I was a scout, I made it to life then stopped going to church around 15. Even though it was largely connected to church, I remember it fondly. Scout is some of my best memories.

I think it’s a shame that they have fallen, however, I understand why it has.

I’m have three kids in scouting and I’m an ASM myself. I find it’s very dependant on the troop. I didn’t have a very good experience as a kid with mine, so I didn’t think I’d bring my kids into it. But when they were interested, we found a troop that turned out to be everything mine wasn’t as a kid. We accepted girls before it was officially allowed, and we’ve built a very strong, open and positive community. Enough that when they asked me to become an ASM, I happily accepted since my opinion of scouts had completely turned around.

There are still some pockets of the old guard that don’t like the direction of scouting these days. But with a good troop, it can be an amazing experience. My kids have grown and learned so much from their involvement. Me too.

Was one of the only organizations I knew of that was kid-run, with kids deciding what to do and how to do it. Great to get away from parents and go out camping once a month.

It seems good for people. Most people I’ve known who did it seem glad they did.

It’s one of those things where I wish the governing body was more separate from the concept, and I feel for people who dedicated a great deal of time to a positive force in their life yet have to grapple with what the institution itself is.

When i was a kid, i was so enthused by the idea of scouting. When i finally joined up i realized quick it was all a front to recruit kids to the church and I got out of there as fast as I could. I have hated the scouts ever since

I’m a former scout and current adult leader in BSA. It isn’t for everyone, but for the kids who click with the program I have seen it be a very positive activity in their lives. Individual experiences can vary greatly depending on the immediate peer group and the environment set by the adult leaders.

I am very glad that BSA has opened up to girls and LGBTQ+ members, and watered down the religious aspects. The organization is late to change but moving in the right direction. I also appreciate the current focus on youth safety and abuse prevention, though like the Catholic church it’s unfortunately too little too late for a whole lot of past victims.

it seems like the organization & movement as a whole has fallen by the sociocultural wayside.

Scouting in the US has been in decline since the 1970s. It didn’t help that they kept trying to cling to tradition and conservative values as the world evolved around them. The BSA particularly looked like assholes in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale in 2000. Then the BSA’s sex abuse cases started blowing up around 2015-ish. Then the LDS church closed all their scouting units in 2019, cutting the remaining BSA membership in half. It’s been a rough couple of decades.

It’s an essential part of any battle. You need to get an idea of enemy numbers and movements before you formulate a strategy.

I was a Boy Scout some years ago. I think as a programme to get young boys interested in outdoor activities it worked pretty well. As for the paedophilia scandals, I think they were intrinsic to how the group is organised. Their decentralised model that relies on volunteer scoutmasters is very prone to infiltration by people who have no business being around children and difficult to police because they can’t actually supervise each individual troop but are still legally responsible for them.

I also think they sort of lost the plot with their whole transgender nonsense and their pivot to the “Scouting America” brand. Their exclusion of transgender boys and heavy emphasis on religion indicated a severe failure to get with the times. Transitioning from the Boy Scouts of America to “Scouting America” is giving up on their core model of being an organisation that serves primarily boys.

Don’t take this in a bigoted way, I’m saying this not because I think gender segregation is good, but their core customer base (if you want to call it that) is teenage boys, and there’s an allure to that demographic in being a part of an organisation that is designed to serve boys, seeing that the Girl Scouts are also a thing. The Boy Scouts have a strong anti-radicalising effect because they teach boys to be accepting of others with differences and to be open minded and learn from them. And girls sorta know that Scouting America isn’t really for them, seeing that 80% of its membership consists of boys and the membership of the Girl Scouts USA (which is practically 100% girls) outnumber the female members of the BSA 5 to 1. So what’s left is an organisation which boys think isn’t for them, and girls also think isn’t for them. So who’s it for, really?

I can’t go this long without acknowledging that for every failure of the former Boy Scouts of America, there is a corresponding success of the Girl Scouts USA. The Girl Scouts is far more secular as an organisation to begin with, and they are also more progressive in that they accepted transgender girls over half a decade earlier than the Boy Scouts, who pretty much had to be dragged kicking into the 21st century. I remember in my Boy Scout handbook a line which said, roughly, that “the BSA is a secular organisation, meaning we don’t tell you how to worship, however, we believe boys cannot be their best selves without finding their connection with God.” And even 13-year-old me knew that was a load of doublespeak rubbish. The BSA was a deeply religious organisation. Boy Scout events had organised prayers and they said grace before every meal at the camps. There is a difference between acknowledging the religion of what may be a majority of your participants, and trying to nudge the remainder into it, and I think the BSA fell on the wrong side of that line.

