch terrifies and isolates them. Inside or outside of the BSA, if anyone tries to address this with adult solutions in adult forums, be it training or courtrooms, they will fail. The only solution that I can think of is what Mamma did for me. I can remember it vividly. It was during a bath time ... well before puberty. She explained ... Nobody had a right to handle my genitals. There are people who will assume that right. Be they friends, family, or priests, oppose them with all the force that you have. There are good people in the world. Find them. Report to them. Repeat. Later lessons were to not gawk at someone else's spouse, if she ain't your wife she ain't your spouse, treat sex like a Christmas present, stand up to bullies, be kind to the oppressed, don't be the oppressor, etc ... I more or less remembered those. But that first one was clear. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only kid in the neighborhood who got that first lecture. Someone must have tipped off the moms in our community about something. We can debate the specifics of her approach, but her bottom line: adults don't stop abuse, the abused do. The underlying philosophy was to build resilience in the kids because there is no time-cop roaming the streets to take out abusers before they commit their first act.

The "in it just for fun" ethic is betrayed by the smaller membership, yet increasing number of Eagles awarded each year. That doesn't diminish the value in terms of tasks accomplished. But it does call to question who an Eagle scout actually led during his/her tenure. Let's put the tiger-parenting and high-speed low-drag types of leaders aside. Even in troops without that, one can have a steady stream of Eagles, but when that happens, one does not have clusters of youth uninterested in rank. Son #1's experience was when the troop had an "Eagle flurry", while Son #2's experience was during an "Eagle dearth" (he was the only one from his class who made rank). Son #1 could get by choosing a highly motivated crowd of boys to lead. Son #2 had to work with a tougher crowd. That's not to say Son #1 wasn't stellar going into adulthood, but he was a little blind-sided by a workforce of unmotivated people, whereas Son #2 had already dealt with them in his youth, and was able to connect with boots-on-the-ground more readily. So, if your scout is coming up in a troop that welcomes youth who aren't all that worried about rank, I think he/she's gonna have an edge in life by earning Eagle in that environment.

I don't think GS/USA would be interested. They seem like big numbers to us, but in comparison to GS/USA's membership, a tiny fraction are trying to earn Eagle to the exclusion of Gold. I also can't see any Trailmen wishing to rebrand their Freedom award (which demands a couple of competencies that Eagle does not). It's hard to see how any youth organization would like to purchase rights to use that name in their program. However, I can see some value to someone who holds trademarks as royalties. Any artist who uses "Eagle scout" in their work could be sent a cease-and-desist letter unless they paid the royalty. I'm not sure any one would place a bid on that sort of thing in any timely fashion.

Our state parks have been reporting increased use by minorities. Thi matched my experience hiking PA’s trails. It makes sense to me that any family with limited means would invest in what they need to enjoy the outdoors, and not in registration fees and uniforms.

The “ad drag” I insufferable. I’ll be back when things are rendered quickly.

Self-appointed insignia dork (c.f. this link for first use of the term) typing ... Mike Walton's site has a couple of examples of how it was once done. The operative word in all uniforming is "neat appearance." If those rows are crowding out your World Crest and your Messengers of Peace wreath, it's time to shuck a few knots. Otherwise, look sharp and keep on scouting.

I like having your perspective, so consider that an invite. Of course, the more any of us say, the more we find someone starkly opposed to it in whole or in part. But that's the point. Most of us put things out here because it prepares us to have cogent discussions with other scouts, scouters, and concerned community (and even victims of abuse) in real life.

Note: I'm not asking to lock the guy up (as others have suggested). I'm saying that: Scouting is not a dating venue. Intimate relationships may form among single parents/guardians, but it takes a long time around a lot of campfires. The Mom who actually signed her kid up gets the benefit of the doubt. This is the boots-on-the-ground perspective for the CC/COR of a pack receiving the kid. Whatever the DE may have adjudicated (or not) for a different pack is irrelevant. The fact that I am disregarding the dad's role at a district level should be sufficient to support that I am not siding with people who "contribute the most." For the OP, my approach cuts two ways. I wouldn't care much for the dad. I also wouldn't be bothered with what the district did or did not do about it.

Or, as we’d say, gumbo and escargot.

And thus expired the LARPing crew that one of my scouts thoroughly enjoyed ... next time you ask where did all of the venturers go ... point to that.

Not really. The standard is "Who is going to contribute the most to den life?" A mom with a negative experience (in her mind), but willing to give a different pack a try, or. A "might-join" adult with district credentials, but not much else going for him. The guy's pack folded. If it mattered to him and his kid, I would have expected a phone call yesterday. The DE has phone numbers. Same would happen if some single dad left a pack because some ladies kept pestering him about dating. Now, it could turn out that @Armymutt's parent-victim and her friends do push boundary's and lead a guy on at the expense of their kids. But I'd give the benefit of the doubt to the person who actually signed her kid up before treating this as a case of no-matter-where-you-go-there-you-are.

I was my kids’ crew advisor. I had no problems going on activities without them. We emphasized outdoors and service ... not advancement. Now, with our sons as adults, the former SM and I help lock up after meetings so that the SM doesn’t have to. Other adults carry the load in their own way.

It must be nice to have the luxury to fret over a “might try” of anything. But since you asked ... Your committee chair does not have to let anybody sign on as an adult leader to his committee. If you have a parent or two who the CC respects enough to welcome into your unit, their needs come first over someone who has wrongly approached a parent. Scouts is not a social event for parents. It’s where we teach young people how to forestall death. Have some of us made life-long friendships that have outlasted our kids’ time in scouting? Yes! Would I call them out if any of them made any of our scouts’ moms the least bit uncomfortable? (Of course, I approach this from the venturing perspective. Moms willing to lean into the program are few and far between.) Somebody can be a district volunteer for a lot of reasons, one of which could be nobody wants him/her to lead their unit.

