What? No women in the kitchen? B&G Cake Auction

[Twocubdad]

Our old pack has had a Feller's Bakeoff for years. The rules were the same. Families with single moms were given the option of working with any adult male who had an interest in the Scout (uncle, grandpa, mom's squeeze, whoever). Sometimes a Scout's den leader would work with them. Failing that, if the Scout wanted to bake a cake with his mom, that was cool. It doesn't have to be a big deal.

[IM_Kathy]

only change I was able to push with this in cub scouts was to quit calling it "father/son" and just call it "cake auction" and then in rules say scout with male role model.

 

for girl scouts I have more say since I'm service unit manager and we call the women event "FROW" Favorite Related Older Woman... and the male event "FROG" Favorite Related Older Guy. So this year it was "FROG" caoling and it's "FROW" valentine tea.

 

oh and reason for me pushing for these changes is not due to my family, but my son's friend's family... their father past away (well it's been a few years ago now) and was very hard for him to hear things being father/son.

[DeanRx]

LuLu-

 

I really don't mean to offend. The point of my post is that just because it has the label of a "father / son" (or more PC 'male role model / son') event, it is not a sexist connotation.

 

The POINT is to get the scout to spend some time interacting and LEARNING from a MALE role model, is it not? I'm not suggesting that one discount a scout who has a single parent family. If a mom / aunt / grandmother is the only one availible, then let them play.

 

However - I am strongly opposed to changing names / rules of events just because a few (one or two) families might not fit the exact mold the event describes.

 

One of the biggest problems in society right now is the idea that if the majority doesn't automatically adjust for the minority, then the majority must be sexist, racist, bigoted, etc... What ever happened to "When in Rome, do as the Romans do...."

 

Don't even get me started in the comparisions to the Girl Scouts. GS is an organization that basically looks at ANY involved male as a potential child molester until proven otherwise. BSA is WAY ahead in the gender role parity department.

 

The point is to have fun, have the scout do an activity with a male role model, and learn something.

 

If you go rewriting every pack event because someone might be offended, you're going to spend a heck of a lot of time writing rules / bylaws and very little time scouting.

 

Example - I had a parent complain during popcorn sales this year that their scout was at an unfair advantage for individual sales, b/c their father's employer expressly prohibits taking fundraising forms into the office (other scout parents routinely do this). Now, should I (in the interest of "fairness to everbody to the Nth degree") have restated the Pack individual popcorn rules to state that scout's parents cannot help them sell? Heck no.

 

From the sounds of it - you have a few boys that could USE a solid male role model in the life. For various reasons, Dad isn't much of a Dad. Instead of being offended, the single mothers should look upon this event as an opportunity to provide their son with a much needed interaction with a good male role model. It would likely do BOTH the scout and the single mother some good in the area of long-term development.

 

I'm not trying to muscle the women out of the event, but only suggesting that the scout bake with a male if at all possible. There are great positives that come from male bonding, even when the kid is only 6 years old.

 

My 2 cents-

 

Dean

 

P.S. (Kathy) - while extremely tragic that you have / had a scout in your Den who lost their father, do you REALLY think you are doing the scout and family a favor by removing any reference to 'father' or 'dad' for your scout events? Its painful, its a horrible loss, but life must go on and other kids (the majority of them), do have fathers. The many should not be made to sacrifice for the comfort of the few.

 

All you are doing is delaying a very harsh reality that the kid will have to deal with at some point. It is extremely sad, but renaming an event won't bring his father back, or make him feel better that he's at the event without a dad. It serves no point, other to inconvienence the majority and make those in charge feel better about making a little gesture that acknoledges someone's loss.(This message has been edited by DeanRx)

[SSScout]

* sigh*

 

Yeah, so that's why the "father son" overnights are now called "Son and One" to INCLUDE those boys that must invite the Granddad or uncle or mom to come along. If there is no dad in the boy's life, (for what ever reason. Not our business), let's try and make sure we don't unconsciously UNinvite some Cubs by our naming of the event.

"Dad and Lad" didn't work either.

 

If, as has been suggested, GSUSA seems to view male adults as less desirable girl accompani-ists, then politely re-educate them, for the same reason.

When I was granted sole custody of my 4 year old daughter at my divorce, yep, I had to re-educate alot of people. My ex-inlaws, the school officials, my daughter's friends parents, my own mother. About the only folks that accepted the idea of a single dad raising a daughter was my First Day School at Meeting (Quaker speak for 'sunday school').

Be polite. Be visible. Be insistant. Be absolutely trustworthy, loyal, etc. and the epitomy of a loving, attentive, supportive parent.

And bake cupcakes for class birthdays.

[pinkflame]

I AM one of those single parents, by adoption, and the wording of events like this doesn't offend me but I have seen it hurt my son's feelings. He's a teenager now, so mostly out of those kinds of events, but we saw it in school, church and scouts. Our extended family does not live near us, so it was never possible to just scrounge up an uncle or a grandfather. From around kindergarten on he would somply choose not to attend events like that. He said it felt weird going with a neighbor or other acquaintance and habing to keep on introducing him (a big responsibility for a little boy). Then the men in whatever organization were there to be with their own sons, so if he went with one of them it was a a tag-a-long. Probably the worst was when the Sunday school insisted he make a father's day mug for me (!) since that was the plan for the day and told me he was not cooperative for not wanting to do it. I think most people just don't realize that kids have feelings about things like this (or just don't listen to or even ask the kids how they feel). Fortunately we found a troop that was not from Leave it to Beaver, so these things don't come up very much.

[2eagles]

What I saw a cub group do was recruit older Boy Scouts (if the boy did not have an older male role model) - They ended coming up with some new awards: like the cake for the fastest sugar high, cakes of angle (for crooked ones) -- the boys (all of them) had alot of fun. Plus, some of the older scouts really bonded with the cubs and became sort of big brothers.