Academics love a cheap shot at the scouting movement. Dr Leslie Canold (The Age, 7/10/08) declaring them more predatory than controversial artist Bill Henson, who uses naked youths in his works.
Cannold, an academic and parent, maintained that children are more at risk from family, friends and scoutmasters than artists on the prowl for young models.
This is of course disingenuous of Cannold, who would know that history is littered with its share of abusive artists. Back in 1600, Caravaggio was a brilliant painter, a killer, a drunk and died young and miserable. Picasso was a genius but renowned for his destructive relationships with women, and by all reports Jackson Pollock (notorious in Australia for his abstract work Blue Poles) was a mean-spirited drunk, a fast, reckless driver, parasitical toward his brother, and abusive to women.
These are highlights only: artists as a group operate as outsiders, for their ability to reflect the pulse of the times they live comes from a heightened sensitivity and introspection.
So who are the monsters lurking in the scout movement who are more likely to ask your kids to strip off than Bill Henson? Well, sorry to disappoint both the moral panic merchants and the cultural bullies, but modern scout and cub leaders are drawn from the ranks of the parents of cubs and scouts - these kids' mums and dads. In my son's cub pack, it is mostly mums, the same sort of local primary school mums who also supervise school reading and help at the tuck shop.
In fact, all the cub leaders in my kids' troop were the mums they'd literally grown up with. The women I had a much needed gin and tonic with on those ragged Fridays of their early childhood, when husbands were late at work, and it was only the camaraderie of other women with similar food stains on their clothes that made it possible to get through another week.
These women want their children to be strong and independent, to have a life beyond the xbox and playstation and schoolyard bullying. So, they give up their time, put on a not particularly flattering scout shirt, and do things like take groups of 8 year olds down to the local shops by train, buy a 50 cent ice cream and get on a tram back to the scout hall. Oh, evil women!
What thoughts are on their minds as they show the kids how to catch public transport?
I'll tell you what – they probably wish they had their feet up watching TV or reading a book and enjoying a glass of wine.
But Cannold thinks these women are more predatory than an artist who asks teens to pose nude. I wonder whether she even knows the sort of people who are today's scout leaders.
Lest anyone think I side with the anti-Henson brigade, I want to make it clear I think the majority of those who bleat about his art are hypocrites. For it is usually the same parents who allow their own kids to watch television shows with strong adult themes like NCIS, Two and A Half Men, Criminal Minds and America's Next Top Model.
And they are the same parents who dress their little girls in trainer bras and mini skirts, or pre teens in chain store clothes that would make Brittany Spears blush.
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg (The Age, 1/10/09) said he was surprised that more money was not put into organisations such as the Scouting Movement, which gave a sense of purpose and belonging.
The turn around can be seen in grim statistics on street crime and the regular violence that young men in particular inflict on each other, fuelled by alcohol, boredom and what Carr Gregg dubs "spiritual anorexia."
As a feminist I am often asked how I bring up two sons. I parent for independence and respect. I am not a slave to my children and in fact "I am not your slave" is one of the phrases they most often hear me say, after "mummy has a deadline." The scouting movement - starting with cubs – supports me on this. It fosters independence and cooperation and who could argue this is not a good thing?
As much as I have moaned to colleagues about sewing on endless cub achievement badges, I am secretly happy to do so as each one symbolises another step away from me and into the world. My 11 year old knows how to shop and cook – in fact, it's a hassle going to the supermarket without his help. He can make a three course meal with minimal supervision and the cat relies on him as well to get fed when I'm at work late.
But it's not just these domestic life skills that are so important, it is the scouting movement's expectation that children need to look after themselves and respect others and cooperate with a group that its real importance lies.
For instance, my eight year old son came home from cubs ecstatic that his pack had come first in a competition to see who could cooperate to build the highest tower out of spaghetti and Blu Tack. Not a very amazing thing on most people's scale of achievements, but he had learnt many valuable lessons in the safety of the drafty scout hall. He needed to work together and also rely on others - to negotiate, to listen. How many of us would appreciate that every day in the workplace, for instance?
Perhaps most importantly, the scouting movement fills another hole in the plight of 'spiritual anorexia' that Carr-Gregg speaks of. Not in a religious sense but in one of connection with others. Barack Obama warned young people to be circumspect about posting their entire lives online.
The real problem with social networking sites and the dependence upon them that young people develop has much more to do with a social disconnection, rather than possible long-term privacy issues.
The world online is a second life indeed, and not one that children, drawn of course to technology, need any more encouragement with. For let us not forget every parent's nightmare; the death of their child at their own hand because of bullying, as apparently happened to a 14 year old Victorian girl, after being cyber bullied.
Children need a sense of purpose and belonging, and to concentrate all one's social energies through school is unhealthy at best - ditto sitting sad and lonely in front of a facebook site with hundreds of virtual friends. The Scouting movement provides another circle of real life friends with common interests and goals.
A woman confided to me that her son had been badly bullied at school and the only thing that saved him was his involvement in scouts and the annual Camberwell Showtime concert, which gave kids who couldn't say boo a chance to shine even for the briefest moment in the spotlight. He is now a successful published genre writer.
With the positive benefits from an organised youth movement like scouts, why the reluctance for so many parents to embrace it? I wonder if it is apathy. It takes an effort to get involved in any organised long term activity, not the least in driving your child and others to weekend camps or evening activities.
My parents – practicing atheists – refused to let me join girl guides because they said I would be made to swear an oath to God and Queen. These days, there is an oath to "one's God"- whatever that might be. And yes, to the Queen of Australia, but I don't blame the scouting movement for this, rather my fellow Australians who refused to vote with me to rid our country of the monarchy.
Their concerns were in reality they now admit more do with their lack of commitment in driving me to and from Guides and probably sewing on badges than anything else. And such is the attitude of many parents I know. For them, it's easier to haul out the line about pedophile scout masters than get involved.
So I am looking at more years sewing on scout and cub badges. A small price to pay I think, for what my sons will get out of the movement. Anyway, a young colleague – a former scout himself – dismissed my concerns. "Your son needs to earn his sewing badge – so get him to sew them on himself!"
Yes, resourcefulness and independence – the true badge of a scout.
0 comments:
Post a Comment