Scouting ties in the Trump Administration

[Stosh]

The point I was trying to make was that age 12 I didn't have mommy and daddy having to hold my hand or give me a ride every time I had a schedule play date with my friends.  And at 5:30 am, I didn't have Children's Protective Services knocking on my parent's door because some busybody wasn't minding their own business.  It is as if today's society is forcing more and more young adults to stay in their parent's basement for fear some non-existent boogie man will snatch them away. 

 

Then one must ask if kids 50 years ago could hold down a job and shovel walks, rake leaves and mow lawns, why is it that scouts today aren't "mature enough" to be at certain scout activities because they aren't old enough.  Maybe we are just as guilty as the next.  If I could hold a job at age 12, some kid should be able to do a fairly decent job as PL in the NSP without some drill sergeant ASM watching over every move.  When I was WDL working on my Woodbadge ticket back in 1993, my denner was a functional denner that operated as a PL and didn't just wear the denner cord that got rotated around so that everyone in the den would feel special.   

[bearess]

I, personally, can't see the Trump administration having much interest or impact on the Scouts.

 

Interestingly, Bernie Sanders speaks of his time in scouting with a great deal of respect and affection- I e heard him say on several occasions the value of the love for the outdoors and the moral code that Scouting instilled in him.

 

We saw him once at a local pizza place after a Cub meeting- my older son was in his uniform still. Of course we were excited to see été Bernie, and waved, but didn't interrupt his group. Afterwards, he came over and chatted to my son about Scouts for a few minutes. Pretty cool!

[NJCubScouter]

Interestingly, Bernie Sanders speaks of his time in scouting with a great deal of respect and affection- I e heard him say on several occasions the value of the love for the outdoors and the moral code that Scouting instilled in him.

 

We saw him once at a local pizza place after a Cub meeting- my older son was in his uniform still. Of course we were excited to see été Bernie, and waved, but didn't interrupt his group. Afterwards, he came over and chatted to my son about Scouts for a few minutes. Pretty cool!

 

I liked Bernie Sanders as a candidate and appreciate the role he seems to be taking under the current "order".  I understand that he was too far "out there" ideologically for most people, but it would have been nice to have a truly decent (though sometimes a bit grumpy) person as president.  Maybe I feel a bit of a personal connection with him.  Given our shared ethnic-religious backgrounds, the Brooklyn accent and really his whole way of speaking, it would have been a bit like having one of my uncles as president.

[vumbi]

I can feel your pain.

[CalicoPenn]

In the wee hours of every morning I would get up and put 12 miles on my bicycle all by myself.  In the winter it was not yet light out.  I was 12 years old and it was called a paper-route, those things that are done today by adults in cars.  Again a society can fall apart in 50 years as being attested to now.

 

Maybe it was because the 12 and 13 year old kids of 50 years ago were more mature and responsible than their counterparts of today.

 

50 years ago cable television was a nascent industry and there was no 24-hours cable news stations.  Local news remained local - if local news did make the national news, it was a paragraph in the middle of a newspaper or a 15-second sound bite in the middle of a news cast.  Life seemed simpler back then - or at least less scary. 

 

Maybe 12 and 13 year olds were more mature and responsible back then but I'm not sure that's really the case.  I suspect that the changes really started in the 1980's and I'll be as bold to say the changes really started on June 1, 1980.  What happened on that date?  CNN started broadcasting.  Our first 24-hours news channel.  One of the first things I remember CNN broadcasting was a police chase through the streets of Atlanta - a local news story that was turned national.  Once the US election and Iranian hostage crisis were done, CNN went floundering around looking for things to cover, and found it.  1981 - Adam Walsh is abducted and killed.  1982 - Johnny Gosch is abducted and becomes the first missing child on a milk carton.  Other child abductions would follow.  Prior to the 1980's, these would have been local news stories - and may never have reached the level of becoming not only national news (for 5 minutes) but major national news stories that would be reported on for days and weeks. 

 

Why is this relevant?  Because I believe this is the beginning of a major psychological change in the US - instead of being filled with hope, faith, pride, caring, neighborliness - we became a nation governed by personal fear.  If a 12 year old boy in the heartland can be abducted while delivering newspapers, why that must mean there are people behind every bush waiting to abduct paper boys (this, more than anything else, is why paperboys are few and far between).

