....The problem is, all these enterprising, manipulative, planning, pc-correct parents just want their child to get the "Eagle Scout" title, to make their further career advancements more manifest.
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Children are children, but years later, when they're in their lives and do something that they first learned in Scouting, they can feel proud that they earned it, and didn't just have mummy do all the work for them.
The role of parents in scouting has become overblown. It's one thing to provide motivation and direction for an individual, and another to do the work for them.
There is a lot of truth in there but I would argue that your statements do not only apply to scouts. You can substitute the word scouts for: 1) primary school and high school, 2) college, university, 3) instrument lessons, 4) organized sports (choose what strikes your fancy), 5) general playtime, 6) birthday parties, 7) dating, 8) dealing with death and grief, 9) tying their shoe laces ....................
I have two kids, one daughter 21 and a son who is 18. The daughter is moving in a great (read parent approved direction in life). She is in her last year of university, applying for graduate school at another institution out of the city. She is successful in her academics, makes great choices (accept for her POS boyfriend). My son is kind of a slacker. In some ways he is very intelligent in other ways he is very lazy. Doesn't like to apply himself, doesn't do well in school. He has good qualities too. He has great intercommunication skills, despite him doing screw up type things often enough (what boy hasn't) he respects us as parents and will do dumbass things but own up to them. He is a survivor and can deal with things independently, just can't manage an adult-approved career track. When I candidly talk to my cousins and family about my kids, they usually zero in on the son and usually end up making some off the cuff parental judgement about what I did wrong. We didn't do anything wrong - he was raised like his sister. He came into his personality the way that he did.
Usually these folks, the judgemental ones, are raising babies or toddlers. They have a false sense of the type of control a parent has over their children especially when their kids reach the teen years. Adolescents are genetically designed to be pains in the ass. Their rebellion genes turn on soon after puberty. It is an evolutionary dispersal mechanism. What kids need in during this time is an independent, but socially acceptable (both from their eyes and their parents) group. The BSA has been providing a service like that for years. Kids will always respect and love their parents, but they need other role models in their lives too. They need the kind of folks to teach them things while at the same time preserving their sense of - hey I'm growing up and don't need to learn everything from mom and dad.
Anyhow, I suspect that parents of today have drilled into them this control freak mindset. They try to control every step of their children's lives in the way that they think will produce a successful result. Most of these 'soccer mom' like control freaks actually don't have very successful lives themselves. They married well enough to be a middle class mom, or dad - so what makes them such an expert on the key to success? THERE ISN'T A KEY. However, they step into the boundaries of trying to control their children's every environment even when that kid is old enough and should be stepping away.
What is the result of this - the 4 lessons a week, basketball camp and 3:00 pm and hockey Saturdays? Maladjusted children. Kids who have not learned to time manage because they spend every minute of their life shuffling from organized/directed event to the next. Kids who do not know who to manage conflict resolution without a referee on board. Kids who do not know how to bend the rules (cops and robbers - Hey I shot you, you should be dead! - Reply - you got me but it was only a flesh wound -- keep playing). Kids who suffer psychological breaks in University - because when they flunk their exam, their parents can't fix it for them.
Phew.....Now I feel better....Good enough to start flunking out maladjusted kiddies this upcoming semester
