Troop Leader and Out -of-Wedlock Child

[John-in-KC 311]

Lisa,

 

I think I agree with you in your last. Every case has to be taken on its merits. Generalizations only work to a point.

 

That said, the young widow, AFAIAC, has her child in wedlock. It's her sadness that her husband gave his life to our Nation.

 

The young woman whose husband abandons her also AFAIAC has her child in wedlock. It's her sadness she chose someone who wasn't willing to honor the marriage vow.

 

In the end, I still think Beavah nailed it: This is one reason we have Chartered Partners. They, not us fellow Scouters, are the ones who must sign off on a leader. They're the ones who have to do the truly deep searching.

[Trevorum 24]

Ed, I agree. That is one twisted view of "honor".

[Novice_Cubmaster 10]

Deja vu?

 

This thread is starting to sound like the infamous Dan Quayle vs Murphy Brown battle of wits.

NC

[DanKroh 11]

Sorry to return late to the discussion, but I was with my son's troop this weekend for our annual Family Campout. Me (a single parent) and my two sons. Sorry if we don't fit the definition of a family to some, but the troop seemed happy to have us.

 

FScouter said:

"It is selfish, self-centered, and morally reprehensible to intentionally bring a child into the world with no father.

 

AND ... the right thing to do for a baby conceived and born against a woman's choice is to give it up for adoption to a family with BOTH a mother and a father. There is no honor in raising a child with only one parent."

 

You know, this argument would be a lot more convincing if there was ANY INCONTROVERTABLE evidence that children prosper better in any measurable category in two-parent homes than single-parent homes. The same argument is used against children in same-sexed parent homes, despite evidence to the contrary.

 

So, FScouter, where exactly is the cutoff for when it is acceptable to be a single parent? You say that a child should not be born into a single-parent home. What if one parent dies when the child is a year old? Should that child be put up for adoption? What about a month old? Does that one month of having a second parent make all the difference?

 

The honor in being a parent is to be loving, nuturing, and supportive. How many people (or their gender) who are doing the parenting is irrelevant.

 

Sorry for continuing the derailing of this thread (I really just thought I was answering Beaver's question), but as a single parent, I really felt the need to respond to these outrageous statements.

 

Because my only other response, like Trev (and Ed, even!) was just, "Wow".

[FScouter 24]

An adoptive mother and father will be able to provide a more nurturing environment for a child than a solitary mother. Adoption places the interest of the child ahead of the unwed womans personal desires. Giving up a baby for adoption to provide the best home and nurturing environment for the child and is an honorable course of action.

 

The woman in this case got herself knocked up, then chose to bring the baby up with no father. There is no honor in what she did. She has placed her personal feelings and desires above the well-being of the child. That is selfish and self-centered.

[DanKroh 11]

"An adoptive mother and father will be able to provide a more nurturing environment for a child than a solitary mother."

 

Proof, please? (From someone other than James Dobson)

 

"Giving up a baby for adoption to provide the best home and nurturing environment for the child and is an honorable course of action."

 

Yes, I agree that when ANY parent or parents are unable to provide a suitable home for a child, giving it up for adoption is a noble action. However, I find the assertion that a single parent automatically cannot provide such an environment, or an environment that is inherently inferior to that of two parents, to be unsupported personal opinion. Which you are, of course, welcome to have, but perhaps would be better to label it as such instead of trying to state it as fact.

 

You do know that there are agencies that will allow single parents to adopt, don't you?

[Hunt 11]

"The woman in this case got herself knocked up, then chose to bring the baby up with no father. There is no honor in what she did. She has placed her personal feelings and desires above the well-being of the child. That is selfish and self-centered."

 

It's interesting to me to see this view expressed, and apparently as what I would call a conservative view. I can remember when keeping the baby was seen as the honorable, self-sacrificing action, while giving it up for adoption was the selfish action, because that freed the mother (and often the father too) of further responsibility for it. While I agree that, on average, it's better for a child to have both a father and a mother, I'm not so sure that a particular unwed mother can feed confidence that her child will be better off with strangers than with her. I think such a decision will depend on a lot of factors, and it's impossible to make a blanket statement about what is the "honorable" thing to do.

[ASM915 90]

DasnK,

None of my business, but I know you have tough skin and don't get rattled by personal questions, Divorced, Widowed, Single? Might help some understand what angle your coming from.

 

FScouter,

What if daddy or mommy die in a marriage? Is it really selfish of the other parent to want to hold onto a part of that love, and pass it on to the child?

