Scouting for girls (and boys)

I honestly don’t know where we would be without the 23rd Poplar Scout group. It is the first club my kids have actively taken part in, but for a tiny weekly fee, it has given them the world.

From encounters with real princesses (although TBH my kids were a lot less bothered about HRH Kate turning up than me) to getting involved in charitable endeavours, to getting their hands dirty with actual mud rather than the bacteria that infests their iPad screens, this wonderful organisation has what it takes to inspire my children to live more authentically than just about anything else.

Offering them a sense of community, escaping the mob justice at school with new friends with less baggage (although bigger backpacks), the Scouts brings together disparate people under one, not always aesthetically pleasing or even well equipped roof to play games, sing songs, and get badges. In a way, it’s kinda like school, but without the ‘learning’ nonsense, for all there’s plenty of that too.

Jonah came back from last week’s four day centenary camp on Brownsea Island a changed boy. Four days of compromise, fresh air, unlimited access to penny sweets and army songs had given him a new found confidence, maturity and reflection. He came back calm, poised, tolerant and, well, more grown up. He’d learnt a few swear words, but he’d also realised when it was okay to use them. He said he sucked at archery, but didn’t seem overly bothered about it. He said the camp was amazing, the island beautiful, but that he was ready to come home. He acted like he appreciated us that little bit more, but also had more confidence in himself.

It’s a motif that’s been recurring since he and his sister joined the group several months ago. Every Friday night, we take them there at six, he to cubs, she to beavers, at a local school that, for once, they’re happy to attend – dressed in their uniforms – these days just a sweater and neck tie, rapidly accumulating badges, netting us an hour in the pub, safe in the knowledge that they get their weekend off to a wholesome start, for all the cakes and sweets they seem to bring home.

Whether it’s crafts, hiking, chess or charity, there’s often something going on at the weekends too, and both of them have joined in with more enthusiasm than anything we’ve suggested they try out. The enthusiasm of the leaders is infectious, as is the peer pressure of a mixed group, where the older ones lead the younger, just as it would be in society, weren’t we all divided up by school classes, and social classes and all the other barriers and hierarchical bullshit we put up to draw battle lines against one another.

It’s exposed them to so much, and has extended a welcome in a way not many organisations, except perhaps a more defiantly religious group might do, and for that I am grateful. Don’t get me wrong. I had my misgivings. I was a Brownie, in my day, complete with bobble hat and snaggle toothed sense of worthiness, but the girls-only group felt like an extension of the social anxiety I’d learned to expect with groups of females at school, although in many ways, they were a lot more inclusive for not being grouped together day in day out. In any case,  I began to exclude myself, staying until I was a Guide, but losing interest in its wholesome outwards bounds activities as I gravitated towards the more disaffected activities of indie music and smoking pot, as a 90s teens from a broken home, though these days, I’m much more interested in the former.

The duty to god and to the queen thing had me worried too. I worried that the movement’s pseudo “armed forces for kids set- up” was intent on training up the next generation of cannon fodder.  I’m fairly convinced there is no god, but Jonah, who’s staunchly anti-religion, has been allowed, discretely, and like many other children who don’t adhere to the Scouting movement’s Christian origins, to ignore that bit.

Pledging duty to an in-bred family of sociopaths irks me a little  and I thought we could ignore that too, but then Princess Cambridge showed up, and we all hit the floor and social media in star struck reverence, so the Royal family has certainly done a PR number on its East London subjects. And while I was suspicious about its intentions, and embarrassed by the furore, and the bowing and scraping we fell into by default, it was actually as good as an experience you could hope for on a random Tuesday night in the run up to Christmas.

And for all this establishment paedo scandal has dredged up overblown concerns about adults who choose to work with children in their spare time, I take my hat off to the volunteers. They are phenomenal, and what the leaders get back in return for the hard work and dedication they show to the community must be rich indeed. Any concerns parents might have are allayed transparently, and though you can never be 100 percent about everyone who your child will meet, it’s no reason to wrap them up in cotton wool.

In contrast, the Scout movement gives them backbone – teaching kids mollycoddled by parents, patronised by school and sidelined by society that the best way to get things done is to cooperate with others on a equal footing and be inspired to do things you might not do on your own. And for that, it has my wholehearted recommendation.