Cyclist Merit Badge-Girl Scouts 1920

[mimitabby]

well, Thorn, the fact is, we ARE different.
My sons didn't really like playing with girls, and they didn't play LIKE girls either. Growing up with a sister only (my half brother is 8 years older than me) I was shocked, stunned, amazed and sometimes disgusted and disappointed over the years at how different my 2 sons were to my sister and I. When my sons were born, I was going to raise them "non-sexist". I bought them dolls
(who ended up on the floor face down, naked underneath everything else) and encouraged them
to not be warriors.. But as little boys they WERE. The most stunning difference i saw was when
my 4 year old son and a little girl daughter of a friend both spontaneously started dancing, She instinctively moved in a beautiful sinuous pattern, while he... well, he couldn't do it, but his
movements were just as free and happy as hers. We all shook our heads at the difference.

The only thing I could get them to do that I also enjoyed as a little kid was to go "hiking"
They were forever making weapons out of sticks. They were much noisier and a lot more active. Coloring books just didn't cut it for them. THey did just as much play acting as we did, but none of it was "house" or "school".
My sister and I were both "tomboys" but that still did not compare to the yardape mentality that my sons had.
All my mother had to do was bring home colored paper and tape and I would be happy all day cutting stuff out.
my sons? I made them both shields out of heavy cardboard
with our name's coat of arms on it. They made their own swords...

The fact is, girls in classes without boys tend to do better than girls in co ed situations. Like it or not, we're different. Ask any little girl who she'd rather be friends with!

[Flybye]

I second that Mimitabby - I have experienced the same with my son and my daughters. I now just love and embrace that fact that they are different. There are sociological study after sociological study out there about the differences in men and women, boys and girls.

I think one of the best examples that I can give personally relates to bike riding. I had been riding seriously all summer - about 70 miles a week some weeks. I had a new bike, all carbon frame, had been watching my cadence, keeping it up in the 80-90 range and had been pleased with a 19ish mph speed average.

Enter husband, who is physically active on an intermittent basis. He wanted to go on a ride with me so he slapped some flat pedals on my old bike (not a carbon frame bike), slipped on some sneakers and a helmet (and of course his clothes) and off we went. It was his second time on this bike and our first time riding together on bikes other that mountain bikes. He kicked my _utt. He was faster, stronger, and had to put out less effort on the ride. The only difference was that I had more stamina when we got into the ride about 15 miles because I was conditioned.

I love the fact that we are different.

What I don't love is when we sale girls and women short on things without giving them a try at different things or giving them a push here and there to try something new. My dad was great in respect to this. He had me changing brake pads, oil, radiators, and alternator belts on my cars in high school. I once stood in the bed of a truck on the edge in a field and using the back side of an axe (we didn't have a sledgehammer) and hammered in a whole line of field fence posts for a pasture. Must have put in 50-60 posts in a week.

Same for boys - don't sale them short either. They can learn to do things that are typical for females.

The more diverse we are with skills, the better off we all are.

My $.02

[Thorn]

I'm not saying we're not different. We all are--if we weren't, the world would be boring. But, I have a problem with "nature vs. nuture". Yes, we are born different, but when we start pushing kids down "this is the girl's path" and "this is the boy's" path so early, we don't let them find out their nature....we override it with nurture.

We are different. But by tracking we smooth out those differences. That, to me, is sad.

There are girls that want to run, climb, and wreak havok; there are boys who want to sit indoors and read and learn to cook. But, social tracking makes those kids feel out of place. They shouldn't feel out of place--they should be allowed to embrace their uniqueness.

Really, I didn't mean to hijack the thread.

[mimitabby]

It's okay, Thorn, it's fun to talk about this stuff. You're right! there are girls who wreak havoc, and boys who like to sit and read.
I agree, they should be encouraged to be WHO they are (my kids taught me that they were going to be who they were no matter WHAT I did or said) and given opportunities to go in any direction that really mattered to them..

[Irulan]

My son got his eagle about 4 years ago at 18. Here's our family's and his troops take on the whole politcal scenario. As for our family, we laid out for our son what some of the issues are/were for scouting, whether its SOME troops (remember not all) pushing the religion thing or the no gays thing, and the issue with adult inappropriateness surfacing in some groups. We then let him decide whether he wanted to continue to participate, based on knowing his parent's political stance, and the nature of his troop. I think this was a better way to go, to let him choose, than to say YOU can't do this because we don't agree with parts of it. It also opens the door for a lot of intelligent discussion.

His troop is/was pretty unusual in that it was not focused on what the national council puts out about scouting. It focused on the original tenets of scouting as laid out by Lord Baden Powell, "never do for a boy what he can do for himself." There were no parent committees to plan things, it was all done by the boys, with the older boys leading the younger ones. The adults were there mainly to observe, provide suggestions only if needed, and drive the cars. There were a few select adult male leaders offering stern but caring background guidance. The older boys teach the younger boys leadership skilss, and hold each other accountable for mistakes. Needless to say, they spent a lot of time doing boy-like things, and not worrying about politics, policy and who might be sleeping with who.

This is not the norm these days, when you have helicopter parents planning and supervising the activities, making decisions for the kids and the troop and not giving the kids opportunities to learn from and be accountable for mistakes. In addition, mothers were discouraged from participating as this troop views teen years as a time for boys to separate from their mothers (I agree with this) and to let older boys and men teach boys how to become mature young men.

I think there's a lot of value in scouting, but it's really important to find the right troop. There are some really good ones out there, but there are also troops that are venues for parent's agendas, or a particular churches agenda, that one really needs to be careful of. There are also troops out there that instead of breaking off to a separate organization, fight the national idiocy on a local level, whether it is having pagan troop leaders, or being welcoming of sexual orientation. In a way it's sort of thumbing the nose at national policy, and saying "we are here for the good of the kids".

sorry for the novel, I'm passionate about this.

I.

[KnottedYet]

I was much more of a "boy" as a kid than SKnot is. I've tried for years to get him to do active adventurous stuff. No can do.

Doesn't seem to matter how we want or expect our kids to develop, they will do their own thing.

Irulan, that scout troop sounds wonderful!

[mimitabby]

Doesn't seem to matter how we want or expect our kids to develop, they will do their own thing.

boy isn't that the truth! raising kids is like herding cats...
and i know about herding cats from PERSONAL experience.