Posted on 05/21/2011 6:04:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Chances are, if you're naming your blog after a Taylor Swift album, your judgment's already suspect."
That's Salon dismissing two teen girls, in a piece on the Girl Scouts and its liberal feminist tendencies. And, as it happens, the line itself actually speaks to the heart of the problem.
Think about what the young country star's songs often embody: A rooted goodness, and higher expectations than instant gratification -- for herself and for those she loves. Are those things that should be so scornfully patronized by the liberal chattering class?
Sydney and Tess Volanski, about to be a rising sophomore and high-school freshman, respectively, started the aforementioned Taylor-named website, Speak Now, when they left the Girl Scouts after eight years because of the group's values clash with their own -- namely, its ties to Planned Parenthood.
The rude awakening for the sisters was the reported distribution of a Planned Parenthood brochure, entitled "Healthy, Happy and Hot" -- which dealt with satisfying sexual urges and procuring a "safe abortion" while living with HIV-- at the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts meeting last year. But Volanskis' concerns go beyond that -- to the worldview of the Girl Scouts as a whole.
These girls are bent on reform, rather than destruction, however.
"We were part of a great troop," Sydney says. "We had our Bronze Award and were in the process of planning for our Silver Award. It was a great experience, only marred when we found out that GSUSA is not who they say they are. We were saddened by the fact that we were representing a group in name and financially that had moral viewpoints in direct opposition to ours."
Sydney tells me: "Many Girl Scouts are good, wholesome girls. The problem lies within the national organization's leadership's lack of adherence to their promise of neutrality," on abortion. Further, she adds, girls often need and "should get help, but Planned Parenthood and abortion -- what GSUSA is directing them to -- are not help. Abortion has serious risks for women, including breast cancer, infertility, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. Does this sound like help?"
"If we had a say," Sydney continues, "we would make it so they were truly neutral about a girl's health and sexuality, abortion and birth control and political affiliations, as they promise to be. We would put the focus where it should be, on character-building and leadership activities."
When I asked them if they were just doing the bidding of their pro-life mom, as Salon accused, Sydney told me: "We have passion for the pro-life cause on our own. We are old enough so that we can form our own opinions. Teenagers are not all as apathetic as society seems to think; we can care enough about something to take action. This is something that we cared about, so we took action and made this website because we wanted to."
Sydney and Tess are finding their voices at a time when they're far from alone among young people, and young women. Tess points to Lila Rose, the 22-year-old who has made an early name for herself doing independent pro-life undercover work: "I am inspired by the many amazing women who fight for life in our culture today. One who stands out is Lila Rose. Her commitment and courage are very motivating. We found in person that Lila is not only bold and courageous, but also very kind and compassionate."
The Volanski sisters' new attitude to the Girl Scouts puts them in a growing crowd. Patti Garibay is the national executive director of American Heritage Girls, which has grown in the years since its 1995 founding from simply an alternative to the Girl Scouts to the more fitting sister group to the Boy Scouts. Just this year, the Boy Scouts joined American Heritage in a joint "memorandum of mutual support." Garibay explains some commonalities between the two groups, "AHG and BSA are both centered on a duty to God, we are 'owned' by our charter partners, thus allowing our programs to serve as a ministry of the church, we are structured the same, AHG leaders use the BSA youth protection and outdoor skills training to name a few."
And, she adds, in response to some of the critics of those concerned about GS mission creep: "Yes, girls need to know about sexuality but why not within a moral framework of faith, family, and church." You can't build character without a moral barometer, Garibay argues.
Anna Halpine, who founded the World Youth Alliance adds: "A lot of good organizations affiliate with (Planned Parenthood) both nationally, (locally) and internationally, since they are the big banner organization that is promoting women and girls, and claiming to advocate their health and healthy lifestyles. I think that many of these groups would find their local and national chapters agitating to form alliances with other groups if those were available to them. In essence; we need an alternative to the current options."
It can be hard to be a good girl in our often over-sexualized culture. But it looks like the girls -- bolstered by parents or church or other prevailing bastions of sanity -- might just blaze the paths themselves.
You go, girls! And like in a Taylor Swift song or two, the guys might just follow -- and appreciate it more than you know.
When my kids were in Girl Scouts, it seemed that everything was focused on cookie sales only. The girls quickly grew tired of being cookie distribution mules and quit.
I will predict within three years that the girl scouts end up splitting up into two organizations. I’ll even go as far as predicting the boy scouts do the same within six years. We are living in the environment that existed in 1850...with two nations trying to exist in the same sphere.
