Boy scouts
It is a while away with Connor only pushing 22 months old.
But we have already had several uncomfortable silent or non-commital moments surrounding his potential boy-scout hood. We have a united front that as it stands he will not be a boy scout and that we should address how we feel about it with him prior to it becoming a want for him.
As long as the boy scouts officially disallows homosexual or atheist members we are unwilling to support them as they don't reflect our family values. However, they reflect a lot of other community/family values we do find honorable. And they just seem so much not on the front lines of the culture wars and so innocuous, it is hard to summon up a will to go to bat against them!
Plus to give an answer as to why no for Connor seems to make an atagonist relationship with other parents.
If anyone reads this, what say you, LOL?
posted by Kat at 7:26 PM
4 Comments:
OH! I need to do a blog post about this (and probably stir up a ton of shit). Bailey has asked every single year we've been in Texas (now his 3rd) if he can join Boy Scouts, because they run it through the school. 1st year, I blew him off. Last year, said he was too busy with karate. This year? I had it and said "No, I am opposed to that organization". He asked why and I said "Because they don't believe that it's okay for boys to love boys, and I don't want you to be part of an organization that feels that way". He got very quiet and thought about it for awhile, and hasn't asked again.
Maybe he's too young for me to lay that on him, but I was just so sick of hearing about it. And he DOES know that not everyone thinks it's okay to be gay (and that his parents are not okay with people thinking that way!) so I'm sure he was able to make sense of it. Yeah, there is some guilt in keeping something from my kid based on my own agenda. But I'm sorry, I just can't do it.
So what do you say to parents who ask?
I feel pretty comfortable about explaining it to Connor when he gets past saying truck and bus to any attempts at in depth conversations. Maybe him knowing why he won't join will take care of me having to say anything.
We have already been asked by several parents in the neighborhood and I have always said I think we will have them involved in x,y, and z and we want to limit activities. That we would do family camping trips, etc.
Seems I am being dishonest to keep the peace. Also seems that if I tell the next door neighbor that we think the boy scouts don't reflect our family values and we don't want to teach our son that discrimination is ok, well that opens up a can of worms!
Kat
I haven't had anyone ask, but if they did, I would be straightforward and honest "we don't approve of their stance on homosexuality". But then, I'm used to making waves around here. :)
Hi Kathy, Cara Hatfield (now Pianka) here. I saw your comments on Tracey's blog, so here I am on yours.
Hope all is well. E-mail me at carapianka@hotmail.com.
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