I come from a proud tradition of Eagle Scouts. My father and his 10 brothers hold the world record for most Eagle scouts in a single family [1]. It’s a record so unimportant the family remains unsuccessful in getting the Guinness Book of World Records to take notice. Despite Guinness’s ambivalence, my family made sure the importance of this award was emphasized by forbidding me from receiving my driver’s license until I had completed all requirements for my Eagle Scout. Which is why I started college with barely two months of solo driving experience. The quick reflexes of drivers around me in St. George, Utah remains the best evidence for the angelic protection of my Mormon ancestors. My uncles never failed to take opportunities to tell me how an Eagle Scout badge had impacted their lives for the better: “I never would have had a job if it weren’t for my Eagle Scout. Those companies had hundreds of identical resumes. But mine said Eagle Scout on it.”
11 Eagle Scouts in One Family
Unfortunately, I am not a good scouter. I am a nerd. Camping in the wilderness sounds about as enjoyable as pulling weeds, something I also got to enjoy for my Eagle Scout service project. This lack of outdoor ability was exacerbated by my lack of respect for authority and propensity for complaining, skills that have come in handy for writing in the bloggernacle. My supreme nerdery also extended to craftiness, which became all too apparent during a summer where every Wednesday night was spent in the Scoutmaster’s woodshop where we worked on the Woodworking merit badge. I chose to make a bookshelf, which was composed of three pieces of wood: a base, and two sides. It was crooked, unpolished, and nails were showing, but I got it done. During one boring night of woodworking my scoutleader finally broke: he grabbed my hair and shook my head with each word, “Stop! Being! A! Smart! Ass!” These moments never failed to confuse me. I never was able to understand my ability to drive adults to literal insanity through snappy retorts; I just knew I didn’t want to be there.
During my junior year a new kid moved into our high school of 180 kids. He was really big into scouting. Unfortunately, he was not Mormon. Of course, the local zealots were very excited to tell him about the local scout troop and invite him to the next meeting. He showed up on the next Wednesday with a full uniform complete with sash and merit badges. It was not a good first impression. We snickered while thinking about our two-sizes-too-small uniforms that were only worn at scout camp in early morning flag ceremonies. Unfortunately, being the nerd in the group, a friendship with me would not help his social standing. We also had few common interests: he liked scouting, I liked reading. I still feel bad about how we treated him. While in an ideal world scouting teaches us about working together and friendship, I learned that insular groups have a very difficult time with accepting outsiders.
This was not my uniform.
The buzz about homosexual leaders in scouting was building. The (very scary) gay and atheist activist groups were pushing for change and conservative Mormons were not going to have it. There were rumors (as far as I know, completely fabricated) that the Church would pull out of scouting completely. The Duty to God manuals only added fuel to the fire, despite the fact that we ignored the program completely in favor of scouting.
Some of my best memories of scouting were in week long scout camps. One summer my dad decided I wasn’t quite committed enough to getting my Eagle and so convinced my uncle (who of course was a scoutmaster) to take me on a second scout camp that summer. This meant that I had to go with a group of boys I had never met, and they were from the big city of Las Vegas, no less. We drove out to the mountains and showed up for camp. We drove up to our prime camp spot only to find another troop already there. Furious, my uncle went back to speak to the camp Administrators, who offered sympathy about the mixup but decided we would get the lone spot left over at the very top of the 1.5 mile hill. As we made the 30 minute trek up the hill I attempted unsuccessfully to befriend the other scouts who joked about sex positions I had never heard of. My uncle said that his lips were chapped and asked to borrow my Carmex. That afternoon, we were required to take a swimming test whether we planned on swimming or not, and being a nerd, I had no desire to swim. I jumped in the water, splashed about pretending I didn’t know what I was doing and said, “I don’t know how to swim,” and got out. In line for lunch we got wet some more with misters that were so broken we mostly just got rained on. We ate cold, unrecognizable food and drank koolaid that never seemed to be nearly sweet enough. We participated in long-held scouting traditions like pouring flammable things like sugar into the fire and catching squirrels in Doritos bags. Two days into the camp my uncle gave me back the Carmex completely empty. How he went through so much Carmex in such a short period I’ll never know, but I had to go the rest of the week in the dry desert with chapped lips.