 

We also can't discount that the target audience of CNN was middle class suburbanites.  Soccer Mom's became a political force because of cable news - and all of a sudden, our world was being evaluated through the eyes of suburban mothers who have now become scared to send their children out on the streets without supervision.  With our implied consent (because we have either failed to, or don't really know how to counter the media juggernaut), our social contracts are now governed by the fear that the media instills in us.  It's not a coincidence that cocooning, fortressing, creating spaces at home we wouldn't want to leave, really started trending in the 1990's and 2000's.  Would a movie like Panic Room have been possible if we weren't being told every night how scary it is out there? 

 

 

[TAHAWK]

This disappearance of newspaper customers - and newspapers, for that matter -- has some correlation to the decrease in the number of "paper boys."

 

"A 2015 report from the Brookings Institution shows that the number of newspapers per hundred million population fell from 1,200 (in 1945) to 400 in 2014. Over that same period, circulation per capita declined from 35 percent in the mid-1940s to under 15 percent."

 

Our local "big" newspaper, publishes only five days a week, averages under twenty pages, and has less than two pages of classified ads.  The loudest screamers in the last week are dying, their debt rated as "junk."  "Hey! Look at me!!!"

[RememberSchiff]

Now the second week of the Trump Presidency and none of the four Eagle Scout Cabinet nominees have yet been confirmed.

[CalicoPenn]

I've got doubts that the disappearance of newspaper customers and newspapers had much influence at all in the loss of paperboys - mostly because the disappearance of newspapers and newspaper customers came a bit later. Except for some smaller markets, most newspaper routes were replaced by drivers in cars by the mid-to-late 80's. I know my local papers (all three of them - the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times and The Daily Herald) stopped using paperboys by 1983 because I had a part time job delivering all three, plus the Wall Street Journal, all at the same time, from my car (I got very good at tossing a paper out my drivers window over the roof of my car to land in a customer's driveway - and I had a system - Sun Times and Wall Street Journals in boxes behind me (not many customers for these), Tribunes next to me and Heralds in right rear passenger seat). The Woeld Wide Web wasn;t released to public use until 1991, and it slowly took off. By 1999, there were a lot of people on it but most were still dialing in. Broadband was really just getting started. The majority of people used AOL to sign on. Newspapers and customers starting really disappearing in the 2000's, when people started relying more on on-line news sources. By this time, the noble paperboy had already been pretty much sidelined.

[Stosh]

I'm kinda sorry I mentioned my paper-route.  The point wasn't that newspapers were plentiful back then, the point was I could at age 12 hold down a job and move around town, miles from my home on a bike and didn't need an adult chaperone.  By the time I was 14 I could ride my bike out into the rural areas around town and hunt without an adult with me.  By the time I was 16, the bike was replaced by the car.

 

Maybe the #1 reason why Little Johnny lives in his parent's basement is because they would be arrested if they don't keep an eye on their captives or the boogie man police are going to sweep in and snatch them up and put them in a more secure facility where they can be watch more closely.

 

It's a real shame the liberties and freedoms kids today have gradually lost over the past 50 years.

[bearess]

I'm always torn in the idea that kids have lost so many liberties and freedoms. My sons are 5 and 9. They walk to school alone, go to the playground alone. I work from home, and they know they aren't to come home till 3:45 (school ends at 2:45). For that hour, they're responsible for themselves- they play/sled on the playground, walk to the bank for a lollipop, go to the library, whatever. That's the case for many of my older sons' friends. My older son can go to the store alone (obviously just for a few things) and run other little errands. He can ride his bike anywhere in town. I've never had anyone question any of that.

Obviously, we live in a small town- and I do work with him more than my parents did. For example, before he could ride his bike alone, we biked a few places together with him ahead of me so I could be sure he was really solid on hand signals and parked cars. I don't remember my parents doing that. Same with walking to school- he's walked alone since second grade, but I walked with him the first time to be sure he followed traffic rules.

I can't help but think that the idea that kids have no freedoms today is a bit overblown.

[Stosh]

In a small town, it takes a while before the flames of fear are fanned in.  However, in Maryland an 8 year old can be left alone AT HOME, ALONE, but in Illinois it is 14 years old.  This is in the safety of one's own home.  Now outside in the yard it's a whole different story.  Then there's the 2 block walk to school or when I was that age, everything under 2 miles had to walk.  Bus pick up was at least 2 miles from the school.  Even then if you lived 2 blocks from someone who did get picked up by the bus, you couldn't walk the two blocks over to his house and get on the bus, you had to walk/bike the 2 miles to school.  Today do the schools even have bike racks anymore?

