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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.