In the end, scouting feels like a metaphor of the Church in general. I have a hard time enjoying it but hope that it’s good for me. As an adult I struggle through boring church classes and sacrament meetings, and deal with people that don’t seem to want me around. The hope is that the experience teaches me to love others, focus on improving myself, and find ways to learn from classes that I often find unfulfilling, while working through my distrust of leadership and their functionally-infallible inspiration. In scouting I went to weekly meetings I didn’t want to attend, learned outdoor survival skills I didn’t want to learn, and tried to respect leaders I didn’t respect. Was it good for me? I don’t know. I have my Eagle Scout. I was always told that I would regret it if I didn’t get one, but I don’t feel all that happy for getting one, and don’t look at it all that fondly. To add salt to the wound, my parents basically gave up on the Eagle Scout with my two younger brothers. Life is full of experiences with seemingly no purpose. I think I learned in the end that…Um….I just realized I have no conclusion for these concluding remarks. I probably learned something. Probably.
From a talk given by Wilford Anderson in the April 2015 Conference:
“Have you ever stopped your car at a stoplight next to a car where the driver was dancing and singing at the top of his lungs—but you couldn’t hear a sound because your windows were rolled up? Didn’t he look a little peculiar? If our children learn the dance steps without learning to hear and to feel the beautiful music of the gospel, they will over time become uncomfortable with the dance and will either quit dancing or, almost as bad, keep dancing only because of the pressure they feel from others who are dancing around them.”
You are certainly correct in observing that the Church must be more than an intellectual consent to doctrines and fulfilling tasks. If you look at the Church as a list of 112 things you have to do, you’ll get burned out.
I will tell you that there is indeed music, and it can be heard.
Funny
When you started talking about your uncle’s chapped lips, I was totally expecting you to throw in some Napoleon Dynamite/Kip in there.
This literally made me laugh out loud at work.
Maybe you endured scouting so that your younger brothers didn’t have to. They are forever in your debt.
Unfortunately you were our first born son, and there was a lot of pressure on us as well to push you in lots of ways, not just the eagle. It is a sad fact that in the church we get in a pattern of expecting everyone to fit a certain ideal and mold. I respect your honesty in this. It is what it is. Somehow despite the scars this has left you, you will see there were good intentions behind it. You are an amazing man and I respect your views and want you to be the best in life you can be. Love you
I have been an LDS scoutmaster, troop committee chairman and I have also been active in a large wonderful non-LDS scout troop for over a decade as one of the (now getting older) guys on the outdoor activity committee specializing in bear stories and finding lost scouts. I consider that troop to be my own even though my son has now graduated from college.
Your indictment of boy scouting is a “bundling” error often made by Mormons on the internet. I completely agree with your assessment of LDS scouting often being a pretty miserable experience. The boys in my ward had it much worse than you describe with things like leaders cheating and wards getting into racially-based rock fights at camp. Your remarks indicate that you know very little about REAL boy scouting as it is done in many troops I know outside of the LDS church and this ignorance disgraces the honor of the rank of eagle. I will allow you (and the readers of this) the freedom to conclude upon whose shoulders this burden of culpability lies: your own, or the ward you attended, or the Mormon approach to scouting in general.
Scouting is flexible and largely driven locally by each troop with variable emphasis and some are better than others, a lot better. I will attempt to describe scouting as I have experienced it. Scouting is complex and has multiple facets but remains the single most successful youth program in western civilization.
First, last, and always -scouting is recreation- it is supposed to be fun. It is voluntary not conscription. Punishing a boy for not achieving in scouting (no drivers license) is so foreign to the true spirit of scouting that it makes me nauseated. If a scout in my troop told me that, his parents would be sternly corrected by me backed up by one or more of the top adult leaders in the troop. We love to camp and be together and experience the richest gifts God gives to us in this life together. That is the essence of scouting and everything else is non-essential. You clearly did not get that message.
Scouting is a leadership program. All troops struggle with how much control do adults surrender to the boys. In our troop the boys have enormous control. Some would say too much control. They run the meetings and all adults have to go through the boy leadership to say or do anything. We have elections and the elected boy patrol and troop leaders are in charge. Adults never manipulate or dominate or direct the boys except when physical safety (or extreme moral safety) is threatened. It is chaotic and inefficient. Amazingly the scouts usually step up. They have incredibly creative ideas and so much energy. It only requires a few quiet suggestions from time to time for everything they do to turn out better than what adults might have forced them to do.