@CynicalScouter, I believe that no BSA official will tell you why scouts-tenting-with-scouts-only is under “barriers to abuse” because the liability of giving an answer is costly beyond belief. Simply consider that someone would consider a child to have been groomed if they received kindness from a person who later sexually abused other children. Now consider the vast number of abusers who are parents. More than one or two of them might have tented with their children. Those children, even if they weren’t abused, may claim that whoever permitted that tenting scenario to occur allowed them to be victims of grooming — taking the loose interpretation of the term. I could be completely wrong, about that, and nobody has ever attempted to make such a claim. But the mere act of someone going on record to deny it would compromise the organization’s position.

Well, let's come back to equity. That has a long tradition in jurisprudence. As a scout, we got to talking with judges and one of the key lessons one taught was that his responsibility was to meet out justice with equity. The requirement would be far more interesting if it asked scouts to talk to a judge or magistrate about equity.

We have our current SM because back when his first two boys aged out and his third was in cubs, Son #3 begged to quit the pack. I encouraged the dad, "Let him. Go have fun with him. He wants to play all of those massive board games you've built!" (The figures on the guy's game pieces are astounding.) A few years later, a 12-ish year-old boy shows up at a troop meeting, and his interest in scouting has grown and grown. It's been a couple years and he's still working on 1st class and having fun ... in spite of his dad being the big cheese! There are new opportunities to recruit teens who haven't been cubs. It just take a little code-cracking.

I would add to #4: "and leadership demands for the sake of YP." The increase in cost to run a unit is not merely monetary. The demand of time from adults is higher. This includes need to commit more hours for training, and the need to have two adults (of a minimum age ... and specific sex depending on the type of unit) for every meeting/activity. This is squarely impacting venturing, and indirectly impacting troops depending on how many older youth in the community are thriving in their exploits independent of adults. It probably also impacts potential female cub scouts where only two dads would be available on a regular basis.

They allow boys and girls to work the same program, but they are largely sex-segregated. Think "linked-troops" and you pretty much get the idea. Moreover, in many countries, their boy- girl- scouts organizations play nice. At Jambo, it was quite interesting watching the opposite sexes from certain countries work together for the first time. They are definitely not all Swedes. Most don't have a king mandate that they fully integrate. Pakistan. Why does everybody forget Pakistan?

The stats about membership are far more solid than this "denying males leadership" mumbo-jumbo. The largest scouting programs worldwide deploy sex-segregated programs. BSA simply did not have the stones to drop the marketing doublespeak, retain Boy Scouts of America, and roll-out a parallel BSA4G program for American girls who wanted to work the same Advancement, Outdoors, and Patrol method. They didn't have the stones to admit that they found the Asian programs more appealing than the European ones.

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2020/12/18/you-can-see-all-65-norman-rockwell-scouting-paintings-at-this-museum-in-ohio/

Groomed by him? But I wasn't groomed by all of the Syrian men in my family who lavished physical affection (read sloppy kisses) on little boys, or the driver who I rode around with on deliveries at Dad's beer distributor, or a host of other would-be 'ner-do-wells? I will put forward that most of us were not groomed by this man. He was genuinely kind and concerned for the well-being most kids, and put forward the effort that most teachers would to provide an orderly world for them. But, for reasons known only to him, he didn't see all kids as worthy of that dignity. Some were seen as tools for his using, and getting a play-book from God-knows-where* he treated those kids accordingly. *Actually, upon reflection, I can guess where. He joked to the entire class about abusing stray cats as a child. Knowing what I know now about conduct disorder, I suspect that story betrayed a more tumultuous childhood where he was inculcated with categories of "users" and "used".

I would encourage everyone to not ask @ThenNow to rehash particular circumstances. They can be found by patiently browsing his posts. From what I read, they were far from legal. His claim would have been actionable had he been granted the resilience to act on it.

I think we're talking two sides of the same coin: The first two components are not specific. All humans are about "befriending and establishing an emotional connection", and sometimes that's "with a child". So, let's rephrase those to say: deploying normal human behavior so as "to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse." That definition remains problematic, because unless the perpetrator makes some declaration as to his/her intent, there is no way to use it without being Time Cop. The few pedophiles who I wish I had never met did not have objectives of sexual abuse ... at least not the first time around. Failed? Maybe not. Some recipients are "simply" receiving kindness while others are being preyed upon. One person can be doing both. The most successful predators did just that. My seventh grade reading teacher was very kind to many of us. On the weekends, to particular boys, he was also a pedophile. Were we being groomed? Or was he deluded by his double-life -- maybe offsetting his evil to some by attempting kindness to others? So, until people know the outcomes of every social interaction each of us has with every person in our lives, they will not know if any of us were grooming. I would prefer a definition that is not dependent on the outcome. The closest I can get are strategies by an individual that: encourage the recipient to engage in an exclusive relationship, withdraw the recipient from the public view, ask the recipient to witness or engage in culturally unacceptable activities, form contracts with the recipient to shun known means of social accountability. As you can see, I don't mention "child" or "sexual abuse" because some sources don't apply grooming to just those situations. I'm still not entirely comfortable with these definitions. They are far from universal. But, youth need something to help them to be resilient against abuse.

It’s one thing to take a principled stance and not let your kids do an activity that concerns your family. It’s another thing to try to deny other families those opportunities.

@AMRC18, sorry for your negative experience. Hopefully R4LA will be a better opportunity.