I need your advice. But before you can give me your opinion, take a moment to walk in my shoes. My eldest is a member of a Girl Scout troop. She happens to love being a Brownie, despite the fact that I think her group is made of kids from the Land of Misfit Children.
The troop leader is a woman who lives for the Girl Scouts. She has been involved with the group since she was a young girl and continues to be very active. She also happens to be extremely religious and I discovered that she asked the other Catholic girls in the troop to earn a special Mother of God badge. They secretly met on two different occasions and earned a merit on their own. Mind you, my kids attend a public school, not a Catholic one.
When I heard about the clandestine meeting I was furious. For one, why was she bringing religion into a secular activity? Second, why was she being so divisive by allowing only Catholic kids to earn a badge? My eldest will definitely notice she does not have that award and will ask why she couldn’t earn one. What should I say when she asks me about it?
This is when I want you to pretend you are me for a moment. You are American. You are born and raised here. But you happen to belong to a minority faith. Now, imagine I’m the troop leader. Imagine I took a few select girls and earned an Islamic badge. Have your feelings changed?
I wanted to confront the leader but my husband stopped me. “Do you really want to be the pain in the ass mom?” he asked. “Do you want people to look at you and say, ‘Ugh. Here comes that annoying Muslim woman again,’?”
“This is a matter of principle,” I said. “It’s wrong to bring religion into what should be a fun social activity. Especially one that is supposed to be about diversity, understanding and tolerance.”
He agreed with me but said he worried I would be hurting Lily by making such a big deal. I worry about that, too.
So, readers, what would you do? Would you just let this slide, or would you express your dismay? Leave a comment and let me know.
Photo by Marek Waldhans, courtesy of stock.xchng
9 comments:
That troop leader was wrong, wrong, wrong and you have every right to say something to her but . . .
My advice is to wait. Wait a couple of weeks and see how you feel. I notice that if I act right away in the heat of the moment I'm usually too emotional. So, I say wait and if you still want to confront her in a couple of weeks do it. You will have had plenty of time to plan your complaint exactly.
Really been mulling this over for a while. She's wrong. Especially at this age level. I am a scout leader for 3 years, and became one because I was fed up with poor leadership in my daughters' brownie troop, so careful here!
While Girl Scouts is no-doubt a christian-rooted organization--we start the meetings with the pledge of allegiance, and the promise and law which states, "...serve God and my country..."(what does your daughter do at that point?)-- it is ultimately a fair, open, and all-inclusive organization.
I have a number of Catholic-school girls along with a majority of public-school girls. I am aware of the MANY religious patches out there, and make the info available to those families. But my girls are middle-school-age, and are at a stage where they do many independent projects. At Brownie level, they should be doing things together. ALL together. And if there's a separate project, the leader should have made it known to the rest of the families. Better yet, had a catholic mom take on leading the project, so the leader can remain impartial.
As to whether or not you speak up? How many were excluded? Have you talked to those moms? I'd have a hard time not speaking up, but that's how I ended up a troop leader. Can't do anything about it, if you're not going to DO anything about it.
I can give you info on becoming a GS leader.
hee.
Oh, yikes. The troop leader was WAY wrong in how she handled that. I’m now the co-leader of Erin’s Junior troop, and there’s no way we’d EVER hold meetings that the entire troop wasn’t aware of and invited to attend. That simply goes against what the Girl Scout organization is all about! I personally am not a fan of the religion-based badges/pins that the girls can earn (whether they’re for my – minority as well – religion or not), but if you’re going to ask some troop members to earn them, ask everyone, even if they might not be interested.
Were other troop parents aware of it, and are they upset as well? While I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be that PITA mom, what the leader did was clearly out of line, and I do think it should be addressed, maybe not so much from a religion standpoint (although I’d love to see her reaction to your point about taking a few select girls and earning an Islamic badge!), but just from the point that by not inviting everyone to participate, she went against the very ideas of what Girl Scouts are all about, and how the non-invited girls will feel to know that they were deliberately left out.
Good luck, and definitely keep us posted on how it turns out!
Oh, and FWIW, Erin’s Brownie troop was much like what you’ve described, but she loved it, chaos and all. I think many are like that. At that age, it’s hard to make a group of girls sit still and focus on anything, and much of the time, the leaders just can’t tackle the task. Thankfully, her Junior experience thus far has been much different, and definitely worth both of our time and effort. :)
The leader was wrong for doing something that excluded or favored any particular group. I tend to think your husband has a point. You will not change the leader just perhaps only her perception of you and your children. If you must, maybe go at her gently with questions that suggest you are interested and compassionate about understanding the impact the girls in the troop, those with the badge and those without. It seems that it could only compromise a sense of unity. If they all have opportunities to earn badges of faith or culture and can maybe share info with others in troop, that could be nice. No?