For example, if the boys can’t follow a map on a hike then the only job of the adults is to get them back to the car within 24 hours after the time they were supposed to return and it is not an adult problem if they take the wrong trail and end up turning a 5 mile hike into a 15 mile one. If they don’t like woodworking then take that up with the patrol leader or don’t come; 100% attendance is not required. If a little sister’s bra is mysteriously put into the backpack of a young boy on a camping trip for his mother to find, the scoutmaster tells the irate mother to call the senior patrol leader (perhaps a 15 or 16 year old boy) who tells the mother that her boy is supposed to be doing his own unpacking and having a bra in his pack is funny, no big deal. They cook for each other and the adults do not feed them. We try and shame them with our own better food (not easy) or sometimes they cook for us. They teach each other scouting skills and suffer the consequences when they can’t do them. We generally camp about 50-100 feet away from them and observe them carefully but stay out of their problems unless they are severe.
If you as an eagle had such a lousy experience why did you not earn the respect of your peers and get elected as Senior Patrol Leader and attempt to fix it? Most of our senior patrol leaders are eagles. Or support other boy leaders in forging a troop of excellence? (Yes, I know the LDS ward would never allow anything like this to actually happen and it is not really you I blame personally. But I ask the question pointedly, to demonstrate how it is supposed to work in a real troop.)
In my experience sometimes it is the little “smart asses” who get elected and often they almost miraculously transform into darn good leaders while at the same time continue to irritate the adults. And then later they become the best followers of the next cycle of leaders. Probably the biggest and worst smart ass in our troop ever, was elected senior patrol leader and made the troop problems worse and he later spent 3 summers as a counselor at Sea Base in the Bahamas and was given awards for his unparalleled service there.
Scouting develops character on the points of the scout law and oath. Every meeting begins with a solemn flag ceremony and repeating together the pledge of allegiance, the oath and law. Then these concepts are constantly reinforced by the older boys upon the younger ones by example and by reminders. The boy chaplain is responsible for a religious service every camping trip and for prayers before each trip and over the food, the last of which we often forget. Some of these services are among the best religious experiences I have ever had anywhere and some are real duds.
Scouting teaches camping skills, not because anyone (except the future homeless) need this particular skill set but because there is immediate, inherent, automatic positive and negative feedback associated with the application or misapplication of these skills while doing something fun. We are not teaching boys to tie a square knot, we are giving older boys the opportunity to design and conduct a knot tying seminar and then putting them all in a situation where what they taught and learned is actually tested. Our board of reviews are rigorous and we flunk some of them and the scouts respond with better performance. (Talk about preparation for college interviews). Scouting is the only place a teenager can be in charge of anything that really matters in a modern society to this degree.
There are three levels of camping. First is survival; just learning how to do all the things that are needed to make it enjoyable and not stressful. The second level is helpfulness where you reach out and help the younger guys struggling with survival. Then third is leadership which is organized helpfulness balanced with adventure. Our older boy leaders purposefully design expeditions that are too strenuous for the youngest scouts with the intention that they will need to be helped and then help them. This shared suffering bonds the boys together because it creates the impression in the young that their very lives were saved. Think of the “swag” an 11 year old has after surviving an adventure the high school boys found challenging. When they become older they want to be the heroes.
They constantly have to deal with the problem of “dead-weight dads” or adults who are not physically fit enough to keep up with them. Overweight leaders soon learn they have no place in camping or hiking with us and not a few have been motivated to lose weight and get in shape.
Scouting is a service organization. I am less involved with this aspect and have less to say about it. My son was particularly active in service and earned 2 of the presidential volunteer service awards which required that he document doing several hundred hours of service. Several others have earned the award. In addition to monthly camping trips we do monthly service projects. Eagle projects are service oriented.
Scouting is an achievement program with the various ranks and merit badges. Probably half of the material in the first 3 ranks are camping skills and even if no conscious effort is made to pass off those requirements, most boys will acquire those skills while camping. The rest is optional and completely the responsibility of the scout. If the scout wants to earn a merit badge, he has to take several steps: initiate contact with the advancement lady (usually it is a tiger mom) and get the blue card signed declaring his intentions, then he (not his parents) contacts a merit badge counselor and some are in the troop others are strangers to him recruited at the district level. Then do all of the requirements which often takes a few months (not a week or two). He is the one to document doing them on the card and then turns it back into the advancement lady. If any mistakes are made he is responsible for correcting them and if any adult including his parents are involved beyond distant cheerleading, the process starts over. A boy might expect to do more than one merit badge over during his career as a scout. (Think of how this mimics what often happens in the modern workplace.)
