Are Girl Scouts the mean girls?

[Anonymous]

Ha this thread is funny.

I am a troop leader. I am not a PTA mom and have never been to a PTA meeting in my life. I have a full time job that can be intense at times. I really only volunteer for things if it's direct kid impact and interaction with my kid and I don't volunteer a ton, to be honest. I signed up to be the troop leader because there was another great mom doing it and no one else would and I wanted my daughter ot be able to do it.

Our troop is great and not mean girls at all. Older elementary at this point.

Find another troop is good advice or just drop the activity. Life is too short.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with PPs that it will vary with any given group of girls and the culture set by the troop leader. Some are lovely, some are not. That said, my daughter joined Scouts BSA because she's more interested in camping and outdoor activities. My impression so far is those kinds of activities inspire collaborative skills and teamwork. For example, they have to work together to put up and take down a campsite, cook meals, plan and navigate a hike, help an injured person etc. Even if there are smaller friend groups within the larger one, they all seem to be positive and work well together. There must be challenging social dynamics in some Scouts BSA girls troops, but that has not been DD's experience so far.

My dd's middle school GS troop is all about camping and hiking.

In elementary school the troop that formed was pretty random. By fifth/sixth grade most of the "mean girls" quit because they thought it wasn't cool. That made it easier to chaperone the hiking and camping trips because there wasn't as much complaining. The girls that stayed aren't BFFs but they generally are "nice kids" who lean nerdier than popular. Our leaders are ridiculously nice and patient people.

I'm a leader and could have written this post - it's a perfect description of my troop. (I mean... the last sentence maybe not, although I certainly hope the other parents would say that about me most of the time!)

I will say that our troop has girls from 4 different schools, and I really think that helps prevent cliquiness. When I was a Girl Scout, troops were multi-grade and multi-school. Now there seem to be a lot more single-grade, single-school troops, and in that environment you certainly have the potential for mean-girl behavior if the wrong kids/parents/leaders are involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It kind of makes sense that it would be a group of "joiners." Also, GS may attract people with more traditional values (and not in the good way in my opinion) [i][u]which I tend to think = mean girls, or at least more provincial girls and parents

Unlike the other scouting organization, Girl Scouts is radically inclusive and progressive, which pisses some people off for sure, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain that it's values are too traditional

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My girls are in Cub Scouts/Scouts because we couldn’t get a call back from Girl Scouts, despite multiple calls and emails to several different branches. One branch did call us, but it was well after we had already signed up for Cub Scouts. I chalk that more up to busy/high demand, maybe I wasn’t calling at the right time of year.

That said, thinking about the little girls I know how are in Girl Scouts—or ANY elementary kid—I would never in a million years label any child as a “Mean Girl.” If you want to have a go at the parents, have a go at the parents. But take a look at your thread title. My goodness.

I am a Girl Scout leader and on my local Service Unit team (the collection of troops in the area) and I genuinely have no idea how Scouts BSA does it! They seem to have an endless supply of spots for new kids, meanwhile we ***always*** have more girls that want to join than available troops and struggle so much getting new leaders to volunteer. Does Scouts BSA just not have the same adult/child ratio requirements? Are parents more willing to volunteer for their sons than their daughters? Do paid staff step up and run troops if they don't have volunteers? I would love to know how they do it.

[Anonymous]

Girl Scouts are actualLy very liberal as an organization. It sounds like you have a troop that is not a good fit. You can easily switch troops. I hope it works out for you.

[Anonymous]

What a weird thread. I was a girl scout til I was a sophomore in high school and found that in general the girl scouts are the "nice girls" - we never had a "popular girl" in our troop.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are an idiot. Girl Scouts are the least offenders. The worst in your class are the non girl scouts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

Wait do all the parents not have to volunteer for girl scouts? For boy scouts they require all the parents to do something during the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

I don't know how to do the ***clapping*** emoji here, but I wish I did. Seriously. I don't even know what a "PTA Mom" really is. Is there crossover between parents leading our school's PTA and moms leading our schools' various GS troops? Yes. And you know why? Because they are the few, brave souls who come home from a full-time job and still volunteer to help everyone else's kids. If you're not going to join them, can you at least let them seem "cliquey" once in a while if they want to go get a drink together on a weekend or something? This post is so odd. So sick of parents freeloading and then complaining about everything. And, no, Girl Scouts are FAR from the "mean girls" at our elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our 5th grade troop formed and has had the same membership since kindergarten. It's a pretty random group of girls because no one knew each other when the troop formed in the September of kindergarten year. Like your troop, it is a large percentage of the girls at her school, probably around 30-40%.

