Adult going to residential summer camp

[WonderBoy]

42 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

I've always kind of wondered about these scenarios since, frankly, I am an odd duck in the Scouting community. I am not married and have no children, ...

Today's society makes it incredibly difficult for men to make a difference in the lives of young people. But as long as you take the right precautions, it can be done. 

Well @The Latin Scot, let me tell you, being married and having kids doesn't always help in this regard. Being an "older parent" (my peers' kids are mostly out of college), I frequently get the "stink eye" from people when my five year old isn't immediately adjacent to me on a playground or other gathering ground for kids. It's bad enough explaining that I'm his father, not his grandfather, but if he's not within an arm reach suddenly I'm automatically some kind of child predator. And heaven forbid I suggest a play date between our kids...

[NJCubScouter]

On 7/1/2018 at 11:25 PM, The Latin Scot said:

I've always kind of wondered about these scenarios since, frankly, I am an odd duck in the Scouting community. I am not married and have no children, but I am a Den Leader over the Pack's largest Den, I am the most active member of our Cub Committee, and I am at all activities - Day Camp, Scout-O-Rama, et cetera, - as a youngish single guy with no actual relation to any of the boys I work with. It would be far too easy to assume that as a professional educator and child development specialist, I could go about my Scouting business without raising too many eyebrows, but I have to be careful since, in today's climate, every action I take and every comment I make could be taken the wrong way by some parent who doesn't know my background or training. I have to bear in mind that these parents are trusting their children with me, a single man, sometimes for hours at a time. So I am meticulous in ensuring that I ALWAYS have my assistant or another parent near me at all times, and I have trained my boys to know that I cannot be in a room alone with them EVER. So much so that they often use it to taunt me; I arrive early to Den Meetings to set up, and if a boy shows up and I am the only adult in the room, he WILL yell at me to get out until another grown up is present. They then have free access to whatever treats are in my bag, or they may play with my hat if I forget to grab it, or whatever mischief they feel like getting into at the time - but at least they know to protect themselves, and I know that I am protecting myself from any potentially awkward or untoward situations. Total transparency has long been one of my most valuable shields against misperceptions.

Today's society makes it incredibly difficult for men to make a difference in the lives of young people. But as long as you take the right precautions, it can be done. 

@The Latin Scot, please forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but it was my understanding (mostly from this forum) that in LDS-chartered units, leaders are "called" (which I assume means the same as "assigned") to specific roles in units.  That being the case, wouldn't there be a large number of leaders with no children in their unit, and also a large number of "younger adults" such as yourself, with no children at all?  Meaning that your role wouldn't be unusual and therefore not attract any undue "attention" from parents?

[David CO]

On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 10:25 PM, The Latin Scot said:

I have to bear in mind that these parents are trusting their children with me, a single man, sometimes for hours at a time.  

Being single has nothing to do with it. The same exact rules would apply to a married man with children. Strictly applying the rules, a married scout leader would not be allowed to have any one-on-one contact with any scouts who are not his own children.

The CO chooses the scout leaders, not the parents. So I would say that the CO is trusting the children with you. 

 

[CalicoPenn]

7 minutes ago, David CO said:

Being single has nothing to do with it. The same exact rules would apply to a married man with children. Strictly applying the rules, a married scout leader would not be allowed to have any one-on-one contact with any scouts who are not his own children.

The CO chooses the scout leaders, not the parents. So I would say that the CO is trusting the children with you. 

 

Yes, the CO chooses the Scout Leaders, but if parents, in these hyper-aware times, are not happy with the CO choosing a single man to be the Den Leader, or Scoutmaster, the CO will get an earful.  Yes, the CO owns the unit - but the parents are as much customers as the Scouts themselves. 

[The Latin Scot]

3 hours ago, NJCubScouter said:

@The Latin Scot, please forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but it was my understanding (mostly from this forum) that in LDS-chartered units, leaders are "called" (which I assume means the same as "assigned") to specific roles in units.  That being the case, wouldn't there be a large number of leaders with no children in their unit, and also a large number of "younger adults" such as yourself, with no children at all?  Meaning that your role wouldn't be unusual and therefore not attract any undue "attention" from parents?

You are correct in that we are called - we don't volunteer for assignments, we are given them, and expected to accept them based on faith. That said, while there are certainly many leaders who have no children in the unit, generally because they are not old enough or they are grown, calling young single adults to such positions is uncommon since, first of all, many attend congregations made up entirely of students or other young single adults, and second of all, the often transient lifestyles of young people often means that leaders are hesitant to put them in positions such as Scouting that require time, training, and tenure in order to be really effective in their callings.

The fact that I attend a normal family congregation and am relatively settled depsite being pretty young and very unattached is not unusual per se, but neither is it common. In my Ward (which is what we call our local congregations), I am extremely well-known - I grew up here, in fact, so many people have known me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and think it's great that I am now working with the next generation. HOWEVER - at Camporee, Roundtable, Scout-O-Rama, Scouting For Food, and other broader Scouting events, even at Pack Meetings where we are combined with other dens outside my Ward - I am an unknown quantity, as it were. So when people ask the question "which kid is yours?" I have to be diplomatic in how I respond. I have have encountered some rather skeptical, even cynical, leaders and parents in the past, but over the past while I have made enough of a mark in the District and in the Council that most people either know me or recognize me, so that's been nice. But working with parents and children for a living, I can say the climate is often not agreeable these days towards men who want to work with children - married or not, as @David CO notes. One treads with caution sometimes.

