Boys No More
I couldn’t wait to join Cub Scouts when I was finally 8 years old. I enjoyed the three years I spent as a Cub, then a Webelo…and still have my uniform packed away somewhere, with the Arrow of Light pin proudly displayed.
I did not continue into Boy Scouts…the concept of sleeping outside in a tent didn’t square with me even then.
The uniform read, “Cub Scouts BSA”…with BSA representing the umbrella organization, Boy Scouts of America.
No more. To mark the 115th anniversary of the organization, the name will be changed for the first time, to Scouting America.
Girls were allowed to join Cub Scouts in 2018, and into the program for older teens the following year. “Boy Scouts” was therefore changed to “Scouts BSA” once girls were allowed in.
There are now only half as many in the programs now as there were only five years ago…just 1 million now, some 17 percent of which are girls and young women. That, of course, led to litigation with the Girl Scouts about just who can use the word “scout” in their name.
The programs have been very valuable for young people over time…but unfortunately, the stigma of so many sexual abuse claims, and bankruptcy following a $2.4 billion settlement of those claims, has taken its toll. Given all that, “Scouting America” has already been the subject of jokes on social media…something you think they would have considered before embracing the new moniker.
But things have been on a slide for me when they changed the oath. It used to be simple: “I promise to do my best, to do my duty, to God and my country, to be square, and obey the law of the pack.” Then they required scouts to “help other people at all times,” and to keep “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight”…not sure how many of the 80,000 sexual abuse victims felt if “morally straight” was in the oath when they were scouts.
Bottom line, it’s another example of how a more innocent time is now gone…not saying for better or worse overall, but just gone.