Parents unable to provide for the child should give them up so they cam have a better life? that's what WELFARE is for. When dad was out of the picture for a few years, that is what mom used to get over the hard times. Hasn't used it since. Thank God my brother and I weren't thrown up for adoption just because of a few bad years like Grandad Murphy. Born just off the boat, poss. on boat, just before arriving. Parents arrived in rural Ohio to farm, found out how hard things were, and put a couple of kids up for adoption, to only show up a few years later when things were good to try and lay claim to the kids. Granted, the system is severely abused, and for all the wrong reasons.

[DanKroh 11]

ASM915,

 

Widowed, when my youngest was 13 months old. Been a single parent ever since, with no real interest in changing that. And I know many other single parents, some of them by choice, who are wonderful parents and whose children do not suffer for the lack of a second parent.

 

However, to try to relate back to the original topic, while I do not automatically agree with removing the SM for "moral turpitude" without more information, I hope that the young mother would realize the huge commitment she has just let herself in for, and that being an SM might be an unnecessary distraction from her new charge.

[evmori 11]

The woman in this case got herself knocked up

 

So the assumption you are making, FScouter, is this woman was just having sex willy nilly & got pregnant. And you know this how?

 

And BTW, I an a little offended in the terminology being used, "knocked-up" by FScouter, especially since this poster is a moderator. Seems a little crass to me.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[FScouter 24]

The right thing to do is what is best for the child. It doesnt matter one whit to the baby how its mother got pregnant. When a girl gets herself in a family way, decisions will have to be made. The honorable choices will be those that put the interest of the child FIRST. An unwed mother, working full time, dropping the kid at day care every day, and no father is not going to be a better choice than two adoptive parents, one of whom stays home raising the child.

 

Selfish and self-centered is when the adult puts his personal desires first, and the childs interests second, or worse.

[acco40 95]

I think many of you are confusing the original question, "What is the concensus on a single leader with an out-of-wedlock child?"

 

It looks like there is no concensus. The BSA requires that a Scoutmaster be at least 21 years of age, fill out an application (which has the religious declaration of principle), "pass" a background check, and the key - obtain approval by the chartering organization. The Scoutmaster is appointed by the head of the CO, not elected. Now, as for individual troop members, they can "vote" with their feet. If they feel an individual is inappropriate as a Scouter they may change troops, but should not try and remove that individual. That is not the function of the members of the troop. One could utilize the Unit Commissioner to see if the person in question would be willing to step down but I would not try any form of coup d'etat.

 

A similar debate occurred when the BSA allowed females to become Scoutmasters in the 70s (?). How could it be possible for females to be proper role models for boys many pondered. I'm a pragmatist. Is this Scoutmaster in question the best available for the job? Maybe, maybe not. I'm a typical Scoutmaster - married, kids in the troop, overweight (hey I'm working on it!), with many other committments pulling at me simultaneously (work, daughter, troop, church, council, district, etc.). Am I a perfect role model? Of course not, but I realize that I am being "watched" by the boys. Heck, some say a 22 year old female would be distracting but maybe the boys would pay more attention to a young (in my view) female than to a middle aged man old enough to be their father!

 

 

[acco40 95]

I thought some may find the following article (May 1988) amusing:

 

CAN WOMEN TEACH BOYS to become men? Since their founding in 1910 the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has answered with a thunderous "no." But recent challenges have exposed the shaky psychological and legal foundations of that position, and in a surprising reversal of official policy, the Scouts decided recently to allow women to lead Boy Scout troops.

 

The decision by the National Executive Board removed gender restrictions on all volunteer positions of leadership within the BSA. "It is time to recognize that in a changing society the unique strength of our organization lies in the dedicated efforts of both men and women," the group stated.

 

Civil suits brought against the Boy Scouts by two women, Catherine Pollard of Milford, Connecticut, and Phyllis Gibson of Santa Barbara, California, may have been at least partially responsible for the BSA's new position. Pollard, a feisty 69-year-old grandmother, asked in 1974 to be formally recognized as the scoutmaster of a troop she had run successfully, but unofficially, for four years. Her request was denied in 1974, and without a male adult willing to take her place, the troop eventually disbanded. Pollard sued.

 

"Even the Boy Scouts admitted that I'm capable of running the troop," Pollard says. An avid nature lover and a dedicated music teacher, she directs the school band (9 out of 10 members are boys), is an official Scout bugle instructor and has been the bugler for a local volunteer fire department for the past 45 years. "When I was a member of the troop committee of the local Boy Scouts," she says, "I was even chosen to train the male Scout leader. But I couldn't be the scoutmaster myself."

 

Last summer Pollard lost her battle in court. But Gibson's fight continued. An administrative assistant at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Gibson had attempted to assume partial responsibility for her sons' week at a Boy Scout camp. Since her divorce in 1978 Gibson and her teenage sons had gone camping together regularly and for five years she had served as a temporary adult supervisor at a Boy Scout camp in California.

 

Since many of the boys from Troop 129 came from single-parent households, the potential shortage of adult supervision for the week-long camping trip inspired several parents to devise a rotation among three fathers and three mothers. Each parent, including Gibson, agreed to take one day and one night at the camp.

 

Preparations for the camping trip were halted, however, when Gibson received a letter from the county Boy Scout Council, which reminded the adults: "as you plan your camp leadership schedules, bear in mind the national BSA policy that adult troop leadership is a men-only situation... a scoutmaster in camp must be male and over 21 years of age."

 

Frustrated and angry, Gibson sought legal help from Gloria Allred, one of California's leading feminist attorneys, and filed a suit against the Boy Scouts of America this past October, alleging that the men-only policy was a violation of the state's civil-rights law. Not only was Gibson being denied equal opportunity because of her sex, Allred claimed, but the boys themselves were being deprived of the camping experience because there weren't enough men to supervise them. The lawsuit demanded that Gibson and other women be judged on their merit, rather than their gender.

 

Gibson won an initial hearing in December, after which the Scouts offered to settle the case out of court. Then in February the BSA announced its new position.

 

Despite the BSA's change in policy, it didn't directly address the issue of whether women can lead boys as well as men can. The decision seems to reflect practical, rather than psychological, considerations. In its statement the BSA cites the cost of litigation "both in terms of money and in the perception of what we are" as a major reason for changing official Scout policy. The Scouts may have decided it was better to make the change themselves, rather than to be forced into it. As Barclay Bollas, national news editor of the BSA, admitted, "We are not about to be told what to do by the courts."

 

So it is unclear whether the Scouts' new policy has been accompanied by a true change in attitude. Until now the Boy Scouts of America has argued that "developing boys...need a close association with adult males who can provide models of manhood." The Scouts maintained, as public relations director Frank E. Hebb noted in March 1987, that "it is helpful for a boy going through the difficult process of maturing to adulthood to have a close relationship with an adult male outside the home."

 

In 1981 retired Chief Scout Executive J.L. Tarr said in a statement challenging sexism charges that the "importance of male scoutmasters may be greater today than it ever was," since the growing number of single-parent homes means that unprecedented numbers of mothers "have had to face the task of raising their boys to manhood alone." Many of these mothers are grateful that the Boy Scouts can provide male role models, Tarr said. In addition, he noted, a boy has "ample opportunity in our society to be exposed to adult females in his school, church and elsewhere."

(This message has been edited by acco40)

[Lisabob 13]

" An unwed mother, working full time, dropping the kid at day care every day, and no father is not going to be a better choice than two adoptive parents, one of whom stays home raising the child. "

 

Boy FScouter, you are making quite a few assumptions here, some of which strike me as not only offensive, but just a little weird. Who said that an adoptive family would consist of one working parent and one stay at home parent, anyway? That's the latest "Huh?" moment for me. And you apparently suppose, as well, that the biological mother has no social network (extended family, friends) to rely on for help while either your imaginary adoptive family does not need these, or has them aplenty? You do realize that not every 2 parent family is like Ward and June Cleaver, right?

 

You know, as recently as the 1960s it was not uncommon for women in many jobs such as teaching, nursing, and others, to be fired if they were known to have become pregnant without being married. This held, in some cases, even if they gave the baby up for adoption or had (usually illegal) abortions. The shame and anguish that this undoubtedly produced for generations of women and their children is something that we are not better for, as a country. Yet I sense that you would be ok with returning to such a time and such a policy.

 

At the end of the day I think acco is correct - the call here belongs to the CO, and there is no consensus within the scouting community.

[ASM915 90]

FScouter, Take a good look at the Ohio couple who fostered and adopted several children, only to be caught caging the children at night or when the kids were supposedly misbehaving, sometime back in 2005 or 2006. The kids might have been better off with their single parent families.