Question re inappropriate scout leader relationships

[NancyB]

I did not go to the man's wife. I don't have any idea how she found out, but his behavior wasn't that discreet. She came to me, as another parent and mother, to figure out what to do as far as her son is concerned b/c she wants to do the right thing for him. Right now, he is her top priorit. She was upset about what was allowed to happen in front of her son and the guilt he had at being put in the position of keeping it secret. She was concerned that the other kids may start saying things to her son. Kids can be unthinking at times.

 

My intention with this post was to find out what the scout policy was since I know there are policies about se*ual orientation and sleeping arrangements b/t non-married couples. I also wanted to know who to go to if there was such a policy, whether it be the scoutmaster or a commissioner or whomever. I wanted the concern to go to the right person so it could be handled the right way. I do not know the woman's husband and have no interest in talking to him. And if this troop ends up losing more members, wouldn't it be a good thing for the council or whomever to know why parents are upset and leaving? It took this mother for me to realize what I needed to do for my son. I want him to have positive role models.

[Mr. Boyce]

Kick me for saying this all you like, but there's a strong part of me that wants to say, "this kind of stuff is what you get when you start bringing more women into the program." OK, kick away.

 

Interesting to recall, was in 79?, the number of pregnancies that happened on board a Navy ship on a long Mediterranean tour a few years back. Not that many pregnancies in WW II duty, I'll bet!

[Vicki]

No kick, just a big sigh. Same line of thought has women in burkas and chadors in the Middle East.

 

Takes two.

 

Vicki(This message has been edited by Vicki)

[Mr. Boyce]

(Another sigh!). In no fashion did I intend one to infer that women were solely responsible. This wouldn't be a reasonable thing to suggest.

 

I do believe it's reasonable to say that if you load a navy submarine filled with young men and women, and put them under the polar cap for six months, you may well have created a situation in which there is "fraternization"

 

It's reasonable to assume the same thing for scouting. If you take a Girl Scout troop and start adding male leaders, you'd find similar results. If you had no male leaders, you would not be as likely to find heterosexual "fraternization."

 

People are not 100% rational, nor do they follow the rules 100% of the time. The BSA, by encouraging female leaders, gets some new problems in addition to other gains and positives.

[Vicki]

No argument there. Hope you understand how one could infer what I did from your post. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Vicki

[Karen_216]

Just a comment that these type of relationships are not unique to scouting. If the individuals would not have met through scouting likely either (or both) would have met someone elsewhere and behaved the same way. The Home and school, at work, shopping.

The fact remains that either (or both) may not have been happy in their marraige and open to this type of thing. Either that or just promiscous. Do I condone it? Absolutely not.

However you have to also be careful of an ex-spouse spreading rumors. Unless you are they you do not know the whole story. What type of inappropriate realtionship exists? Are they hangig onto each other and kissing or going off together?? Then something should be said. The fact that a child was asked to keep a secret is bad parently adn a poor example. How will that child trust in the furture? Will he bring this into his fututre realtionships? Very likely.

unfortunitely I had a family member involved in a similar situation. The SM and she developed a strong friendship - there were huge problems in the SM marriage(which everyone knew about).No one outside herself and spouse new about her apparent issues in her marriage. Both were looking for someone to realte. SM fell in love with her ( a female leader in his troop) and his wife found out due to many phone calls and emails.Secrets were also kept by his sons.

The sympathetic friendship developed into an inappropriate relationship.(they claim nothing inappropriate happened but feelings were involved - still cheating in my mind). The aggrieved wife wrote letters to every member of the troop and to executive officers in the Council. She pretty much went off the deep end to the point of harrassment towards the female leader- calls at all times of the day and night.

SM resigned his position and female leader went to another troop(along with her son). Both marriages ended in divorce and the "scouting" couple is still together but now in different troops from whence they were and different from each other as well. The former SM sons are both Eagles.

I'd say you can't judge all of scouting by the actions of these individuals because the fact is it happens every where. Teachers do it as well. All my grade school talked about the married gym teacher and the single 5th grade teacher. Kids aren't blind or dumb.

It shouldn't happen but it does.

 

[shortridge]

What disgusts me with the types of actions some posters have described is that children are put in the untenable situation of keeping their parents' secrets. That's revolting.

 

Kids should never have to lie for mommy and daddy. To put your child in that situation reveals an incredible degree of self-absorption and narcissism. Placing your personal desires ahead of your child's stability and well-being makes you scum in my book. You're an adult, for cripe's sake - act like one!