 

I was walking my dog along a street I normally do and a little boy who I had seen playing in his yard on occasion was sitting on the curb watching the world go by.  I was on the other side of the street and he called out, "Is your dog friendly?"  I said yes and crossed the street so he could pet him.  At that point his older sister, went into a blood curdling tirade screaming into the house.  It would seem that the little boy was "talking to strangers."  The mom came to the door, saw the boy petting my dog, smiled and waved.  I waved back and then moved on down the road.  It kinda made me think that this propensity for abject terror might have been instilled by the public school system because mom seemed to be good about the whole situation.  I'm sure she had seen me many times walking my dog before.

 

The bigger the town/city, the worse it gets.

 

I moved away from my first home a few weeks after my 7th birthday.  I vividly remember running all over town, riding bikes, playing with friends, all day long.There was no pre-school, no kindergarten so this was an every-day thing.  I thought nothing of it when an elderly gentleman asked my buddy and I if we would go to the store and get him some ice cream.  He gave us money, we took off and got him his ice cream.  He invited us in to have some, which we did and from that point on we would always wave and be nice to him whenever we saw him.  He was a really nice guy, just a bit lonely I suspect.

 

I never started to actually "worry" about personal safety until the mid 1960's with all the racial issues going on.  When I lived in San Diego for a while, I did learn what neighborhoods were acceptable for walking after dark and which ones weren't.  It wasn't until recent years with the ramped up, hyped up media, did it ever occur to me I might need to conceal carry.  As a Be Prepared cautionary measure, I now do as does the Mrs.  Some of my children are set up that one knocks and doesn't just walk in as well. 

 

Is it old age paranoia?  Media hype? Common sense? world is unsafer than before? or what?  When in doubt, be prepared.

 

One of the reasons my children are home-schooling the grandkids is they don't trust the security of the school system and they don't want the social paranoia to influence their children.  I have already been tasked to teach them how to safely and responsibly own a weapon.

 

Maybe it's going to take a generation or two to take back personal safety responsibility and not rely on schools, government, etc. to do it for us.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Stosh

[Gwaihir]

I'm always torn in the idea that kids have lost so many liberties and freedoms. My sons are 5 and 9. They walk to school alone, go to the playground alone. I work from home, and they know they aren't to come home till 3:45 (school ends at 2:45). For that hour, they're responsible for themselves- they play/sled on the playground, walk to the bank for a lollipop, go to the library, whatever. That's the case for many of my older sons' friends. My older son can go to the store alone (obviously just for a few things) and run other little errands. He can ride his bike anywhere in town. I've never had anyone question any of that.

Obviously, we live in a small town- and I do work with him more than my parents did. For example, before he could ride his bike alone, we biked a few places together with him ahead of me so I could be sure he was really solid on hand signals and parked cars. I don't remember my parents doing that. Same with walking to school- he's walked alone since second grade, but I walked with him the first time to be sure he followed traffic rules.

I can't help but think that the idea that kids have no freedoms today is a bit overblown.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/

 

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charged-felony-neglect-after-11-year-old-son-plays-backyard-90-minutes

 

https://haikuoftheday.com/2014/09/09/it-was-a-monday-late-morning-hotter-than-hot-we-were-not-even-24-hours-home-from-vacation-and-i-was-going-through-the-pil/

 

http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/14/napping-child-left-in-car-while-parents

 

I'd say in some small parts of the country, its overblown, but the growing trend is evident.  Less freedom for kids. 

[Stosh]

I wonder how traumatized the boy was to wake up from a nap and see what was going on!!!  Who's going to protect the boy from government abuse?

[bearess]

YeAh, I remember the story about the kids in MD, and I've read other stories about parents being arrested/charged for leaving kids alone or unsupervised. I just can't help but wonder if there is more to the story than we are reading. I seem to remember that, the first time the kids in MD were picked up, they had crossed a four lane highway alone. It wasn't like they were just wandering around their neighborhood.

Regardless, I'm sure, on average, kids today do have fewer freedoms. It's just hard to square that with my own experience, which is that my kids (and many of their friends) have a lot of freedom.

[Rick_in_CA]

There is an interesting study on why this whole "leaving kids unsupervised is dangerous" thing has grown. The perceived risk is exaggerated in order to justify the feeling that leaving kids alone is immoral. It's tied to helicopter parenting.
 
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-are-we-so-afraid-leave-children-alone <= this article about the study has a link to the actual paper.