So while I think the BSA was an imperfect organisation, I still think it’s a shame to see its decline.

My son has been in Cub Scouts for a few years and I help lead the pack. It’s been good for him and his friends, but fuck nationals. If our local pack agreed with the national organization’s right-wing politics and religious mandate I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it. But we make it pretty clear to the parents that we just ignore the rules that we think are not in line with our values.

I don’t love being part of an org with values that contradict ours, but if we abandon every problematic organization it will be very hard to find things to be a part of. And we can discuss with the kids the things that we don’t agree with, and also work from within the organization to improve it. If nationals ever came down on us we would probably just join one of the other scouting organizations that doesn’t hold right-wing views. And if the rest of the pack leader is caved to nationals I would pull my son out of the program.

Cub Scouts has a reasonably good education program for keeping kids safe from abuse, and it’s a requirement each year for parents to discuss these things with their kids. So most of the conversations I’ve had with my son about abuse has been because the Cub Scouts require it. In that sense, I feel like it has prepared him somewhat to get himself out of a bad situation if he ever find himself in one.

We’ll see if he wants to continue at the troop level. I will support him if he wants to, and the conversations we’ve had due to Cub Scouts make it less likely that anything abusive will happen while he’s camping with them.

I’m a fellow Eagle scout and I have an intrinsic bias toward other scouts that have completed their Eagle. It shows me that they hold values consistent or similar to my own. Namely the scout law and oath. Scouting taught me a deep emotional connection to nature and the way I interact with it. As with any organization, there’s going to be failures and tribulations, but I treat BSA guidelines as I do Catholic morality. It is what I make of it and if I take the core values that are meant to be gleaned from what it’s supposed to teach, then it’s difficult to argue that it’s had a negative impact on me or the people around me.

I would love to see a scouting Renaissance in the next few decades with the inclusion of women and queer members. There’s few other organizations or programs that are as well equipped to teach youth about nature and what it has to offer.

UK based here.

I was in scouts, and my little minion is now also in the lower levels.

I personally think it fills a critical need for a lot of kids. Schools are locked hard into the national curriculum, and don’t have time for the more character and skill building events. Scouts cover this nicely.

Regarding my local group. So far, my experience has been excellent. The kids adore it and they are doing a lot of fun learning. E.g. recently they did fire lighting. Learning to use matches, and basic fire safety around candles etc is an important skill. Learning as a group also means they learn from each other’s (minor) mistakes.

The group is also mixed gender. While it’s mostly boys, there are enough girls that it’s not intimidating for either gender. Its activities are “boy focused”, so most of the girls are of the tomboy mindset.

There are a few religious aspects attached to it. The pledge/promise mentions God. In practice it’s mostly non religious. What religious elements there are, are quite inoffensive. I’ve also noted that the older groups have a choice of pledge, including a non-religious/atheistic option.

Also, regarding some of the scandals, the UK government now has quite rigorous procedures in place to protect children. Enhanced DBS checks are required for adults in a supervisor roll. While not perfect, these checks stop someone jumping from area to area to avoid their past acts. Parents, teachers and other helpers are also a lot hotter on spotting minor discrepancies before they can escalate. It’s just done calmly and quietly, to avoid accidental witch hunts.

Basically, my minion loves scouts, and I am completely comfortable with them attending.

Boy scouts need to find something better to sell than popcorn to match the girl scout cookies.

Life scout here. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was a huge positive force on my childhood and created lifelong friendships.

I think that scouting helped me in a lot of ways, although the whole “help people with a smile on your face” has caused some major difficulties in my life w.r.t. self-care. I did OA stuff, Silver Moccasin one year and then followed up teaching at the next year’s event, and submitted my Eagle paperwork on my 18th birthday (late 2000s). I was openly an atheist, but my scoutmaster and many of the other adults in the troop (we had 50 kids and 100 adults) were very understanding, and I was able to pass my eagle board of review by talking about how I was still a spiritually active person.

I had a pretty ideal experience, and I’m glad I participated. I still use stuff that I learned, and scouting helped me discover that my limits were much further than I thought.

I’m sad that something which had the potential to be helpful turned into a nightmare for so many kids. If I had kids I might still look into some of the local troops, but I’d have to be heavily involved in order to feel comfortable.

My best friend was a scout and my older brother was, too. I never joined, I’ve never been a joiner. I never heard a thing about any abuse.

I did learn a lot from my friend and brother, and I read parts of the BS handbook (or whatever it was called). Learned about navigating with a compass, building a lean-to, building fires, first-aid, etc. from that book. It was all interesting because we used to go camping for summer vacation.

I bought a plywood kayak kit from the scouts, and built it, as did my friend. We had fun paddling around a reservoir with them.