Ear Rings

[torribug]

One of our former scoutmasters, still active with the Venture Crew, wears an earring. One of the current ASMs wears an earring. Several of the boys have long hair. My question would be, "where does it say that wearing an earring disqualifies you from sitting in a board because you're 'out of uniform'?" I would REALLY hope that none of the boys in our troop would come with facial piercings. But if they did, then barring any written rules, I would let them sit for their board. I might make light of the piercings - I'm known for speaking my mind - but it isn't my place to make up rules. I am sad to hear that the boy and his dad left the troop instead of standing their ground and affecting change within the adult leadership.

[FScouter]

The boy learned a lesson. Earrings on boys is not universally embraced by society. The Board was out of line, but I still think it is a trivial thing, and to quit Scouting over it seems like a severe reaction. The boy is going to have aa tough time later in life if he always insists on "standing his ground" over petty stuff.

[Trevorum]

Toribug - ... and one of our assistant Scoutmasters periodically dyes his beard green, while another has been known to dye his hair blue.

[torribug]

Yes, and up to the point where said leader had blue hair, I had successfully reasoned with a certain young man to NOT dye his black hair flourescent orange because he was in a leadership position. I acquiesced and told him he could. As of this writing, he hasn't done it because he doesn't want to pay for the supplies.

 

Adolescents (even grownups acting like them) need to make their individuality known. Hair will grow out, the piercing hole in the ear (or nose, or tongue, or ______) will close, and if we do our jobs as adults, they will go on to be great leaders despite the fact that they chose to be "different" for a while.

 

In elementary school, Castleboy had a modified Marine haircut. One weekend he bleached his hair (two-tone with just the crown bleached, back and sides still black) because a youth leader in his Young Marines platoon did. He went to school on Monday and caused quite a stir among students and faculty alike. All of a sudden, EVERYONE knew who he was. The following Monday, there were about 5 more boys that were sporting the same hairstyle - so much for individuality! Some parents questioned why I would allow such a thing. Being a consumer of Miss Clairol myself, I was not willing to be a hypocrite for something that is so temporary. It's about picking your battles. I still have some great pics, and we get a laugh out of looking at them.

[SemperParatus]

Yes the scout was brave...but he sure wasn't obedient when asked to remove it. Does one Scout Law trump another...or are we to only be obedient about those requests that we agree with? It is a shame that the scout has been taught that his earring is of such importance that it warrants walking out. Sounds to me like his parents have taught him to wear the earring on his sleeve as well as his ear - that is the unfortunate part of this story.

[torribug]

The boy should not have walked out of his board and quit over an earring. But Semper, I have to disagree with you on the rest of your post. Per the Boy Scout Handbook, Obedient is defined as "A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobeying them." I don't see where Obedience means that a scout should blindly follow the arbitrary orders of an adult that the child may or may not know (or trust) as a leader. To say that a scout is disobedient because he didn't do as he is told by an adult - just because that adult is in an authoritative position - is reckless. Think about where that could lead.

[SemperParatus]

So am I to take it that the snippet from the Boy Scout Handbook defines in totality what obedience is all about? What about the rules of your faith, your sports team, your clubs, etc. etc. Are you implying that because of their omission from the Boy Scout handbook that the BSA does not promote obedience in those areas as well. I seriously doubt that the language in the handbook was intended to be all encompassing and suggestive of disobedience in other spheres of life not otherwise listed in the handbook. I understand the need to show caution in the case of arbitrary obedience in potentially dangerous situations, but we are talking about a simple request to remove an earring that was made with other adults present. I doubt the scout's compliance would have led down a slippery slope of the kind of abuse we really fear.

 

Don't get me wrong - there is fault all the way around on this one.

[torribug]

No, the snippet from the Boy Scout Handbook doesn't define in totality what obedience is all about, but it defines the essence. My stance is that it is not quite right to say the boy was disobedient because he didn't comply to the whims of a reviewer. What about the rules of your faith, your sports team, your clubs, etc. etc.(bold emphasis added by me). I agree that rules should be followed. But he wansn't breaking any rules. He disagreed with an adult, placed in an authoritative position, who made up arbitrary "rules" as the game went along. Disagreement is not the same as disobedience.Now before it gets taken out of context, I would say that the necessity of obedience to a leader on an outing when there are safety issues (which, in turn are based on rules found in G2SS) and common sense issues ("get away from the ledge", "don't throw gasoline on the fire" "don't eat the yellow snow") are different circumstances and would be hard to argue with. Conditioning our youth to comply with adults "because I said so" breeds distrust/resentment toward the adult leadership, and in return impacts the effectiveness of said leadership.

