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This is a very sad tale. I was in the Scout program during the 1970s and it was a very positive and rewarding experience. I grew up in the inner city and so the camping trips were my first experience with the woods and nature. Back in those days, camping trips were serious business. We hiked, we blazed trails, we learned how to swim and there was archery and the rifle range. Every scout carried a pocket knife and we learned to whittle wood with it. We had campfires every night and slept under the stars!

Just missed getting Eagle Scout but got plenty of merit badges including orienteering, astronomy, backpacking, wilderness survival, etc. To get my citizenship merit badge I went to interview the mayor of my city. I showed up at City Hall in uniform unannounced and was quickly ushered into the mayor's chamber and was given an audience with him. Those were certainly different times. It would never happen today.

During the 1990s, I put my sons through the program. Cub Scouts, Webelos, the works. But it was different. By then, parents were constantly hovering, mothers even went on camping trips! Pocket knives were verboten and don't even think about archery or rifle range! It wasn't all bad but definitely not the kind of scouting I had as a boy.

“By then, parents were constantly hovering, mothers even went on camping trips! Pocket knives were verboten and don’t even think about archery or rifle range!”

That isn’t the boy scouts I ever knew.

Our son became an Eagle Scout in 2017. Along the way he did some very serious camping a long way from anywhere civilized, and a couple of times overseas at that. Only one mom ever went camping with his troop, and she only once. But at Boy Scout summer camp, they had neither riflery nor archery. But most if not all of his fellow scouts had pocketknives, and two years on he still uses his.

He was Patrol Leader (Troop Leader? Whatever the scout leader of the troop, as opposed to the adult leader, is called) for a year. His Eagle Scout project taught him a lot about doing things himself, and organizing complex tasks. I never did scouting myself beyond Cub Scouts (I think I made Bear, but quit after that), but I thought that even recently it was a great experience for our son. Being a Boy Scout made him a better man.