 

As far as these relationships in Scouting go, an adult leader whose focus is on wooing another adult leader isn't going to have his or her primary attention on the Scouts.

[Gold Winger]

" In no fashion did I intend one to infer that women were solely responsible. This wouldn't be a reasonable thing to suggest."

 

A friend's mother once said, "Women are responsible for the moral decline of the country because men have never had any morals." Think about it, to a large extent it's true.

[Vicki]

Wow. GW, that statement was so blatantly sexist (on both sides of the fence) it borders on Voltaire-esque satire. I understand you may think it's justified because a woman said it - well, there are some very sexist women out there too. I don't have much use for them, either. There just isn't a response that would make sense to you if you truly believe what you wrote. Must be time to grin and move on.

 

Vicki(This message has been edited by Vicki)

[Gold Winger]

Not sexist at all, very true. Men, in general, are just rutting beasts. It is the female of the species that controls that. How many male prostititutes are out there serving women compared to women serving as prostitutes? If more women just said, "No" we wouldn't have the level of teenaged moms, single moms, kids with no fathers, women with kids from multiple fathers but never had a husband that we have today.

 

My 15 year old daughter is getting pressure from her friends because she's apparently the lone virgin in the group. Apparently, the idea is that if you don't have sex you won't get dates. If more girls said "no," like they did back when I was young, that's what guys would expect.

 

Women, always have and always will have the final say.

[packsaddle]

Hi Vicki,

Before you and GW charge off on a thread-hijack, I will offer a couple of observations. First, as you might imagine, I've made remarks similar to GW's. Most of the time they are taken with the humor with which they were intended.

However, and second, I have made a large number of observations of young people at the college level (I'm guessing numbers in the thousands now). It is clear that women are better prepared for intellectual demands at this level, if one considers their grades as the objective metric. For example, I recently served on a selection committee to identify the top undergraduate researchers for national awards. The selection process proceeded without reference to names or gender...all we had was ID numbers. At the end of the process, ALL of the top undergraduate research candidates were women. Nearly all of the undergraduates engaged in this kind of extracurricular activity were women. Moreover women are disproportionately represented in nearly every undergraduate program...after the first year... with the exception of engineering (and there they are becoming prominent in post-graduate programs). I mention that this is after the first year because that is the time when a disproportionate number of men lose their scholarships or flunk out.

 

I can't make any conclusions for the reasons this is happening and I suspect the reasons are many. However, when I survey the bright, ambitious young women I know personally, numbering in the scores, so full of prospect and talent, of those I see engaged to be married, they are almost always engaged to men whom I think by nearly any metric are inferior to the women both in terms of intellect and maturity.

The only hypothesis I care to offer is that these women chose the best mates they could find thus hardly offering evidence to contradict GW. On the other hand, my observations are confined to the South, and there might be some bias (see H.L. Mencken for reasoning). I add that my wife (and mostly likely GW's) also was no exception. It sounds like he knows himself quite well.

 

But regardless of the biological or social reasons for these things, you must grant the possibility that GW might accidentally be correct.

[OldGreyEagle]

Candide references notwithstanding you guys know GoldWinger is pretty much the forum clown and is not to be taken seriously, right?

[Vicki]

Pack, "must" is a word to be used sparingly, if at all and I ain't chargin' into anything. Y'all are completely misunderstanding my attitude here. This just isn't a topic I'm willing to discuss in this venue - like I said, I'm grinning and walking away...

 

now, if we actually were sitting around a campfire with a cup of coffee, well, it would be a whole different conversation.

 

Vicki

[packsaddle]

OGE I'm a little more charitable. If you are suggesting GW enjoys an impish glee in our reactions, you may be correct. However, I am willing to give him other human qualities as well...having a good heart and best interest in other people, even if in his own unique way.

If you suggest that he is a jester, then I note that to do that well requires a certain wisdom.

At any rate, I'm not going to pass that kind of judgment on GW because I really don't know him well enough...and...once in a while he makes a very good point. So I try to take him seriously - at the same time being prepared for a good laugh.

 

Edited part: Vicki, point taken. I sure hope that's a grin and not a grimace.

(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Vicki]

Hmmm, married to a Navy guy, two sons, hangin' around scouts as long as I have...yeah, that would be a grin. I don't tend toward the shrill and I'm definitely not above yankin' back on a chain every once in awhile just to see what will happen: