Guyland

[AlamanceScouter 10]

This is an article written from a religious perspective but I thought fellow Scouters might find it interesting:

 

http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/2009/08/just-guys/

[Scoutfish 16]

It's a pretty good article, but isn't "guyland" just another way of saying -"Hormones gone wild!" ?

[Basementdweller 608]

It is a good read.

 

But the problem I and every other scouter face is....we have little true influence. We have all had brief successes reaching out to a particular scout and helping guide him.

 

Morally and Physically Bankrupt parents and friends are the biggest thing I fight.

 

I equipt my son with some tools to use when he is teased at school about being in scouts.

 

I when being teased or taunted have told him to ask them "What did you do last Weekend?" and to follow with "I went ________ with the scouts. Better than sitting on the couch in my opinion." He has recruited a couple using this line and he made one young man cry.

 

The sports guys tease him to I have suggested he use the "Yes, I see your point standing in left field is better than ________. or Being tackled is better than _______."

 

 

Today's boys are confused. Many if not most do not have a decent male roll model, very sad.

 

A short story, Last week one of the Scouts who went to resident camp on a campership picked up his son from scouts with a BRAND new $10,000 4x4 Quad (he was telling us about it) in the Back of his truck and was stinking of beer. Good role model????

 

[drmbear 10]

It may be taboo to mention this in Scouting nowadays, but I believe that women should not be in the line leadership of Scout Troops. This has absolutely nothing to do with their abilities in Scout skills, leadership, or anything else, because I know without a doubt that there are women that can do these things every bit as well as or even better than men. The critical point, though, is that they cannot be a man, cannot be that "decent male role model," and really cannot be what these boys growing into men really need at this point in their life, no matter how hard they try. This is a case where it is not about "knowing" something, but about "being" something. I've spent a lot of time over the last fifteen years studying what is typically referred to as men's work, looking cross-culturally at things like rites of passage and how men relate to each other and society. Books like Gillette & Moore's "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover" and Robert Bly's "Iron John" are just the start of my search, which also connected me with the Mankind Project (mkp.org) and an ongoing relationship with a great men's gathering (menswork.org).

 

In our society, men often form only one close, personal, emotional relationship with anyone, and that is usually a spouse. We build barriers around us with almost everyone else, at work, in organizations, in our communities. It's all posturing, starts during these years when we are going through Scouts, and works to separate us from real connection to others. Ask 100 women a trait they would like in men close to them and almost all would say they'd like them to be more emotional. Marvin Allen's book "Angry Men, Passive Men" describes the fact that men's emotions are actually very powerful and we learn to withhold them, particularly around women. Since we usually only have close personal relationship with spouse, it's often not even safe for us to be fully emotional as men with the one person we actually do have a connection with because it's a woman.

 

The idea of a rite of passage, cross culturally, through history, is to bring a boy into adulthood, but more importantly away from mother into a safe community of men with whom it is okay to be fully emotional as a man. If mom is along at the campout, it just ain't happening, and although it is not possible to provide all elements of this growth process in the Scouting program, it certainly provides a part of it. My son at eight years old isn't uptight about how he looks or being "cool," heading off to school with his hair sticking up in a goofy way until his mom pastes it down. I know that shifts in the next few years. What I remember about my Scouting experience is that posturing and worrying about what anyone else thinks also went away when I was off camping with my patrol and troop. It may have been little windows, but I remember anger, sadness, crying, joy, silliness, depression, freedom, and a full array of emotional expression that would go away completely on Monday morning when they were back in school. In my opinion, having women present takes away the possibility of it being a safe place for this kind of expression.

 

I could go on, but it's probably enough for now.