centre of the universe - the dreaming: Beavers?

09/20/2005: "Beavers?" All right, so pardon me my filthy mind, but I get the giggles when I get a letter from Cub Scouts Canada saying "thank you for enrolling your son/daughter in Beavers. Please bring your Beaver to [insert meeting place here] at [insert time here], and make sure your Beaver is wearing the proper uniform."

[snicker]

It gets better. You know what the first thing is that Beavers do when they gather? They do a Tail Slap.

[snort]

Then they do these little air quotes things and chant : "Beavers! Beavers! Beavers! - Sharing! Sharing! Sharing!"

[rotflmao]

I couldn't stop laughing last night. All the other mums thought I was just giggling at the cuteness of it all, but honestly, they just don't have a filthy enough mind.

[snicker]

The Nipper is currently taking little bits of cat food and putting them down the heating vents. This is a step up from eating them. He's also starting to make more signs - this morning I said, "look! There's your ball!" and he made the sign for "where". Then he saw the ball and pointed to it. He uses the sign for "drink" (he is my boy, after all), and sometimes uses the sign for "potty".

Anyway, I was a bit surprised at how...girly...Beavers seems to have become. The Captain's "Beaver Leaders" (who are mums, which is cool) are called "Bubbles", "Rainbow", and "Sunshine". Which, I suppose, one could argue, are perfectly good names for senior Beavers. [snicker]

In Brownies, I had "Brown Owl" (we called her "Brown Hole", because we couldn't stand her - I was only in Brownies for the better part of one season. I wanted to be in cubs, but they wouldn't let girls in. I suggested I enroll as a boy, and they didn't think that was funny), "Grey Owl", and "Tawny Owl". I always thought that was a little odd, because in real life, owls would most likely make a quick snack of brownies (both the baked kind and the faerie kind), but what do I know? The only badges I got were "collecting", "dancing (for Hula)", "reading" and "helping". I got the helping badge for showing the other brownies how to fix a bike chain that had derailed. I did not get the "braiding hair" badge, the "cleanliness" badge, nor did I get to be a "sixer" or a "seconder". Back in the day, the brownie uniforms were these kinda cool, kinda stupid brown dress-like things. We also had these hideous yellow-and-orange flame coloured neckties. We had to wear brown knee-high socks. We had little leather pouches not unlike sporins (mine got ruined fairly quickly when I put a piece of chewing gum, recently chewed, in it "for later") in which you kept your 'dues' (25 cents/week) for 'faerie circle'. That's where you all get in a circle and sing some dorky song about faerie rings and mushrooms. Not the good kind of mushrooms, either - the kind you sit on to hand over your dues for brownies. Sigh. Once you progressed from "tweenies" (now called 'sparks', I believe), you got a sash. I never made it out of 'tweenies'. Not after the 'we're going to Hawaii' fiasco. I think I've mentioned that before, but if not, maybe another time.

ANYHOW, Brownies is a lot different now. Apparently, the little beggars are taught the cool things now, like camping, building fires, knife throwing, you know, all the essentials. One of the reasons I quit was that I really couldn't stand people trying to teach me to be all the things my mother was trying to teach me not to be (subservient to men, gracious home-makers with no ambitions outside breeding and cleaning, and whose greatest dream was to get married (to anyone), have buckets of children, and die knowing you'd never expressed your opinion in any stronger way than by saying "Well...." at the dinner table). They got mad at me whenever I asked when we got to learn 'the cool stuff, like building things and making fires'.

"Women don't do those things," Brown Hole told me. "And well-behaved girls grow into well-behaved women."
"Uh, I don't want to be a well-behaved woman," I mentioned. "I want to know how to take care of myself."
"You'll never need to take care of yourself," Brown Hole countered, "because that's what your husband is for. Well. You'll need to know how to be clean and beautiful for him, of course."

And that was the moment my little six-and-a-half year old brain snapped.

"Are you serious?" I asked.

She glared at me. "Now why don't you tell us about what you're collecting for your collecting badge?" She spit between gritted teeth.

"Uh. Well. Buttons."
"You're collecting buttons?"
"Well, my mum has this doll collection she gave me, but I don't really like do..."
"DOLLS! Oh wonderful! Bring your doll collection next time. EVERYONE will want to see it."
"Yeah," said my Best Friend Sarah sarcastically, "EVERYONE."

I got the badge, not because I collected dolls, but because my mother had begun asking people to bring a doll in traditional clothes back for me from wherever they travelled. She wanted me to have a good representation of many world cultures. I had dolls from the Ukraine, South Africa, Mexico, Holland, Ireland, England, Russia, and Korea. I never played with them - wasn't allowed to and didn't want to - but I got the badge.