Many scouts are not interested in achievement at all. We have 16 year old tenderfoots. They camp and do service and have fun and develop character and all that is great. The rank of eagle is achieved by less than 10% of the boys in the troop and never before the age of 16. The eagle leadership and service project is designed to be similar to a PhD project and dissertation and usually requires a year or more to complete. The rank of life scout is honored and the rank of star scout is not considered to be too shabby.
Rarely a Mormon boy joins my non-LDS troop and then doesn’t want to pay the price to advance in rank and quits. A couple years later his picture is in the newspaper for earning his eagle at the ward. The boys in my troop know and despise him as another ”Fake Mormon Eagle. “ Then when they hear of hundreds of eagles in one Mormon troop out in Utah or a large family of eagles it gives them pause. Did they really earn it? It does not generate automatic admiration.
Scouting is expensive, comparable to high school sports teams. Our troop CFO reports about $100,000 flows through the scout accounts of about 60 boys. We sell about $60,000 dollars of pine straw every year and keep about 1/3 of that for troop-wide expenses. Boys pass out flyers, load trucks and deliver it but adults run the operation. Individual boys sell popcorn as they wish and the amount they keep is over $10,000 for all of them, although this year one boy sold over $15,000 of popcorn himself and he kept over 1/3 of that for his own expenses. Not surprisingly, his father is some sort of network marketer and we do not hold fast to the boy-does-it-all-himself when it comes to raising money. This father will probably be anointed the troop popcorn colonel for next year (but only if he wants it). We have “scholarships” for boys from less affluent families and other opportunities for boys to earn money working for some of the fathers who own businesses where that is possible. We are not extravagant in our expenses and you can image the kinds of things we do when that much money is available and well-spent. We have the best outdoor program around. It reflects the commitment we have to doing it right.
As a disclosure my personal experience makes me biased. Scouting is by far the best thing I have ever done with my son and it had a bigger influence on the development of his character by at least a factor of 10 than everything the LDS church did through the primary, YM, seminary/institute programs and the weekly 3 hour church meetings. At age 16 my son was elected senior patrol leader by the troop when it was getting way out of control, testing our commitment to the principles of boy leadership to the very core and jeopardizing its very existence. Then he quietly but firmly, with the help of his friends, changed the attitudes of about 60 boys and the course of the history of the troop; also with the guidance of some of the best men I have ever known. I watched him become a better leader and a better man than I ever was or would be, due largely to scouting.
I wish you could have gone camping with him and his friends and experienced scouting at its best. He saved one kid’s life and he won many close contests at camporee. I was never so proud of going to Philmont and to Northern Tier on ~10 day expeditions with them. He gave the single best church talk/sermon I have ever heard out in the woods on a back packing expedition about the three parables in Matt 25, relating them to the scout law and oath. I always wondered what it must have been like to have been at the Sea of Galilee in the first century and listened to the stories of Jesus I love to hear. That Sunday morning I experienced it in not a small measure.
I’m not being flippant at all when I ask- I genuinely want to know. How long did it take to write this comment?
Also, if you don’t mind sharing- where in Georgia? My bro is down there.
The “fro” above obviously meant to be “from”
And the voice of my son in my mind corrects my role to specializing in bad stories and getting scouts lost…
Mr. Thomas, this was not only hilarious but so true. It was not until I started raising my son & thinking out what I was actually going to teach him, religiously and otherwise, that I started questioning many teachings and practices in the LDS church simply because that's the way they've been done for years or because someone somewhere said so, including scouts. Thanks for sharing. 😉
Mike From Georgia,
The scouting experience you describe sounds valuable and influential. But I have yet to seen an LDS troop that even comes close to that. From what I have seen and experienced, “boy leadership” is non-existent. The adults usually take everything over, probably trying to make up for their own lost opportunities as youth.
This is just another reason why the Church needs to sever ties with BSA.
