A friend from across the country recently told me about a great thing. He said it was the best thing he’d ever done. I think that’s what he said, maybe he added “with his son,” but I think he just said “best thing ever.” …I wish he’d told me years ago!
His son is in Boy Scouts. He and his dad noticed that there were fairly significant limitations in that scene — most, I’m sure, by necessity.
As a side note, Scouting seems designed to prepare boys both for outdoor fun and for the real world. …The real world of the, what, 1940’s and 50’s. Now, this world still rightly exists in many areas of life. I mean the world of intense hierarchy and paperwork. Scouting seems like good prep for corporate life and the military, in short. This isn’t bad, of course. Many parts of life need such structure — any big org or project, for instance. There are also vestiges of social org hierarchy, social clubs of an earlier day. These also fill a need. Service clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis and the Lions. However, it may well be that many needs are being met in other ways these days. Does paperwork and meetings have to be the lifeblood of social life in addition to work life? It seems like intensely ordered and hierarchic behavior was very thoroughgoing not so long ago. Maybe it still is today but only in ways that are less apparent. ? …Likely. Still…it seems like quite a few people are opting out of apparent structure for parts of their live where it doesn’t seem necessary. Religion even applies here as well. Maybe people don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe people need to sit orderly and adhere to an elaborate protocol for every part of their lives. But I digress…
Dads can participate in Scouts but it’s somewhat indirectly. They can volunteer and fill positions.
My pal and his young teen son decided to set up their own Scouting program. The boys got their friends and their friends-friends to join. Everyone didn’t know everyone. But once a month all of them — and all their dads — got together and did something. Each month’s activity was decided by a dad and each year was planned out ahead of time. I suppose there were about 12 dad/son combos. It was a nicely-sized group. They called themselves The Guides, I think.
There were no real limits on the activities, other than wholesome and doable. It might be bowling, might be snowboarding. The dad and boy who picked that month’s activity acted as hosts.
And that’s about as far as the structure went. It wasn’t a “cover all the bases” truly “prep you for life” program that helped you acquire a wide variety of skills and values. It didn’t teach anyone much per se. I doubt that it had any paperwork or background checks. Actually, it probably DID teach kids a lot. Just indirectly and without a book and checklists.
What it did was give teens a chance to interact with each other and with each other’s dads at a time of life when a teen might not be interested in listening much to his own dad. If a dad tried to show his teen how to sharpen an ax, it might obviously be stupid and wrong and embarrassing. But another dad could show him to sharpen the ax in the same way and it would be cool. Eventually the teen might come to see that his dad wasn’t so freakishly different from the other dads.
It also let the dads kick back from time to time while their boys were running around. They could sit around a campfire and have a beer and unwind with some other guys.
And those 2 things seem like they might be big enough achievements for any youth group.
(I note that it’s not meant to replace Boy Scouts. Kids have more that needs to be done and learned than public school provides. The bases that Scouting covers need to be covered in a kid’s life. Both programs can fit in a life.)