The point here is that I'm insanely jealous of The Captain, who, in his first day of Beavers, got to build a sturdy wooden box with a nylon-rope handle. "For your stuff", his Rainbow said.

You know what I built in Brownies (and not on my first day, neither)?

Yarn braids. Perhaps 'built' is the wrong term. I made yarn braids. Not macrame. Not knitting. Not crochet. Yarn braids. No knots involved. Nothing useful at all. Yarn braids. Sure am glad I know how to braid yarn. That's come in handy SO MANY TIMES.

That summer I worked on the ranch for my Aunt and Uncle, one of my jobs was to rebraid the lead shanks. I used NONE of the knowledge I'd learned in Brownies. I'd taken a book out of the library in high school to learn various kinds of rope braiding and knot making (I've forgotten many of the knots).

Anyway, it's good that he's interested and excited. To hang out with Beavers. And do the Tail Slap. With Bubbles, Sunshine, and Rainbow. Should get him prepared for that trip to the nightclubs in Calgary about fifteen years from now, if only in filthy-minded metaphor. [grin]

"big surprise" "You see that?"

14 Comments

Smarty Pants , on Tuesday, 20th September:

Believe it or (k)not, Beavers was pretty much the same for me as Brownies was for you.
I didn't learn too many useful things either(except the mythos of Baden-Powell and Rudyard Kipling and how serving God and the Queen was the duty of every good boy).
All the good stuff came with Boy Scouts.

But if I may steal your blog for a second...why are girls being allowed to be Scouts? I hear a lot of things about empowering young girls by teaching them knife throwing and stuff, but as you stated, they do those things now in Guides or whatever.
I've always thought boys need peer groups and role models away from girls, the same as girls need theirs away from boys. Can someone explain why they integrated Scouting, instead of just changing the respective programs?

cenobyte , on Tuesday, 20th September:

I don't have any problem with girls joining scouts or with boys joining brownies. I also don't think that at the ages of 5-9 there are a whole lot of differences between boys and girls that would encourage a 'gender-specific peer club'. After about age ten, then yes, I think there is a time and place for boys-only and girls-only clubs, and I'm sure there are some out there. But at age five-six-seven, what's the problem with boys and girls making the same stuff and camping together in cub scouts? Or brownies?

Now I was always considered 'one of the guys', with the exception of about grades 7 - 10. All my friends were guys (except for two or three), the majority of the folks I hung out with were guys, and we did stuff like huck rocks at squirrels, read comix, play A-Team, and create huge battlefields in the sandbox with HotWheels and GI-Joe. The guys I hung out with never had a problem hanging out with me.

So I'm asking you: What do pre-adolescent boys (or girls) need a gender-specific club for? What's WRONG with integration?

(For the record, I am a big fan of separating boys and girls in school once they reach about age ten)

Smarty Pants , on Tuesday, 20th September:

I guess I should clarify my statements by saying that there are Girl Guides, and there are Scouts. Girls can belong to either or both. Boys can only be Scouts.
I guess I'm asking why it seems that a young boy (Scouts age) isn't allowed the luxury of a same-gender peer group, whereas a girl can have one all to herself if she chooses and that's not sexist or anything.
I'm of the mind that both sexes (of all ages) need and benefit from activities and things that involve just themselves. I think the average girl would think making Cub Cars is lame. Likewise, boys would think making braids is lame. So the result is that everything gets watered down until neither gender thinks it's any fun. (Admittedly, I'm speculating on activities as the last Beaver/Cub/Scout thing I did was 20 years ago).
If girls thought it was lame to make braids and learn to be wives, why didn't they just change their own program, and leave Boy Scouts etc alone?
(This is R klub. No grlz aloud. ;-)

cenobyte , on Tuesday, 20th September:

I think boys *are* allowed in Guides now. I could be wrong about that. But the minute any boy decides it's cool to don the pink shirt and socks and hat of Sparks, I'll take pictures.

The girls *did* change Brownies/Guides. I think my experiences were thanks to a rather old and fuddy-duddy Brown Hole. TUO was a girl guide leader, and they did really cool stuff.

cenobyte , on Tuesday, 20th September:

Okay, I just checked. Apparently boys aren't allowed in Guides. So your point is well taken. Although I can't imagine too many boys standing up proudly at their family gatherings and announcing they'd just received their camping badge in Girl Guides.

...then again, think of all the possibilities being the only guy in a tent full of 18 16-year-old chix...