It has been brought to my attention that the comments above have been discussed on another website; seems a bit unusual, but possibly a more sympathetic audience. I realize Cubee missed my point for which I apologize. It is easier to write than edit. In an effort to be better understood, here are my points:
1. I sympathize with and feel sorrow for Cubee’s miserable experience with LDS scouting.
2. My experiences with LDS scouting were not good either, I did not elaborate on this topic.
3. The best thing I ever did in my whole life was scouting with my son in a non-LDS troop. It ran onto thousands of words to express the joy and magnificence of these experiences. (Sorry about that, too.
4. I sincerely wish that Cubee could have had similar experiences with scouting as my son, and he might well have in a troop of excellence.
5. In my limited experience many non-LDS scout troops do an excellent job and only a few are not so good.
6. In my even more limited experience most LDS scout troops (which are far from the intermountain west) do a lousy job. I perceive certain institutional-structural flaws and assumptions and constraints make it almost inevitable.
7. I know very little about what is going on in LDS troops in or closer to Utah, only a couple of scouting camp-outs with my brother and nephews.
My most important point is that I think it is extremely unfair to condemn scouting in general based only on miserable experiences in LDS scouting. Put the saddle on the right horse, (famous words of John D. Lee).
Cubee is not alone, I have observed this many times before on the Internet. It needs to stop. We Mormons, active or not, are pretty sensitive when others misrepresent us; we should not do the same to others.
Cubee if you are still there and willing to listen:
I have some words of advice for you, based on old age, advancing senility, and some assumptions about you: that you really are an adult, that you are affiliated with the LDS faith but are somewhat disillusioned and perhaps less orthodox than average, that you are youngish (“The buzz about homosexual leaders in scouting was building.” That wasn’t too long ago.), maybe single or recently married with or without small children, but probably not raising teenagers yet. And that you are basically a good person who wants to make the world a better place and wishes to live with integrity and honor.
1. Since as one of 11 eagles in one family you are visible; realize your opinions carry weight, far more than mine for instance. Believe it or not I heard about your family of 11 eagles at our non-LDS troop. As world record holders you do have more visibility within the BSA than you might think.
2. When you make critical comments about your experiences in scouting, be certain you specify that they are about LDS scouting. You do make this point pretty clear above, but…
3. Do not leave the reader with the perception that all scouting is like Mormon scouting. I got this impression and it iritted me enough to do all thsi scribbling. It is not true and it is not fair. Since you are a world record holder this impression is easy to leave.
4. If or when you have young sons, quietly get involved in non-LDS scouting. First, shop around your area. This is foreign to the Mormon mindset, that you have to shop around for things like church and school. Not all cub packs are right for your family. Spend the first year quietly observing and drinking in the attitudes of the troop, they should not be what you describe above or you should find another one. Then as long as you or your son(s) are honestly interested, (without compulsory means) find your own unique way to support the pack and troop the best way you can.
5. This final suggestion is based on a further assumption that you might be really angry and want to do something more drastic. (This is precisely what I would do if I found myself in your place.) You could write a letter to the Big BSA Boys in Texas and resign from being an eagle scout and explain why.
Using scouting as a metaphor for a dysfunctional LDS church is so twisted, it makes me dizzy. You might have gone through the outward motions but that last brutally honest paragraph in your original submission demonstrates your heart is not in the right place for an eagle scout. Some people stop attending the LDS church quietly and don’t care that they are carried on the membership rolls until they are 110 years old. Others feel a moral obligation to formally resign for their own sense of honor and dignity. You seem to me to be in a similar place, except in scouting. If so, do every eagle with a pure heart in scouting a favor and write the letter of resignation.
6. If you want to go the extra mile- consider the future of scouting and what the LDS church is doing to and for it. I personally think we have reached a crossroads. It is time the LDS church stops the widespread perverting of the ways of excellent scouting and pretending to be better than everyone else when in fact they tend to be worse. We as a church need to either embrace scouting fully, honestly and get in line with the program without reservation or exceptionalism, or else we need to get the hell out and do whatever else we want with our youth programs.
What few rumors I hear in Georgia is that if the LDS church doesn’t shape up they are going to get kicked out. Only those fat checks prevent this from happening now and now two of the Q15 are probably painfully aware of it. They may be able to throw their weight around in little old Utah but not in Texas (Ask Warren Jeffs about that if you have any doubts).
You might consider what actions you and/or your famous kindred could honestly undertake that would have an impact on this issue.
Darn it, I was going to keep it short. Sorry again.