[acco40]

Life is a great teacher. This young man found out that ear rings are not universally accepted by everyone. He could have very easily removed his ear ring(earring?) and got on with his life. He chose a different course. As long as he is willing to live with his choices, I am in no position to pass judgement.

 

For myself, we have a pair of identical twins in our troop. The only way I can tell them apart is one wears an ear ring, the other does not. Ona personal level, I don't like piercings period. I see it as an unecessary health risk for something that has no benefit. I'm currently disappointing my 10 year old daughter who believes she is the only girl in the world without pierced ears. Heck, even Oprah bows down to the vagaries of what our society judges as "beautiful." WIth the risk of sounding racist, pierced ears is about as appealing to me as the African women who put those big disks in their lips stretching them out or putting rings around their necks. Women are beautiful creatures in their own right without painting, stretching, or poking holes in their bodies.

[johndaigler]

I guess I'm gonna have to disagree on this one. I think this thread has focused on the wrong behavior.

 

We should be exclaiming over the SMs behavior - not the behavior of the boy. The SM doesn't represent society. He doesn't get to add his behavioral preferences to the requirements. He doesn't get to publicly embarass and/or negatively judge a young boy - certainly not for wearing an earring. He doesn't get to overrule the parents' decision to let the boy wear the earring.

 

"Old School" isn't a term that we get to use to describe people misusing their position because they were brought up differently than the young man standing in front of them. Let's not throw the Scout Law at the 11 year old and give the SM a pass.

 

It's not trivial. It's not a small matter that we have this great opportunity and responsibility to work with young men and their families. If we are small in our behavior, it minimizes all that we are and hope to accomplish.

 

We all know that each Scout's adventure depends mostly on the quality of the Leader most directly involved in the boy's Scouting experience. If this is near the beginning of that boy's 7 years of Scouting -- What the HECK can he expect from this point on? --- OK, this your test drive - you gonna buy this car??? I hope the boy and his father find another avenue into Scouting. I think the lesson the father and son learned is not the one FScouter and Acco40 think they learned.

 

MAYBE the boy and his father could have responded differently to the situation, but let's not trivialize the manner in which they were treated. How many of us would stand there and let someone make us do something, when they don't have the right/authority to make the demand??

 

I think we could jump this thread right into the old one about HAZING!

 

My $.02,

 

jd(This message has been edited by johndaigler)(This message has been edited by johndaigler)

[Hunt]

I think you'd have to know more details about the confrontation to really judge--but it may be that the boy understood the rules better than the adult did.

[FScouter]

So... who was the winner of the confrontation?

[Torveaux]

Nobody "wins".

 

A couple of things are missing.

 

If the Troop had an expectation that the boys would not wear excessive jewelry or some such to a formal review, they need to have informed the Scout and his parents beforehand. Did they? We do not know.

 

Whether or not we agree with earrings is not the question. If the Troop leadership (the boys, right?) decided that for them 'properly groomed' means without decorative jewelry, they can do that.

 

If the Troop did inform the boy and he wore it anyway, I think the onus falls back upon the boy and his family. Again, we do not know.

 

If this was simply 'out of the blue' then it was handled poorly by all parties involved. There is plenty of blame to go around. I didn't read the "A Scout is defiant" part of the law. The 'reviewer' needs to learn a great deal about how to handle things as well. If there was a problem, it should have been handled with tact and understanding especially with a new Scout.

[packsaddle]

This field has been plowed before. See, for example, the thread on body piercing, started on 20 Dec 2002.

I don't like mutilations of any form. However, I say nothing to scouts with piercings and tattoos because there is nothing I know of in the regulations regarding such and I defer to the parent(s). If I am asked I merely state my opinion. And as I mentioned before, I am often ignored.

[Greeneagle5]

As I stated previously, I wasn't present during the BOR (out of town) so I'm relying on 2nd hand info. There have been other Scouts (not many) in this Troop with a small tattoo, extremely long hair and/or ear jewelry (one made Eagle Scout 2 years ago)so the appearance of a small ear ring at a Troop meeting isn't a "shock" , and totally "out of order". I feel that we "shot ourselves in the foot again" as a previous poster commented. I just hope the young man that left the Troop will give Scouting another chance, hopefully sooner than later. I'm also hoping a few caring adults within the Troop might thoroughly discuss these issues to try and prevent it from happening again in the near future . Recruiting is already tough, this unfortunate occurance with a new Scout makes it a whole new challenge, I'm now concerned about his patrolmates. I blame this disappointment on inadequate training and poor crisis management skills within our corps.

G5