[David CO]

2 hours ago, CalicoPenn said:

Yes, the CO chooses the Scout Leaders, but if parents, in these hyper-aware times, are not happy with the CO choosing a single man to be the Den Leader, or Scoutmaster, the CO will get an earful.  Yes, the CO owns the unit - but the parents are as much customers as the Scouts themselves. 

Our CO has a non-discrimination policy regarding the hiring of employees and volunteers. Choosing or rejecting someone based on their marital status would be a violation of that policy. Yes, parents will sometimes object to the policy, but that wouldn't be a good excuse for administrators to disregard the rules.

[David CO]

24 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

But working with parents and children for a living, I can say the climate is often not agreeable these days towards men who want to work with children - married or not, as @David CO notes.

I agree. There is a strong bias against both men and boys. 

When this anti-man thing started, someone did a great take-off on the Phil Donahue Show. His make-believe guest was the author of a book titled "Women Good, Men Bad". It was hilarious.

Edited July 3, 2018 by David CO

[The Latin Scot]

7 minutes ago, David CO said:

I agree. There is a strong bias against both men and boys. 

When this anti-man thing started, someone did a great take-off on the Phil Donahue Show. His make-believe guest was the author of a book titled "Women Good, Men Bad". It was hilarious.

I think that guest gets around a lot these days. I feel I have been trained by just such a person many, many times. 

[NJCubScouter]

1 hour ago, The Latin Scot said:

So when people ask the question "which kid is yours?" I have to be diplomatic in how I respond. I have have encountered some rather skeptical, even cynical, leaders and parents in the past, but over the past while I have made enough of a mark in the District and in the Council that most people either know me or recognize me, so that's been nice. But working with parents and children for a living, I can say the climate is often not agreeable these days towards men who want to work with children -

I can see that.  I think that if, when I was a Cub Scout parent and leader, a man with no children (or other close relative) in the pack had shown up and volunteered to be a leader, eyebrows would have been raised, at least.  In my direct experience, it has never happened.  Boy Scouts is a little different, but even there, a childless man showing up to volunteer is almost always an alumnus of the troop, so there is some connection.  In some cases they still have a younger brother in the troop.  There have been a couple of cases of a volunteer with no connection at all to the troop, but they didn't stay around for very long.  I do remember a couple of instances of this from when I was a Boy Scout.  But it isn't very common, even on the Boy Scout level.

[NJCubScouter]

1 hour ago, David CO said:

I agree. There is a strong bias against both men and boys. 

Okay, so, we have a male president (and always have), the majority of members of Congress are men, most governors are men, the majority of CEO's of large companies are still men, with judges it is probably somewhere around 50-50, there is still a "wage gap," etc.  On a much more micro level, when my son got his first job a few years ago, there were about five just-graduated engineers competing for the same position, some of whom were women, but he got the job.  (Just one example, I realize.)

So how exactly are we being discriminated against again?

[NJCubScouter]

4 hours ago, CalicoPenn said:

Yes, the CO chooses the Scout Leaders, but if parents, in these hyper-aware times, are not happy with the CO choosing a single man to be the Den Leader, or Scoutmaster, the CO will get an earful.  Yes, the CO owns the unit - but the parents are as much customers as the Scouts themselves. 

In my son's pack, the CO was the PTO, the IH and COR were both officers of the PTO who usually had one or more sons in the pack.  So the CO and the parents were the same people.  And as we know, even in the case of a "real" CO, often the CO abdicates most or all of their authority and responsibilities (except to provide a space for meetings), and they just sign on the dotted line when asked to, to the point where the current and former parents of the Scouts are really running the show anyway.  That is true for my troop.

[bearess]

Yeah— I know the CO chooses the leaders.  But, with the exception of the LDS Church, they aren’t going and finding random people associated with the CO to lead Cub Scout dens— it’s typically parents of the Scouts.

i would find it odd if an unmarried man with no connection to Cub Scouts was leading a Den.  I remember several years ago, my older son had a Little League coach who was the MUCH older brother of one of the players- he was always really quick to explain that it was his brother on the team, and he was co-coaching with his Mom.

[David CO]

2 hours ago, bearess said:

i would find it odd if an unmarried man with no connection to Cub Scouts was leading a Den.  I remember several years ago, my older son had a Little League coach who was the MUCH older brother of one of the players- he was always really quick to explain that it was his brother on the team, and he was co-coaching with his Mom.

Yep, things have changed a lot.

When I was growing up, the Jaycees were the largest and best known civic organization in town. They had over 200 members, all young men under the age of 35. About half were unmarried. 

Our little league fields were at the YMCA. We had many young men coaching the teams. The swimming teams were all coached by young YMCA men. Football was coached by teachers and dads. For a Catholic boy, basketball, wrestling, and boxing were CYO. The teams were usually coached by the priests and brothers.

There were lots of opportunities for young men, both single and married, to be actively involved in the community. We boys looked up to them. Now days, young adult men are treated like social pariahs. 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by David CO

[The Latin Scot]

2 hours ago, David CO said:

... now days, young adult men are treated like social pariahs. 

 

I don't wanna be a pariah. 

[David CO]

18 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

I don't wanna be a pariah. 

Too bad. I guess you made the mistake of being born in the wrong decade.