29 September 2008
Girl Scout Mom Hates America
Posted by admin under: Uncategorized .
Such a strange dichotomy. Hate the country. Gotta put my daughter in a patriotic organization. Why don’t I find these weird blogs for Boy Scouts? Is this a mom thing?
Not only did I never once in my life experience pride of country or anything but the greatest of contempt for the government, but I also was dished out the ironic occurrence of being born on the Fourth of July. My birthday is the day when America celebrates being America, and I have spent my life trying to separate myself from being connected to the excessive patriotism of my birthday. Just because I was born on the Fourth of July does not mean that I am a patriot. Dammit. And please do not sing Yankee Doodle to me or I’ll barf.
…
I was at Girl Scout Camp this weekend, and part of the camp included participating in the flag ceremony in the morning. Yesterday morning, I stood in a circle of three hundred girls, while six girls raised the United States flag. It was hard for them to do. The flag was big. The cables were heavy. The Girl Scouts and their moms watched as these young girls struggled with their task. When the flag finally made it to the top of the pole, the girls dropped it. The flag went careening down the cable with the whine of metal on metal. It fell into the dirt. The mothers gasped. The girls struggled to lift the flag off the ground and hoist it back up the flagpole. I watched this whole scene, the 300 girls and the flag, with surreal hallucinatory detachment. What has this flag done for these girls? Why are they hoisting it into the sky? They have been taught to pledge to it, to treat it with respect, to not drop it in the dirt. But to what end? What has it done for them lately? When the flag dropped on the ground, I couldn’t help but think that maybe it is time to think beyond the flag, time to come up with a new one.
Yesterday evening they took the flag down and folded it up while a young man played taps on the trumpet. The girls folded it awkwardly. It was messy. There were bulges and wrinkles. When they were done, they carted it off like a pet they were burying in the backyard. I was relieved to see it go.
When I went up to the mountain with my daughter, I had an odd sense that I would be returning to a different world when I came back down. I’m back down now, and the world is the same.
I’m only assuming her daughter is in the Girl Scouts, but it seems like a safe bet. The question is: Why?
Update: 
I shouldn’t be surprised, but after leaving a comment on mom’s blog asking if her daughter really is in Girl Scouts and then checking back I see that my comment was deleted without reply. Taking the high road or good old fashioned ducking the question? For someone railing against the dirty tricks of politicians it seems a little hypocritical to get rid of inconvenient questions. She wondered about the kind of world her daughter will grow up in. If mom was in charge it would apparently not include free speech.
- Definitely Not Bored
- Those Swinging Salvage Scouts
- GSUSA: Mountain Mama Marathon
- And Now a Random History Lesson on the GSUSA
- Tell Girl Scouts Where They Should Go
2 Comments so far...
Smoky Scout Says:
30 September 2008 at 11:47 am.
My husband always says, “What you see depends on where you sit” Maybe this woman is having a bad day. Maybe she is trying to be provocative on her website to get responses. Maybe she really feels this way. What has our country done for her? Guaranteed her the right to say what she said without fear of reprisals or punishment. Guaranteed her the right to go with her daughter to camp without a male relative. Guaranteed her the right to have a daughter at all.
admin Says:
30 September 2008 at 5:03 pm.
I figure she’s provocative. Her writing style is kind of flowy, like an online Hemingway. I figure she wants her words seen. Heck. That’s why we’re all on the internet, right? Otherwise, we’d be lurking like 85% (or use your own randomly generated statistic) of the other users. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and think she hates the government, but she pretty well seems ticked off with the whole lot of us. I was just trying to figure out why her daughter was so sensitive to politics at such an early age. I think mom rants a bit.
And yeah, I always wonder about people who are so angry at our country when I see some of the things going on in other ones especially the jailing of citizens just for speaking their minds. I guess I’m just lucky to find these blogs. I’m usually not angered by them, just interested and somewhat perplexed.
