Moving On...

A Cubmaster's Gift

I mentioned Sunday night that TheBoy is now TheBoyScout. After five years with our Cub Scout Pack, two of which he had his dad as his Assistant Cubmaster and three as his Cubmaster, my son has officially crossed over into Boy Scouts. He spent some time talking with some of the Boy Scouts at the rehearsal for the ceremony, learned a little bit about all the camping trips they take (he loves camping in a tent), and is now all excited about joining Boy Scouts. Like I said, I'm not done with this by a long shot...

As part of the ceremony, we split the duties of the presentation. I started off the ceremony, calling in the Boy Scouts who led the WeBeLoS II scouts into the auditorium. I explained to the audience the significance of the ceremony, detailing the many steps that the boys had taken in their quest to become Boy Scouts. At the point in the ceremony where we ask the Scout's parents to join him for the Crossing Over, I introduced the new Cubmaster and joined my son.

I've done this handoff before, only I was the new Cubmaster. Three years ago I took over as Cubmaster for the pack after two years as Assistant Cubmaster - waiting on stage to be officially introduced as the Cubmaster was both exhilarating and frightening beyond belief. I led the ceremony two more times on my own, sending two different groups of young men off into the world of Boy Scouts, off to find their own paths, on their own.

This time, though, was so very different. I stood on the stage and watched as someone took over my role; it was unnerving to see the Cubmaster patch on someone else's tan shirt. I'll stay with the Pack through June until we hold our graduation to help finish the transition - our new Cubmaster has only been with the Pack this year (his son is a Tiger, which means he'll have four years at the helm) and I'll help him through the last two Pack meetings and the graduation.

What got me most, though, wasn't the handoff. I know the Pack is in excellent hands, that's not the issue at all. It's that, as I gave my last Arrow of Light speech, I looked out at the audience and spotted one of my Tiger Scouts. I remembered my son being a Tiger, some short five years ago. He was excited about joining Cub Scouts - we had a record 18 boys join his year - and we had three different dens of hyperactive six year old boys to contend with.

His Wolf year we saw a handful of boys drop out, and the three dens were combined into two. At the end of the year I assumed the weighty role of Cubmaster, responsible for leading all the leader's meetings, planning all the pack events, and signing the advancement records so that the boys could move up the ranks. Where I'd been a second Assistant Cubmaster before, mainly responsible for heavy lifting (I joked that the only reason they asked me was because I had a pickup truck), now I was the face and voice of the Pack. Yikes!

His Bear year we saw a larger number of boys leave the program. Some left due to conflicts with their sports, as they advanced to more competitive levels in play. Some boys left because they'd rather play video games, still others for their own reasons. We consolidated the two dens into one very large den, as we lost one of the two Den leaders as well. We added new Pack events into the schedule to shake things up a bit, which seemed to work well in keeping the boys interested in Scouting.

His WeBeLoS I year started out with a scare - the Den leader, who had been the Den leader for my son's den since he was a Tiger, announced that her son was quitting and she would no longer be the Den leader. One of the other moms stepped forward and took over, and we only one other scout. At the end of that year, our Committee Chair's son crossed over, and we prepared a new Committee Chair for our Pack - the Committee Chair is the real leader of the Pack, the one who charters the organization and makes the decisions.

And this year, his last and mine, started almost as rockily, with my son angrily declaring that Cub Scouts was "for babies" and "stupid" - talking to other dads, it seems to be a common lament. The boys are getting too big for Cub Scouts - they're aching to spread their wings and strike out on their own. Those that can wait are richly rewarded in the Boy Scouts - the patrols are Scout-led, not adult led. The adults are there mainly to provide transportation and to make sure nothing catastrophic happens.

TheBoy surprised me on Sunday. He'd been vacillating between being really excited about crossing over into Boy Scouts and wanting to be done entirely. I took him to a Boy Scout Camporee in January, and he had so much fun participating in the events that he begged me to stay longer. They hiked, played games, competed in different tests of skill, strength, and knowledge, and just plain had a whole mess of fun all day long. When we got back from the Camporee he was all ready to cross over.

Recently, though, he'd been talking more along the lines of not wanting to participate. I suspect that peer pressure had something to do with this; he has several friends who are not Scouts and who were critical of Scouting in general. His best response to repeated questioning of why he didn't want to go onto Boy Scouts was mainly along the lines of "I'd rather stay home and play video games" - I wasn't buying it. Fortunately, two other boys in his den were also having the same struggle, so we crafty parents got together and arranged for the boys to hang out over a few weekends...

I got a chance to talk to my son in private on Sunday. He was much more receptive to giving Boy Scouts a shot - I told him that I would accept it if he attended a few events and genuinely didn't like it, but that I wanted him to try it before opting out. I'm going to sit out his first year before getting into any sort of leadership role just so he doesn't feel pressured - I'll still attend as many events as I can, but if he decides after six months that it really isn't for him, we can both walk away knowing the he tried and without leaving anyone hanging.

I think he'll be hooked after his first camping trip...

Leaving our Cub Scout Pack affected me more than I thought it would. This whole year I've been more relaxed - call it "short timer's" if you will - each major event that came and went I would think "hey, that's the last time I'll do that!". Surprisingly, each time the big event passed I would find myself just a little sad, knowing that next year someone else would be in charge. At the Blue & Gold banquet (we follow the crossing over ceremony with our yearly banquet), it dawned on me that this was, officially, my last event as Cubmaster.

The Blue & Gold and Crossing over is one of the "Big Four" events - the others being the Halloween party, the Pinewood Derby, and the overnight camping trip. Each of these events requires weeks of planning, getting lots of volunteers, and many hours of preparation before and after. We have to send out repeated requests to parents for help, cajole leaders into reminding their boys to attend each event, and - most importantly - making sure that 40 - 50 boys between the ages of 6 and 11 have fun.

Boy Scouts are different - the boys decide what trips they want to take and plan accordingly. The adults act as advisers - they'll recommend items that might be overlooked on a trip if no one brings them up beforehand, for example - but the Boy Scouts themselves do the planning. At Boy Scout camping trips, the adults get to eat first, and the Boy Scouts do the cleaning - I am really looking forward to that!

I'm certain that TheBoy will really enjoy being a Boy Scout - I'm just not sure I'm ready for my little boy to be that grown up...

That is all.