AwakeEnergyScouter

Only topic-adjacent, but I sincerely wonder if anyone has ever even tried to join anything from the Lotus Sutra with the rest of the service. Other than that worshiping deities is a sideshow at best and a departure from the path at worst, the Lotus Sutra builds so much on foundational teachings that it assumes that the reader knows that it would be very hard to cite only it unless the audience are all Mahayana practicioners already. Relatedly, some Theravada practicioners might take offense at the lesser vehicle/hinayana thing, and seeing as the sutra expounds on the difference between arhatsh

I certainly don't trust people who make it clear that they don't think I should be where I am to give me advice or support. I am curious about whether that it's girls only scout craft catch-up says something about just how stiff that cultural resistance is in that council. In principle, just make it a scoutcraft basics camporee open to all new units. But why didn't they? The comments that remain make me wonder if the reason is that so many male scouts are opposed to girls that it wouldn't work to help the girls, or that the council had solid reasons to think it would end up there.

I agree that the quality of the program is going to fall on the den leaders to make sure they are choosing to do the engaging fun stuff instead of just what is easy for them, but that has always been the case - that's not a change. I'm not sure what you mean by "wiggle room" in what's required where, but in the case of Bear Habitat (which is rank required) there is only one activity suggested for requirement 7, which is the one I posted above. Unless Scoutbook doesn't have requirement 7 as required, which I can't check right now, it would seem that Bears are still required to make animal

Bear Habitat is rank required and wildlife observation is still a required part of the adventure, so I am also unclear on the problem. Personally, I like almost everything I'm seeing, and lot of the new adventures seem like invitations to gamify more outdoors programming to me. I've been focusing on Webelos first, and I see several of the new adventures as ways to get the scouts to get better at outdoors life and scoutcraft. A lot of the requirements seem to split up into plan/prepare for the outings during meetings and then go do outdoor adventure, which is exactly as it should be. There

Did you check the leader guide? Bear Habitat Outdoors REQUIRED Requirement 7

I'm with you! The ventilation and being able to transfer the weight onto the hips is huge. I have two external frame packs and I'm not getting rid of them at any price! My old, smaller pack for my scout, the larger volume one for me. The soft packs were originally for climbers and it made sense for them, but I'm not a climber, I'm a hiker.

You don't mention your academic background on your profile, so apologies if this is telling you something you already know, but if Scouting America funded the researcher (as implied by "engaged" in the press release), then they weren't independent. I looked for the funding and conflicts of interest sections in the paper that I would expect to find, but either they're behind the paywall or weren't included. Either way, it's not clear to the public that the researcher really was independent. It's well-known that studies often end up biased in favor of the funding source in social sciences (see f

I'm about to preside over a cub scout rank advancement ceremony that includes two scouts that joined last month and two months ago, respectively. They went after that advancement hard and finished, using the opportunities for outdoor activities and knife safety we offered to the max. Both scouts asked their parents to sign them up, not the other way around. Since they're cubs they would have advanced without the badge, but they really wanted to be scouts and do the program so that's what they're choosing to do. It will be a pleasure to give them their badges and new neckers.

Oh, I see! That makes sense. I was a little surprised that you wouldn't have noticed at all. I also appreciate your willingness to explain your thinking process in several steps, and your thoughtfulness. I've enjoyed talking to you, too.

I find it interesting - and I don't mean strange or wrong, but literally interesting - that you ask a woman for examples of how traditional gender role expectations hurt men even though another man just gave a whole list with a lot of passion. Because I'm not one, all my examples are going to be second-hand, parroting back what I've heard or seen men say about their own lives. My personal contribution can only be checking that what they're saying is consistent with what I see from the outside. Why ask me, not @Eagle94-A1, when he's the one arguing that I underestimate the problem? I did find a

Of course. That's how I got several boyfriends, including this last one that I married and had a cub scout with. I've also supported him financially when he was unemployed. He supported me when I was unemployed. That's how partnership works. In fact, that's in general how I expected to find a partner based on adults' how-we-met stories, movies, TV, etc. You become friends, you hang out, enjoy each other's company, and if there's mutual romantic interest see if it could go somewhere... if you dare. The risk is always ruining a good friendship. I had a crush on one of the boys in my p

