Early this morning the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy:
I have mixed emotions about this - I know many who loved their time in Boy Scouts, but I also have a childhood friend who was sexually molested by his troop leader. The other adults in our local Boy Scouting organization really let my friend down, especially since they never believed his story.
Is this the beginning of the end of Boy Scouting in the US?
So sad. Our son gained so many valuable skills through this organization.
However, all parents should have a personal responsibility to be actively involved in the children’s activities. H volunteered to attend every camp out. Many other parents merely dropped their son off.
Sadly, our society has little or no personal responsibility any more.
Wow… Last year I volunteered at a medical tent for their world wide jamboree. Just to be there I had to pass a pretty intense written test and sexual abuse and other things came up
The driving force was never be alone with a child for any reason. Always have someone else with you. Now I know why I had to take this intense test…
It’s a shame since the troop leaders and children really seemed to enjoy themselves.
Also in Europe it’s just Scouting. With boys and girls. The Europeans kids didn’t understand why it was a separate entity. One girl told me that both the girls and boys are her friends and she enjoys doing this type of stuff with both of them. It seemed to be a much more mature stance.
@ksm - I’m not making the connection between lack of personal responsibility and the sexual abuse cases at BSA. Is your position that if the parents were present at all activities that no molestation would have happened? If so, I strongly disagree. Sexual abuse happened both at BSA and the Catholic church at times when parents were on site. This is not an issue caused by lack of parenting, it’s an issue that happens and is allowed to continue when organizations choose to protect the organization instead of the victims.
Thank you for posting such a comprehensive article. I am involved in Scouting and have seen (and participated in) the changes made since then: Required youth protection training, new rules and policies in place, etc. Interestingly, the two organizations that I volunteer in that have the MOST rules/checks/policies/required training in place are the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church…reactions to their past abuse and negligence, but positive steps nonetheless.
That said, it all needs cleaned up and victims must be compensated, so it may be the end. To think that Philmont may be no more is sad but nowhere near as sad as all of these abused boys. I hope that the prestige of an Eagle Scout award is not tarnished by this, but it could be. BSA’s reputation has plummeted, understandably.
I find it slightly interesting that in such a detailed article, the reasoning behind the Mormon’s pulling their financial support is not disclosed. This happened when BSA reversed their stance on prohibiting gay leaders.
ksm, be careful, it sounds a bit as if you are blaming the victims’ parents! The personal responsibility lies with the abuse perpetrators only and the organization for keeping it covered up for so long.
I do believe BSA has tried to clean it up and prevent abuse and cover ups moving forward, at least that is what I am seeing in my local district. I’m not sure what to think about the opinion that the bankruptcy purpose is to avoid payouts or limit future reporting. There seem to be both benefits and drawbacks to victims with the bankruptcy declaration.
Really ksm, I don’t see how blaming parents who were unable to attend every event makes sense. Great that your DH could do so, but many families in scouting have other children or other commitments. That doesn’t make them bad parents or to blame for their child being molested. In many troops, not every parent would be allowed to attend or to attend for the entire time. It is not designed to be one-to-one parent and child.
My kids got a lot out of being boy scouts, although the policies of the national organization caused them (and us) to sour on scouting and my youngest stopped participating (mostly due to the dissolution of the troop and timing but also due to some of the positions taken by the BSA).
Sadly, in light of circumstances today, I do not think there are very many adults who will volunteer their time to spend with with unrelated children. I will not anymore. Not worth the hassle, and I am an late middle aged woman.
This makes me sad. I hope this doesn’t mean the end of Scouting.
What will happen to a place like Philmont which is so wonderful.
Due to its sponsorship by conservative churches, the BSA was historically a boys only organization whose oath included “morally straight” that was interpreted as “not gay”.
But that meant that any action or inaction on allowing gay people or girls would reduce the BSA’s appeal among significant parts of the population. Indeed, the appearance of Navigators USA (coed, LGBT friendly, secular) and Trail Life USA (founded in reaction to BSA allowing gay boys, more explicitly Christian religious), and the CJCLDS moving away from sponsoring the BSA toward its own youth program, suggests a fragmentation of scouting in the US that indicates that the BSA was moving too slowly for some and too quickly for others on certain hot button social and political issues.
But this fragmentation also means that youth will be more likely to grow up in social and political bubbles. Perhaps their parents want it that way, but that is a recipe for greater social and political divisiveness in the future.
Bankruptcy doesn’t always mean the end. To the extent there are viable assets (such as campgrounds), those likely get sold. Some may go to developers but others likely remain as campgrounds.
Impact on local troops may vary. Many troops/packs are self funding. They do not get much from BSA (or even the local BSA chapters). Others depend on BSA for a significant portion of their funding and support. Those I would expect would be hurt the most (and unfortunately those are the kids who really need the support – hopefully other groups will help fill the void).