I do agree that the parents and girls are the "joiners." They're the same girls on the school soccer team, basketball team, in the school play, at PTA events, etc. At least for our troop they're not mean and aren't cliquey. It's a pretty nice group, but you do see the same people all the time.

+1 - but an even larger percentage of the girls are in GS for my upper elementary aged daughter. And it’s the same people who do swim team and Girls on the Run, and PTA stuff.

It’s mostly the kids/moms who are joiners - there is a good amount of parental support. Some of the moms aren’t my favorite moms, but eh, that’s life.

The only thing that kind of rubs me the wrong way is that while our school is relatively socioeconomically diverse for the DVM, the troop is not and is more UMC than the school as a whole. It doesn’t seem to be deliberate, and really might just be due to a small sample size of one grade that has more boys than girls at a relatively small school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

Wait do all the parents not have to volunteer for girl scouts? For boy scouts they require all the parents to do something during the year.

Nope! My daughter is a Girl Scout and I was shocked when my son looked at Cub scouts and I was told I’d have to go to everything.
There are definitely parents who just drop their kid off and don’t do anything else in Girl Scouts.

[Anonymous]

I have a son and a daughter and I think cub scouts is far less popular in general. Fewer boys sign up to begin with and not many stick with it. For my son, it was also really poorly run which didn't help. In elementary in particular, Girl Scouts is pretty popular. And sure plenty of people want to drop their daughter off somehwere and not have to do anything. Endless supply of those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

I don't know how to do the ***clapping*** emoji here, but I wish I did. Seriously. I don't even know what a "PTA Mom" really is. Is there crossover between parents leading our school's PTA and moms leading our schools' various GS troops? Yes. And you know why? Because they are the few, brave souls who come home from a full-time job and still volunteer to help everyone else's kids. If you're not going to join them, can you at least let them seem "cliquey" once in a while if they want to go get a drink together on a weekend or something? This post is so odd. So sick of parents freeloading and then complaining about everything. And, no, Girl Scouts are FAR from the "mean girls" at our elementary school.

So I posted above that I am a troop leader and don't volunteer all that much otherwise. I dabble in it when it's meaningful to me.

A PTA mom is someone who makes it their identity to be involved in all the things. They are the class mom AND the troop leader AND active in the PTA AND planning the school fair AND sign up to chaperone every field trip before anyone else even sees the sign up AND plans the cookie carry. And so on.

I genuinely believe if some of these women would step back on occasion other people would step in and it would be good for kids and building community. And if no one filled the gap left, well I guess it wasn't that important after all to very many people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel free to form your own troop or thank the other moms for doing the work for you.

This.
For those who are upset that the pta moms are the ones whose kids are involved, it’s because most troops either need a leader (who do you think that’s gonna be?) or need to operate as a co-op (requires all the moms to pitch in).
If you’re not a “joiner” or “into volunteering” but you still want your kid to participate, then you are a freeloader.
And that’s fine. But just recognize that this means you can either tolerate that your kid will be around mine and daughters of other moms who also happen to donate time to volunteering. In fact, it’s probably at one of these events where we all met and became “cliquey” to begin with! It’s not that we set out to exclude you. You excluded yourself because you self-proclaimed that you aren’t “into” volunteering.

Wait do all the parents not have to volunteer for girl scouts? For boy scouts they require all the parents to do something during the year.

Nope! My daughter is a Girl Scout and I was shocked when my son looked at Cub scouts and I was told I’d have to go to everything.
There are definitely parents who just drop their kid off and don’t do anything else in Girl Scouts.

In ES, yes, mainly because the boys need wrangling. Wonderful to get to MS and find that's no longer the case. Meetings and events are drop-off, though the ethic is that all parents find a way to contribute at some point. Which makes for a wonderful community.