It's Been A While

It's been a while since I last blogged, I guess you could say that life kind of got in the way of my 'me' time. I think the only reason I am sitting down now and wanting or needing to write is because I need to vent. So much drama going on and it's all circulating around 10 year old girls! Yeah, you heard me, 10 year old girls. I mean, seriously! And Girl Scouts none-the-less. And, of course I'm being dragged right smack in the middle of it along with my daughter. Here is the way I see things. The leaders of the troop are there to organize events and lead the meetings--that's pretty much it. As parents it is our/your responsibility to make sure you are where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there, you have permission slips filled out when they are are supposed to be filled out and if you plan on attending an event you let the leader know, both with an email and verbally. The last is what has lead to this weekends drama. There was an event on Friday. Four emails were sent out asking who was going and needing a head count so that supplies could be purchased. One parent didn't email back, but said she gave a verbal confirmation that her daughter was going. Verbal didn't cut it because my co-leader has a million and one things going on in her life and can't remember who tells her what and when. So, she didn't add this particular child into the head count. When the night came and the event started this child was not allowed into participate because she was not on the list or what have you. The people sponsoring the event only purchased enough supplies for the number of children attending. Now, I am NOT defending anyone in this situation because I think everyone is at fault. If it were me (though I'm a little anal and OCD) as the parent I would have called, and emailed to check, double check and triple check to make sure my kid was getting into said event. If it were I who were sponsoring the event I would have just purchased more than enough supplies so that if extra girls showed up it wouldn't have been an issue. And lastly if it were me responding on behalf of the troop I would have just said the whole troop was coming whether they were or not just for GP and to cover supplies. But, I wasn't involved. So, it blew up. I can understand being upset, I really can. But again, their 10. Police reports were filed, two of the girls in our troop are being pulled and put in another troop (which I'm not sure how that is going to be better--there are still permission slips, you still have to RSVP to events or you can't go, but whatever) and now I'm being, actually we are ALL being dragged to North Haven to discuss shit that happened last year that other parents think was un-fair. Really?!?!?! I'm sorry, I don't recall yesterday, let alone last year. But what I do recall is that all the girls participated in the end of the year ceremony and the only reason one of them didn't get a certain patch was because she didn't complete the work that the others did to EARN it.

That's the other thing, some of these parents think Girl Scouts and/or Boy Scouts is just about getting together for sleepovers and seeing Kumbaya--WRONG! Yes, you are supposed to get together and have fun and what not, but you are also supposed to be making your way up a latter to reach the highest level. Girl Scouts, I believe is the Gold Award and Boy Scouts is the Eagle Scout. There is nothing wrong with teaching these kids about the real world and making them do some actual work. We are currently selling cookies :) I got into a discussion with a parent the other day who disagreed with me and the way we as a troop distributed the money the girls earned selling the cookies. You tell me what you think, which one is more FAIR! The way we do is: Say two girls are selling cookies--girl A sells for five hours, girl B sells for two hours. We take the number of boxes sold, and divide it--the girl who was there longer obviously gets more money put into her account then the girl who was only there for two hours, right? It's not fair for one girl to work 12hrs busting her butt selling cookies while another girl is only there for 45min and they get the same amount of money? I don't think so! So, this parent said it should be divided equally among the girls no matter how long the girls are at the booth sale for. What?!?!? Really?!?! So, I said to him (yup, it was a man, go figure, lol) ok, your wife is at work right now, and I'm not, so I should still get a paycheck? He said no, because I didn't belong to that "troop". Ok, I don't work where she does--but say I did. Say we worked at the same place--I went in and only worked for 30min and decided I wanted to go home, but she stayed for her entired shift, busted her ass and did what she was supposed to be doing. She EARNED her money--should she have to split it with me? His response? No, because that is different. LOL--NO IT'S NOT! It's the same thing! We are trying to teach these girls about life. What it's like to work and earn something and then reap the rewards of that. Why is that a bad thing? Yes, they are only 10--but start instilling it in them now and you won't have lazy adults who don't want to work later.

Frankly I don't care what happens right now because I think all parties involved are being retarded and childish. Let the girls decided what THEY want to do--it's not really up to us. Did it have to get to this point? No. But that is not just one person's fault--it's everyone's fault. More communication would have helped. Respond to emails when asked--it's not that hard. Send a text, pick up the phone. Could I have done more? Sure. But seeing as I was roped into this job in the first place I think I am doing just enough. Ontop of the fact that the list of things that I do far out weighs everyone elses by a long shot. I stretch myself pretty thin, I think the other parents can do the same for their kids.

Anyway, this is hopefully the last year we will be doing this. Skyler is more a sports girl and an AMAZING soccer player :) She is going to focus on that in the fall. She's already being recruited--because, yeah, she's that good :-)

I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll be writing. I can sense more drama in the near future and I need somewhere to vent. Until next time!