“”Girl Scouts Don’t Got What Some Need””
Do third graders write the headlines now? Whoever wrote the title sure don’t got no education, .
“Don’t got’’. Is that the same as ‘’I ain’t got’’? Is this some dialect of Ebonincs?
Same here.
Our breaking point was when my daughters went on a "three day survival camping trip." They were told to pack light ... only two changes of clothes and nothing else. And, of course, they were told to expect the worst.
Their troop leader drove them to a "scout wilderness area" in the wilds of West Texas where they slept on a cot in a cabin built on a cement slab with mosquito netting in the windows instead of glass. They learned how to cope using hand crank can openers instead of electric models and how to purify tap water using a Mr. Coffee machine. They were forced to endure the hardship of reading under a bare bulb, and there was no TV.
That gruesome ordeal reduced the organization to the point of zero credibility, and the girls quit shortly thereafter.
Using a manual can opener is a hardship? That's the only kind I use! Just wait until my 28 year old son (who has possibly never used an electric can opener) finds out just how primitively we raised him. Why, we're almost Amish!
“I’ll even go as far as predicting the boy scouts do the same within six years.”
GS I can see. We’re pretty involved in BSA and I don’t see much of a PC invasion there. I have no quibble with your two nations statement—it is true. It’s just that BSA seems to reside almost exclusively in the decent nation.
I seriously doubt that. I have found that most parents of girls in Girl Scouts are oblivious to the PC orientation of the organization. Even if they do know about some of the issues, they insist that the questionable practices are not occurring in their local group.
Handles! One of these jobs and the house key went on a shoe string around my neck when I graduated from kindergarten. Had to scrounge the spoon up my self!
;>)
***Teenagers are not all as apathetic as society seems to think; we can care enough about something to take action. This is something that we cared about, so we took action and made this website because we wanted to.”***
For a sophomore this young lady sounds very bright. I’m with her.
My daughter was in scouts over tens years ago. She was in a good troop which had interesting activities at their meetings. They also took trips, used troop money to go to restaurants, etc. Around that time, I started reading articles about the direction the girls scouts were taking. Another article by Kathryn Jean Lopez, written over ten years, informed me as to what was happening at the national level. This article mentioned stories about lesbian activities in the scouts. It was then I understood why the gays attacked the boy scouts but not the girls scouts.
The National organization which affects all of the actual girls very little, except to sell badges uniforms and other and logo merchandise, imho
The regional Councils, which are going the way of National, little real functional impact on us except to manage registrations, offer some programs, and manage our camps and properties - which many Councils are selling off as fast as they can find loopholes around the bequests that left those properties to the girls
And then there are the troops- most of us still try to adhere to traditional values and programs. We adults recognize that the reason girls join GS is to camp, not to sell cookies- cookies is only a means to pay for girls to pay their own way to go troop camping. For many of us our “happy place” is around a campfire after dark. Once you do that, it is hard to not want it for your daughter
We are flooded by girls wanting to join GS, and lack leaders to lead troops and teach them to run their own troops as teens. 1,200 on girls on waiting lists for troops in my region alone.
when I had a bad troop leader, my Mom didn’t blame “Girl Scouts” and let me quit and bad-mouth the organization
All leaders are volunteers, you know. Some are good, some are not.
My Mom stepped up and started a new troop
Now 50 years later I am doing the same
“We are living in the environment that existed in 1850...with two nations trying to exist in the same sphere.”
And the outcome is likely to be the same as the four years following April 12, 1861.
Perhaps not quite as dramatic, but just as uncivil.
We’ll likely discover Real Soon Now just how far the LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascist bastards who would impose their will on us and rule us are willing to go.
And, we’ll also discover what the push back will be.
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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Stuff like this (especially the national GS organization’s non-reaction to the perversion in the Bluebonnet Council) is why my daughter was pulled from Girl Scouts before she was 8.
When the Bluebonnet Council in Texas was distributing pornographic PP material to girl scouts as young as the seventh grade, a Freeper Girl Scout mom took me to task for bringing it up on FR, saying not everything had to do with “politics” and that I shouldn’t bash an organization that was mainly about young girls having fun.
After fuming for a bit, I posted back to her, citing a news story that said the book distributed to the girls had a detailed illustration in it showing how to apply a condom to a man’s penis. I then said that if a main came up to my daughter and I on the street and showed her a picture of a penis, I would not ask about his party affiliation while I was dialing 911 with my boot on his neck.
LOL! It sounds like fish camp. We pay good money for that experience. ;)
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