UGH.While the leader was unquestionably wrong perhaps we should pity her lack of
Truly understanding the meaning of the Girls Scout law/promise that she is teaching to her scouts. Instead of being very angry with her why not try and help her see the era of her ways. Nothing good can come out of anger. Perhaps this leader didn’t want to hurt feelings so she held these private meetings. We all know that the right thing to do would have been to address the entire troop and offer information on earning religious awards. Perhaps she didn’t know that there were awards for other religions because as stated in a previous response Girl Scouting does have roots deep in Christianity but, you and I both know that she probably did and shame on her for not doing so.
I might approach the leader and explain to her that
Other children would be interested in earning their religious badge. You might offer to help run this as a troop activity. The girls can report on the different steps they took to earn their religious badges. The girls are the future and the more they know and understand about each other the better place the world will be. Learning more about a person/people is the best way to stamp out injustice……
I can’t imagine that this leader won’t feel horrible and embarrassed when she sees a clearer picture of her actions and the effect that they have had on other members of the troop. It would have been nice and in keeping with the Girl Scout law/promise if she had done this in the beginning but, we cannot not go back we can only go
forward......
Thanks everyone. I appreciate everyone's advice.
I'll add my voice to those who think the troop leader was wrong. My husband is often (ok, always) the cooler head in our family, too. I agree that you should wait to address this, lest you end up a Brownie leader (eek!). The commenters here have offered some thoughtful suggestions - I would ask if your girls could earn religious badges, too, and explain that you'd hate for them to feel excluded.
Since I read this blog entry I have been thinking, what would I do, so here are my thoughts:
-definitely would not focus on religion, esp. involving Islam, because unfortunately you will get xenophobic responses rather than logical ones (your blog got a sampling of that, see my thoughts below on this).
- I wouldn’t want my child ruled out, because me – the mom – was “complaining”.
- I would however have an issue with the secrecy, divisive act of this leader (which sounds like she’s breaking Girl Scout Rules). I would first make sure other parents knew, and one thought I had would be to confront Leader, to express how I worried the other girls would see these new badges and start asking questions, and therefore ask that this Leader explain the situation to the rest of the Brownie girls who are under her “Leadership”! or I would by-pass Leader to talk to a more Senior leader expressing same concern … I’m not in full context here so can’t judge for sure how I’d go.
Good luck, you probably already addressed this, either way, I hope this Leader didn’t take the Team Spirit out of the girls !
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Here I have reactions to some comments made…
First a Rebuttal to comment: “…Girl Scouts is no-doubt a christian-rooted organization.”
- - after reading the Girl Scout website
inside out there is no reference/quote/or anything to state that as a “fact”. Website says, and I quote: “Girl Scouting is for every girl, everywhere—where today's girls can become tomorrow's leaders.”
Second, response to comment: “…we start the meetings with the pledge of allegiance, and the promise and law which states, ‘...serve God and my country...’ (what does your daughter do at that point?)”
- - Not sure if your reader thought by saying you’re Muslim that meant you’re an Atheist?? It's the same God, same country and hence same wonderful allegiance; Promise and Law.
** FYI. Girl Scouts is a world wide organization, the Promise and Law adjusts to each country, EXAMPLE: in United Kingdom the P &L includes: “To serve my Queen and my country”; ( Source #1 and
Source #2: Scout Promises
Nadia, I'm glad you commented. My husband also said something about the GS being Christian-rooted (there was a big debate years ago about gay leaders) and when I did the research I, too, did not find anything linking the two. That, however, doesn't mean it wasn't a Christian-rooted organization originally; it could just mean it was largely Christian and has caught up with the reality of our country.
Nonetheless, I'm glad you responded about the part when they spoke about God. Many people still don't realize the Islamic God is the same as the Christian and Jewish God, nor do they realize Jesus is the same Messiah as the one in the Bible. (I have written about this a million times on my blog).
Anyway, you have some good advice. I haven't done anything (yet) because I live in a tiny town and worry about the consequences. I'm still angry about it, I still think the leader was wrong and I'm still not happy with the divisive way she behaved. I'm mulling this over and will let you all know when I do say something.
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