Why is the uniform important?

[CalicoPenn]

Truth be told, the uniform isn't important. It just isn't. There is nothing in Scouting we can't do equally well without a uniform as we can with a uniform. Wearing a uniform doesn't help us set up a camp better, or perform first aid better, or to tie better knots, or to sing silly songs at Pack meetings or campfires, or to provide service to our communities, or to do a good turn daily, or to be prepared, etc.

 

I think we are going down the wrong path when we try to attach importance to the uniform.

 

Rather, I think the right question, and the question that the answers 83Eagle provided answers much better than why the uniform is important is "Why is the uniform advantageous". We'll get much farther convincing Scouts and parents that the uniform has advantages (aka benefits) than convincing them it has importance.

[UCEagle72]

I've been commish'ing since '76 - and some of the best and most engaged Scouts I have ever met, were simply wearing a necker (neckerchief) with whatever else they had on.

 

Ride around Europe on any given weekend and you'll see lots of young people wearing them, tied in the International Friendship Knot, or maybe secured with a woggle.

 

They all have "uniforms" -- but you rarely see them worn.

 

Are we hanging on to an old model?

 

Scouting is in the heart.

[desertrat77]

It's not very important. It is even less important when you consider that scout uniforms are low quality and high cost. They ain't "scout proof."

 

Ideals about uniformity, identity, respect, etc., are all good things. No argument there. But these ideals can quickly be negated when you consider that scouting can take place in street clothes, and that our uniforms are designed primarily to wear while sitting on a metal chair in the church basement, or attending a banquet.

 

The day that the BSA fields a rugged, well designed, reasonably priced uniform is the day that uniforming will gain more traction. Till then, it will be a struggle--one not worth turning scouts and parents away for.

 

UCEagle72 summed it up best: "Scouting is in the heart."

[Beavah]

Yah, UCEagle72, I agree with yeh on international scouting. The kids genuinely buy into da neckerchief thing, not da full-out uniforms. A token of symbolic membership which is much, much closer to da notion of "gang colors" that someone mentioned than a uniform is. Indeed, in many areas of the world kids in uniforms symbolize a lot of bad things.

 

I think kids who are proud of their program naturally find such symbols with which to self-identify as group members. It doesn't really matter so much what da symbol is for it to have all da effects and benefits. For our character-building purposes, da uniform is somewhat inconvenient, eh? It's less portable, less able to be worn in daily life than most other effective group membership symbols.

 

Jblake mentions a long list of jobs that require uniforming, but those are different, eh? When you're performing a special function (law enforcement, burger flipper, etc.) in public, there is a need to be easily identified by non-members in order to do your job effectively. That's a different thing, and almost all of those folks take off their uniform as soon as they leave da office or the public eye. Sports teams don't wear the uniform when they are practicing or scrimmaging among themselves, physicians don't wear lab coats or scrubs to physician gatherings, judges take off da robes when they leave the courtroom.

 

We shouldn't confuse da normal role of uniforming for identifying people to non-members with da symbol-wearing which people choose when they are proud of group membership. Those are different things. And for da most part, the Aims of Scouting are lookin' for the latter.

 

Beavah

[Venividi]

Church youth groups are able to provide opportunities to develop character and citizenship without uniforms.

[SeattlePioneer]

>Personally, I wear a full uniform but none of my Den Leaders so far have followed that example.

[Scoutfish]

I had a small eye opener this past weekend.

 

But first. let me say this: I am proud of my uniform, and I wear it whenever the opportunity presents itself - without going overboasd and being a scouting suckup....if that makes sense.

 

Okay, back to my post:

 

My son will wear his without arguement if you ask him, but I usually have to remind him to put it on before den or pack meetings for him to do it.

 

THis past weekend, we attended a Camporee as guests of our sister troop ( although we were planning on going as a den anyways)

 

So I told my son to bring his "A's" with him.

"Really?" was the reply I got. I said yes, we needed it for colors and he should be proud to wear it.

 

So we get to camp early, set up our tent and the dining fly just before the skys opened up and the bottom falls out. My son gets soaked in his t shirt and lightweight jacket. So after the cold front and rain pass by, he puts on a dry t shirt and flannel shirt.

 

Pretty soon, boys from the sister troop start showing up. First 5 who rode together, then 6 who convoyed there. then a few more stragglers show up. They all start unloading the trailer and setting up their tents and patrol kitchens

 

Every single one of them are in uniform. I look for my son so I can point this out, but I do not see him anywhere.

 

A few minutes later, he asks me if I could help him adjust his necker.

 

He saw all the boys in uniform, and decided that he needed to be in uniform too.

 

So maybe he wanted to fit in, maybe he wanted to belong to the group. Maybe he saw that being proud of ( or at lest wearing) your uniform didn't make you a dork.

 

None the less, he put it on without being told or prodded.

And make no mistake, he acted proud to wear it.

 

Incidentally, even though he was a second year Webelos, the boys treated him like a BOY scout and not a cub scout, a lesser scout or an outsider.

 

They assigned him some duties ( fill coolers with water and make Gator Aid and help set up camp stoves) treated him like he had been in the troop for years and laughed and joked WITH him and not at him. So he was already helping out when he decided to put on his uniform.

 

So, I will also echo what Eagledad said:

 

"I found that for boys pride comes from the program and is expressed through the uniform, not the other way around."

 

My son was not treated as an equal because he wore his uniform. He did not become a better scout because of his uniform, and wearing it didn't necessarily make him proud...but once he was proud of being a scout, he put his uniform on. Once he felt like he belonged, he put it on.

