Lord Baden-Powell and Me, We’re like THIS

I don't get scouting.

Like, my little artsy-fartsy-Air-Force-bratsy-theater-girl-StayAtHomeMomma-WeirdFashionista-TravelerWoman-WriterChick-Who-Used-to-Dance brain cannot wrap itself around the whole Boy Scout-thing. Particularly Webelos.

*collective gasp from Badan-Powell aficionados and devotees*

Sorry. No insult intended. I never understood the Girl Scouts either. (However, I DO totally love Scouting founder Lord Baden-Powell's actual name: Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell. How cool is that? I love the British penchant for Why Have One Name When Fourteen Will Do? I should totally change mine. I don't have a middle name, and now I want one. I'm thinking of going with "Audrey Hepburn." As in: Janiel Audrey Hepburn Miller. Has a certain ring, don't you think?)

My husband would be appalled. He was a scout master for something like 10 years—on and off—and has attended boy's and girl's camps in some capacity or another for more than 20 years (for girl's camp, generally as Bear-Fighter and resident Pancake Maker.) I should understand it by association. But I don't. I can appreciate Baden-Powell's desire to give youth something to do, something to guide them. Give them a higher purpose in life. Teach them skills. I think that's a terrific thing–especially in this world. But there are things about it that kind of . . . freak me out.

I've been helping manage a den of 10 year-olds for almost 8 months now, and I am still befuddled by scout cheers. "We're excited! Let's all pretend we are holding half a watermelon, pretend to eat it, then pretend to spit the seeds, machine-gun style, all over the room! YAY BOYSCOUTS!"

Um. What's the connection between that and surviving in the wild, or helping little old ladies cross the street? 

Then there's Pinewood Derby. An activity designed for parents who want to symbolically win all the trophies they missed in Junior High and High School by forcing helping their little scouter-son build a perpetual motion device that hits Mach-7 on the derby-track at the local community center or church gym. High-fives all around! Oh yeah, you too, son.

And finally Activity Badges. A group of nine thousand awards ten year-old boys can earn. Badges involving communication skills, community service, showmanship, outdoorsmanship, engineering, forestry, geology, etc. They don't have to earn all of them but should earn most of them, plus a boat-load of arrow points and compass points, and wait! There are some you HAVE to earn, but some you don't, but you do if you want the Arrow of Light and Webelos badge. And some overlap, but not all. It's confusing. But not to worry for there is a chart that has all nine thousand badges, and belt loops and pins, plus a separate book specific to just two of the badges–and oh yeah there's Round Table to make it all clear. For reals. And  . . . oh. my. heart.

In truth, I love what scouting does for kids. I just need it massively simplified or I can't manage it in my so-far-right-brained-I'm-left-brained head. How 'bout the kids' dads, or dad-figures, just take them on campouts every weekend for a year, throw them in a lake to make sure they float, introduce them to Smokey Bear, then take them all to Lagoon or some other amusement park at the end of it all, and call it good?

And then let me go shopping. THAT I can handle.