The damage that the traditional male gender role causes is certainly very real and a problem to solve for sure. The suffering is so unnecessary. I'm surprised to hear that people would divorce someone for needing support - you know, scratch that, I've heard of people divorcing their spouses after a cancer diagnosis. Some people are just... Not considerate. But unlike cancer, divorcing someone for breaking gender roles has a pattern to it that can be more systematically addressed than being people being shallow. This issue has indeed been around forever, and I knew about it when I was a sc

@BetterWithCheddar, I also appreciate the courage to share, and the gentle reminder to not accidentally imply that all individuals who had a gender-segregated scouting experience failed to learn how to work with the opposite gender respectfully. The folks on our committee who scouted gender-segregated are quite well-adjusted and respectful. I see and hear other examples of that in media and on the Internet. So, if you don't mind explaining some more - is the view you're expressing an adult-looking-back view, then, rather than what you were thinking at the time? What were your friend group

That's what this looks like to me. Obviously being young can be rocky and the adult world needs to offer compassionate and skillful support, but I am curious about why this just wasn't a thing when I was that age myself and now it is.

TBH when Scouting America announced that they would allow girls to join, but hastened to add gender -separated still to preserve the benefits of that, my immediate thought was "what benefits?" They never even explained what they were meant to be, and until encountering this anxiety about girls in Scouting America I had never heard of all these problems with doing things together with the opposite gender at any and all ages, not just in scouting but anywhere. Well, I take that back - I have heard about it from refugees. But from my Swedish POV their complaints sound like optional problems

This isn't a big difference, but since so few others on the forum scouted gender integrated themselves I'll write it out also - sometimes we ditched the tent when backpacking and brought two tarps to construct a lean-to either on private land with permission to take a few .. what's the English word for young tall tree about as thick as a wrist? anyway, them, or where the SM had dropped the precut tall thin debranched trees for us to work with in advance. But this didn't really change how we slept in terms of relative body location - it's even more important to huddle together in the lean-

No, it was a summer model without a wood stove, but all the combined body heat also did help on chilly spring, summer, and fall nights. We did lie right next to each other (resulting in quite a bit of trying not to step on your patrolmates when you needed to pee in the middle of the night), helping hold on to our warmth. But backpacking with a cast iron wood stove and fuel for it would have been a bit much 😄

Of course we did backpacking. And our leaders made us divide up that whole heavy monstrosity to carry with us. At the time I thought it was ridiculous, but now as a leader I think it was in part for budget reasons (the reason given) but also in part to prevent miscellaneous interpersonal problems by keeping the whole patrol together.

We slept in big circular canvas tents. If you're looking to prevent sexual activity at scouting events, it's perfect. Only the most daring exhibitionists are going to have sex with an audience of people you personally know and will eat breakfast with the next morning. For the same reason it's hard to get away with CSA when the entire patrol is present at night.

Not saying nobody ever got together withing scouting, or that relationship drama can't cause problems, but again, scouting doesn't automatically turn into a meat market just because girls and boys are doing the same things. That's all I'm saying.

As long as it's consensual, I don't care. My point was more that scouting isn't automatically going to turn into a meat market just because you have girls and boys scouting together. I see a lot of FUD about this and since it's so far all scared speculation as opposed to lived experience I figure sharing would be helpful.

I never heard of them. I have, because I was trying to find just a regular scouting experience for my child with no semi-official Christian affiliation, no gender segregation, and applying the Scout Law and Oath to everyone all the time (no discrimination). They don't have the lineage, but I was willing to just fill my child in on BP and scouting myself, as a stopgap until US scouting got things sorted out. I tried contacting several listed chapters close to us but never got a response. I don't think they are as much of an option as it seems.

My troop had zero couples in my entire time. All coed all the time including tenting together.

If that were true, millions of young people all over the world wouldn't have developed into the adults they are today. But we did. And even if you take it as true - scouts isn't a gender identity curation movement. We're an inclusive outdoor adventure organization.

I lived it - actually more than what the current proposal is, because gender wasn't a consideration for patrol formation - and my experience was positive. Not just "not bad". The presence of both genders in the patrol was both a moderator of antisocial behavior in both genders as well as a key condition of real-world leadership training. I was bullied in middle school, and scouting was my refuge, too. I can relate to that. And maybe you personally did need a single-gender environment right then. I'm not you, I don't know. But your experience isn't the only possible one. I needed a mi