A line of demarcation between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts was (at least locally) parental involvement. Parents ran everything at the Cub level. They were at every meeting and all the camp outs and other activities. Boy Scouts was designed for less parental involvement. Boys were older and thus were beginning to move towards being on their own. There were adult leaders (vast majority of whom were also parents) and also scout leaders who ran/planned meeting, camp outs, activities, etc.
Article says they think the scouts will be a bigger problem than the catholic church. I will wait and see on that one but to me, the CC is one of the most corrupt organizations ever devised by man. High hurdle to overcome there.
Our home property abuts two very large (probably 400 acres total) scout camps. Much of the property is wetlands, and it’s mostly wooded. It makes a great camp. It’s in three towns…so would be subject to some zoning regs if they decided to subdivide and build homes, for example.
It’s a hugely utilized scout camp. Camping all full weeks in the summer, and most weekends from September through June.
Excellent facilities that they have upgraded over the years.
I would hate to see that go away.
Ksm, my dad was my coach when the head of our league molested me. It didn’t stop anything. Putting the blame on parents is absolutely disgusting.
For BSA, I really feel zero sympathy. They chose to turn a blind eye for decades. My best friend is an eagle scout and he was molested for years by different leaders and even older boys. Since he wasn’t raped, he didn’t realize at a young age that what was happening wasn’t normal.
He swore if he ever had kids, he wouldn’t let them do boy scouts
While there clearly were huge problems, many kids did benefit from their time in BSA. You will find that there are very few uncompetitive activities for kids who are school age, and that is a niche that will be missed.
@ucbalumnus , the BSA has been expressly accepting homosexual and transgender individuals as members and leaders for a couple of years. Separately, girls are now able to become members as well @Knowsstuff
An article of the history of their changes on these issues over the years:
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boy-scouts-evolution-2017-story.html
Though DH and I were not exactly fans of some policies of the BSA, our son loved scouting and participated from kindergarten through his senior year of high school. When time constraints due to attending boarding school thousands of miles away from his home troop threatened his ability to complete all of his Eagle requirements on time, he seriously considered coming home to finish high school because scouting was such a fundamental part of his life that he couldn’t conceive of having gotten so far and not attaining a goal he’d been working toward most of his life. He is a West Point grad and Army officer who maintains to this day that his proudest accomplishment was earning his Eagle rank.
The Eagle Scout award is important to our military, too. It has a point value that is counted toward the Whole Candidate Score used by the service academies to determine appointments as the academies believe that the level of work, dedication, and leadership inherent in the achievement aligns well with what they look for in future officers. Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts make up a significant part of each incoming class:
But, despite the importance of scouting to our family and the great experience it was for our son and many others like him, we believe the organization has a lot to answer for and, like @romanigypsyeyes, I feel zero sympathy for its institutional blindness. DH and I struggled with this from the get-go because while we were aware of the abuse cases, that was not the experience in our local troop where DH was part of Cub and Boy Scout leadership, and the kids benefited so much. We had mixed feelings to say the least.
The BSA needs to be called to public account and suffer whatever damages it must. It’s too early to tell how the bankruptcy will play out, but I hope that there is some form of justice that appropriately punishes the organization without dissolving all that is good and beneficial to the kids. I agree with @roycroftmom, but I hope this is a niche that will not be missed but rather re-invented. The brand has been irreparably tarnished; that horse left the barn a long time ago. My hope is that a new and more inclusive organization similar to the European model will take its place so that the positive capital is not entirely lost and those great dens and troops out there will have an untarnished umbrella to operate under going forward.
Scouting has indeed helped many but it’s tragic and wrong that it harmed so many trusting people. I’m grateful my S was helped and not harmed by it and enjoyed scouting and becoming an Eagle Scout.
Institutions which allow people to prey on defenseless young children sicken me.
That is why I wrote “historically” above. The founding of Navigators USA predated the BSA’s acceptance of gay scouts in 2013, presumably in part because of non-acceptance before then. The founding of Trail Life USA was presumably in part a conservative reaction to the BSA’s acceptance of gay scouts.
Perhaps the BSA will fade to irrelevance as both liberal and conservative parents steer their kids toward the newer scouting organizations, which also do not have many decades of sexual misconduct baggage.
My nephew (high school sophomore) has his heart set on attaining Eagle Scout. He just was honored with the last rank before Eagle. Do you all think the organization will go under before he has a chance to finish?
I wonder how they check who actually did the work.
The new organizations without the BSA baggage will be much less safe than today’s BSA. BSA has had to face the damage that has been done, and put in place systems and training to greatly reduce risks. The new organizations are being formed by good and decent people who don’t think they have pedophiles in their organization, or think they would recognize them if they show up. And they are wrong about that, as were the Scouts and the Catholic Church.
It’s not a scouting problem, it is a human problem. A new organization that isn’t scared to death of this problem is the biggest risk kids face.