TUO , on Tuesday, 20th September:

Ooh, something I know something about! Like Cenobyte sez, I was a Brownie and a Guide, and then (much later) a Brownie leader for a couple of years (my name was Screech Owl. Heh.) and a Guide leader for about 4 years (Guides don't do the cutsie names).

I've talked with Cenobyte about her Brownie nightmare, and all I can say is that her leader was stuck in the 50's and had her own personal take on the program. Even when I was a Brownie, we did camping, fire-starting, survival stuff, etc. I mean, that's what Baden-Powell wanted! But the program today is *much* less June-Cleavery and much more structured... individual leaders don't have quite as much freedom to dictate content, and that's a good thing.

One thing that's also changed is the age ranges, though. When I was a Brownie, it was for 8-12 year olds. Now Sparks (a separate group, btw, not the same as Tweenies which are entry-level Brownies) are 4-6, Brownies are 6-9 and Guides are 9-12. One of the reasons I started being a Guide leader instead of Brownies was that I was tired of dealing with a pre-reading age range. It limited the stuff you could do with them.

Anyhoo, the reason that girls were allowed to finally join Scouts is because of the mothers. Really. Scouts couldn't exist without the mothers, and the mothers wanted to take all their kids to one place one night a week instead of Johnny to Scouts and Susie to Guides on different nights.

(I do think that's lame, by the way. I agree with Mr. Pants, and think that a couple of hours a week of same-sex socialization is a good thing even for pre-adolescents. Behavioural differences start showing up way before puberty.)

I think the reason that you will never see boys in Guiding is the same reason you will never see male Guide leaders. We didn't even let dads come along on camping trips. It's kinda sad, but that's how (I was told) Girl Guides has remained the only children's organization that has never been slapped with any kind of sex-related charges.

cenobyte , on Tuesday, 20th September:

Meh. Same-sex socialisation may be cool for *guys*, but considering the girls I had to hang out with, I'd rather have chewed off my own toes.

With about three exceptions. RR being one of them, and we didn't even really know each other very well until Jr. High. But she told kickass scary stories.

Smarty Pants , on Tuesday, 20th September:

As always, dear Cenobyte, you are the exception to every rule. :-)

But I was mildly surprised to hear the bit about Mothers changing Scouting. I thought it was PCness or some such thing...and I never ever had a female leader in Beavers, Cubs, or Scouts. I had to wait to join the Regina Rifle Regiment before I got some female leadership. And MAN - were they hard-a$$es.

TUO , on Tuesday, 20th September:

Well, I was still a Guide leader when they changed the rules about girls and Scouts (as I recall, early 90s) and that's what the word at the Guide House was. Fewer dads, brothers, etc. were volunteering to be leaders, so there were more and more moms doing the leading (Den Mothering? I never knew how Scouts worked). And the numbers were down, with other extra curricular activities leaching kids away. So there ya go.

It actually wasn't a popular move with the Girl Guides either, at least not in the ones I talked to. The Guides were suffering the same attrition, and there was a fear that a co-ed Scouts would poach girls away from Guiding.

I'd never heard of it being for any PC thing, since girls did have an equivalent organization. On the other hand, the "official word" *does* make it sound like they were doing it for PC reasons.

http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/gender_policy.html

(though this site is not the official Scouts Canada site... the offical site has no mention of a policy like this. Hm.)

Interesting reading... though this is for the Boy Scouts of America:
http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/girls-top.html

Funny reading:
http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/08/first_you_let_t.html

TUO , on Tuesday, 20th September:

OK, and I have to share this too.

http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/11178.html

Google is awesome.

Churchy LaFemme , on Tuesday, 20th September:

a) I don't believe none of the other moms were getting the beaver slap -- the s.i. has got to be higher than that, even in w.t.f.
b) The Captain might as well begin his career in pursuing/hanging out with the Beaver at an early age
c) The chief example of same sex socializing and its consequences -- seminary school!
c) You don't say The Canada, The Mexico, The France, The Russia, so why do you persist in saying The Ukraine? It's so pre-1990.

Noah , on Wednesday, 21st September:

I got kicked out of Beavers.

cenobyte , on Wednesday, 21st September:

how many?

RTFLMAO

Quinn (formerly BPF) , on Wednesday, 21st September:

never went to scouts or anything, I learnt all of the outdoor things I need from my dad:

- Starting a fire with only a match and about 7 gallons of Gasoline

- Putting your father out after the "Camp fire" started

- Making fuses out of kleenix and gunpowder. (mental note don't use a steel motar and pestle)

- fastest route to the hospital (or cutting out the middle man and showing up at the Doctors house)

You know the really important outdoor skills.

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