As a mom, I just don't have time to volunteer for every activity my child is in.... Between practices and competitions and school activities, it is all too much to add on something where I have to actively participate as well.
Back in the day when women didn't have jobs outside the house, perhaps had more free time to plan fun activities and volunteer for things like this. But today women just don't have the time.

Super outdated ugly uniforms. Outdated immature activities for the older girls. It's ok for the little ones but the whole organization does not seem to grow with the girls ages.

DDs switched to Scouting USA and liked it a lot more. For outdoor activities and more opportunities for merit badges.

My daughter’s troop plans to disband after 8th grade. They girls enjoy their time together but with band/orchestra, travel sports team and just being tweens their time is limited. To combat this, our troop meets monthly with a few big outings a year.

Because ours is a multilevel troop and most if the activities are geared toward younger girls and the “good” field trips and camps are given a pass because most of the troop is “young”. But overall because of me - me and my kids were given zero opportunity ito contribute to decision making. And my kids literally had to wait months upon months upon months to get a patch it and it never was clear where that cookie money went considering we had to pay for all the events and trips. I mean they got valuable skills selling cookies but ok fine once was enough, especially since middle school has countless other field trips and fundraisers for band, volleyball, etc

Gold Award Girl Scout here, and leader of a cadette (middle school) Girl Scout troop.

Fortunately, my troop is still full, and we actually had to turn away two girls this year because we didn't have room.
I work really, really hard to make sure my troop is girl-led. So far this year we've done three camp outs, archery twice, will be going rock climbing in a few weeks, and many of my girls are on the planning committee for our service unit's younger girl encampment.
About half of my troop earned Bronze, and so far it looks like about 1/3 of them are going to work on silver.

My troop is full of kids that you would probably call weird or dorky or quirky or whatever - and I adore every last one of them. I'm thrilled they've found their place to belong and to try new things and to develop their leadership skills.

And yeah.. they want to spend some cookie money to buy girl scout hoodies instead of wearing their uniforms on some events because other jack-ass kids are stating to make fun of them for being girl scouts. So if you're one of them, you should really re-examine your life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.

Oh look, the GS drop out has joined the club. How old are you? 13, 14, 15?

I'm serious. Have you looked into college admissions lately? They are looking for "personality and charisma."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.

Oh look, the GS drop out has joined the club. How old are you? 13, 14, 15?

God I hope so, sadly I think DCUM has some parents who care if activities are "dorky."

Some girls just want to go get their nails done with mom, others want to learn how to shoot arrows and throw tomahawks. 🤷🏻

There is a troop of seniors near me that seems to do mostly archery and puts on archery events for the younger kids. The opposite of dorky, and my girl adores them.

I and my sisters and cousins all did Gold Award and it absolutely helped with college. I'll take dorky merit aid to the bank, that's fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.

Oh look, the GS drop out has joined the club. How old are you? 13, 14, 15?

God I hope so, sadly I think DCUM has some parents who care if activities are "dorky."

Some girls just want to go get their nails done with mom, others want to learn how to shoot arrows and throw tomahawks. 🤷🏻

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with pp that it may be perceived as not cool enough by some, but I don't understand it, nor would it cause me to want my daughter to drop it. I love the opportunity to camp, do archery, canoeing, other outdoor activities. I do think you need to find other parents who are willing to do some work on activities. It can be a lot for one leader.

This was what I thought it would be, but it was NOT so we left. Depends on the troop I guess

I would say it depends more on the parents in the troop. Rarely will one of the other parents volunteer to be the second required adult in my DDs troop. I'll bend the rules some to do meetings in public places, but I'm not going hiking by myself, so no hiking for us. There's no chance anyone volunteers to do the work to be camp certified, so no camping for us.

This is what sucks - it's really all about what the parents want to do and moms are far less willing to do campout training than dads. Dads are FAR less likely to volunteer for Girl Scouts than they are for Boy Scouts. Boy scouts have the bonus of having moms and dads volunteer, but dads rarely volunteer for Girl Scouts. My daughter's old troop had the benefit of having three active dads that volunteered (my husband and another dad even went on a camping trip last year) but we moved and in her new troop, none of the dads volunteer. Not our troop, but I have heard that men are actively discouraged from volunteering in a lot of troops. It's disappointing when a man who is background checked and has a child in the troop WANTS to volunteer but the moms are too scared to let him, even though there are a ton of rules in place that wouldn't allow a man to be alone with girls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.

Oh look, the GS drop out has joined the club. How old are you? 13, 14, 15?

God I hope so, sadly I think DCUM has some parents who care if activities are "dorky."

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I know a single Girl Scout past older elementary age. What are they called when they are older? Whereas I have known boys who did Scouts into high school. I know some recent Eagle Scouts and have run across adults who were Eagle Scouts. Never run across someone in adult life who said they had done Girl Scouts in high school (or whatever the teen equivalent is).

High school Girl Scouts keep it quiet. I know a lot of people that were "secret Girl Scouts" in high school. I know a lot of boys that were secret Boy Scouts, too. When I was in high school, the Boy Scouts were all the weird ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.

Oh look, the GS drop out has joined the club. How old are you? 13, 14, 15?

Anonymous wrote:I think some of it is the Mom wants it more than the girl. The idea that it transitions to more girl led is crap. Our leader does a lot of the planning, managing and execution. My girl in 9th does not really care. She’s doing this for her college application. The activities are cringy. Most girls are a little dorky, including mine. Most girls don’t care about the mission. It’s not as cool as sports as they get older. Let’s be real.

Given how dorky it is and the fake leadership stuff like selling cookies, I don’t know if Girl Scouts would even be a positive for college admissions.