Mike from Georgia, it is probably pretty safe to assume you are very VERY passionate about scouting. I’m really glad that you had and continue to have such a good experience in BSA. I can see that you are frustrated by this post, but I do think it’s time to stop dwelling on it. I will say that it is very difficult to be in scouting when you don’t really “fit the mold” or you have other interests not in the “good ol’ boys club.” I understand that there are a lot of different aspects to scouting, like you mention leadership but various troops focus on certain things and may not do much with the others. In the case for the small farming community L. Thomas grew up in, they focus on the outdoorsy stuff and lack in a lot of the other qualities and activities because no one is skilled or knows how to really do them. It is difficult in the LDS community when you are basically forced in BSA. I’m actually really curious as to how your son went through boy scouts not being in an LDS troop because where we grew up going to mutual every Wednesday WAS scouting for boys in young mens. Did you son not go to young mens or did they do things other than scouting because that is all there was in our community? I wasn’t standing behind L. Thomas’ back every step of the way when getting his Eagle scout but I do find it extremely rude and condescending that you think he may not have deserved it because he was either lazy and/or leaders were lacks on the requirements, or because didn’t really enjoy his experience. I do know that he worked very hard and deserves all that he did to get his Eagle, 100%. The post is supposed to mostly be light and funny while still giving those who did not like scouting a voice and to commiserate a little bit. I’m sorry you find it so insulting but do know that your assumptions about him are pretty off-the-mark. I usually never comment on his posts but every once in a while… well I feel the need to say something. He isn’t as disenfranchised about scouting as you think he is. Our son will most likely be encouraged to try scouting and go through the program whether it the LDS church is involved anymore or not. I want our daughter to try similar programs like Girl Scouts as well. You say in your comment up above, “We Mormons, active or not, are pretty sensitive when others misrepresent us; we should not do the same to others.” so please, I ask of you to not make assumptions about my husband. Thanks!
Mike from Georgia,
I never condemned scouting. I never misrepresented scouting. It was my personal experience.
Enjoyed your comments.
I was a gung-ho scouter and I loved the scouting program, but my three sons haven't embraced it as much. One just got his Eagle (4 days before his 18th birthday!), my middle son has everything done except for the onerous application, and my youngest is just starting. I have tried hard to get them to like it, but to no avail. When my youngest heard the church might ditch scouts he lifted both hands up in victory, and I shot him a nasty glare. But then I realized, so what if they don't like scouts? I liked it and they didn't, and that's OK. If he really wanted to, I would let him do only as much as he wants to. I feel the same way about church. If it's not providing people benefit, I don't feel like pepole should have to go. I go to sacrament meeting once in a while, and maybe someday I'll do more. For right now that's all I can handle, and I believe God is fine with that.
I’m sorry this is a late comment but I know exactly how you felt.
Believe it or not, my Catholic faternal family currently has 15 Eagle Scouts, and I’m being pressured into becoming one.
Although I’m not what you would call a “nerd”, I certainly don’t like scouting either. I’ve never enjoyed it in fact, and I often liken it to a cult.
My problem is that I’m not allowed to drop out. My fraternal family is putting great pressure on me to reach Eagle. At every family gathering they make some kind of gesture to show me they’re still forcing me into it. I similarly get the “it’ll be great on a resume” speech. Not one male uncle or cousin has skipped it, and they all swear that if I don’t make it, I WILL be the black sheep of the family. I’ve even heard the threat of being disowned if I break the chain. I’m a life scout currently, but I still have a few more hefty merit badges to make, not even to mention the project. My mom and maternal family are completely quiet about this, and no matter how much I beg her to take me out of it, she tells me that I just can’t. My direct family knows I hate it, but they make me do it anyway. They constantly voice their sympathy and say “I’m sorry you have to do this” but they still agree that I have to.
I still don’t know why I’m forced into it. This isn’t mandatory, like school is. I’ve heard it’s to “keep the grandparents happy” and “uphold the Simon legacy”, but with 7 children and about 27 grandchildren, I thought they could allow /one/ hiccup. My grandpa never made it to Eagle Scout, so my thought is that he’s making us all do it to compensate.
I’m not saying scouting is bad. To some it has changed their lives, and I’m really happy to hear about it, but all it’s given me is pain and anxiety. I genuinely loathe my faternal family for doing this to me, and I’ve made up my mind a long time ago that I will NEVER do this to my possible sons in the future, but I’m desperately trying to find a way to escape this decision by a family who never tries to see me as anything other than another male Simon.