 

It didn't really make him a better scout, but he felt better and looked better.

 

So I guess I really have to give credit to a group of boy scouts who looked at my son for what he could be instead of what he was( a cub scout ), and treated him as they treated each other.

 

Yeah, I learned something new or at least from a different perspective last weekend.

 

[BadenP]

 

Some interesting posts indeed. I think this thread should be renamed to "Is the Boy Scout Uniform Important?". No one here will argue that teens love to belong to a group or club and wear some kind of identifying symbol of that group. The question is what should that identifier be? The boy scout uniform, in its present form, is overly expensive, impractical for use in the outdoors, made of poor quality material and with shoddy workmanship, not to mention is pretty ugly and unstylish. Then we wonder why so many kids resist wearing them.

 

Since I have been part of the Venturing program for over a decade now which is a uniform optional program, I have been impressed how the youth members of the crew have addressed this issue. First they have chosen a basic polo style shirt that was high quality material and specifically designed for rigorous outdoor activities, with a small Venturing logo and Venturing Crew with the number embroidered on the front. For colder times they chose a polar fleece heavy duty hoodie with the same embroidery. Neither is required for belonging to the crew, however I have noticed that every one of them owns the polo and almost all the hoodie. When we go on our outings and people see 50-60 teens wearing these polos walk into a store or cafe the teens are always approached by more than a few people and asked what the group is all about.

 

I guess my point is that the BSA uniform does not have to be a $125.00 ugly, impractical, poor quality, and unstylish to accomplish its purpose of making a teen feel part of a group, and be proud of that group.

[Stosh]

Important? Depends on the observer as well as the wearer.

 

At Jambo I wore a 1910 uniform, another young adult with me wore a 1960's uniform, complete and correct, and people repeatedly stopped us for a picture. We always included one of their boys so we had a complete 100 year time-line. The #1 complaint was there weren't any boys in full contemporary uniforms around so they could get a good picture.

 

Kinda strange that finding a scout in uniform would be a problem at Jambo.

 

Stosh

[Eagle92]

As I have mentioned previously whenever this topic appears, there is a definite public image of scouts, and uniforms are part of that image. there are a lot of advantages to having a uniform

 

Is Scouting a "thing of the heart?" ABSOLUTELY you promise to live by the oath and law 24/7/365.

 

Do I hate the cost of the uniform? ABSOLUTELY it is overpriced, not made of quality materials like it was back int he day, and I wish they would simplify it. I got 2 pairs of scout socks with holes in them from normal wear what are about a year old. I still have 10+ year old knee socks made in the USA that have been almost daily for 2-3 years, that are in better shape. Also oldest "bought", ok he paid 1/2 and I paid the other half, is CS pants, and less than a month later, the were damaged from normal wear, I think the zipper broke but don't remember.

 

Someone mentioned Venturing, and the uniform option they have. I think that may be a small part of Venturing lack of publicty/ promotion: folks don't know who Venturers are.

[Cambridgeskip]

Interestingly in the late 90s there was a proposal to do away with the necker from the uniform in the UK. There was near insurrection! Not from the adults but from the scouts themselves. The kids love the necker, it is in some ways very tribal. It is a very basic human need, particularly for teenagers, to want to belong and the necker is fantastic in that its basic outline identifies you as something huge, like scouting generally, but the group colours identify you as part of a smaller family group. It's perfect!

[BadenP]

Eagle92

 

It is not because of the uniform option that the public doesn't know Venturing, it is the fact Venturing has only been around for a little over 10 years while boy scouts have been around over 100 years, so your point is an invalid one. Another reason is that a well run Venturing crew is pretty independant and doesn't have the dependency on district or council events with anywhere near the frequency that boy scouts and cub scouts do.

[JoeBob]

The uniform is important because I'm not competent enought to tell 'em where to sew their badges of rank and arrow points onto a T-shirt.

[Eagle92]

Skip,

On this side of the pond, the use of the necker and woggle has been on the decline since 1972 when BSA made it an optional item. Also the BSA making them smaller, and IMHO useless for the many purposes the necker could be used for, contributed. One thing I was rather glad about my troop growing up, we had custom neckers, which I traded when I was on your side of the pond.

 

BP,

 

Yep Venturing has only been around for 13 years, but if you compare the first 13 years of Boy Scouts to Venturing, the "standard uniform," and I use quotes b/c many scouts of the time used GI surplus uniforms that were the model for official BSA uniforms, you will see an explosion in public awareness and growth. I say a standard uniform would contribute to a greater awareness of Venturing.

 

Also I've seen sucessful troops that do not do many council activities. But those troops are usually "Hiking and Camping" troops that are in the outdoors a lot. Council activities tended to conflict with their plans.

 

JB,

 

You should have been around when Tigers were their own program, and had iron-on decals for their various achievments for the t-shirts.

[RememberSchiff]

Yep Venturing has only been around for 13 years, but if you compare the first 13 years of Boy Scouts to Venturing, the "standard uniform," and I use quotes b/c many scouts of the time used GI surplus uniforms that were the model for official BSA uniforms, you will see an explosion in public awareness and growth. I say a standard uniform would contribute to a greater awareness of Venturing.

 

Good idea, allow scouts the option to wear the BDU's (fatigues) of today's services as their uniform, including the BDU's their relatives may have worn (which was very common back at the start). Thrifty, patriotic, increased awareness and maybe membership. No sewing, use velcro for basic badges and of course add a real larger, square necker.

 

I think the Coast Guard BDU's would make a cool Venture uniform.

 

My $0.02