The Big Quit
Newsletter 2024-11-24
It was a scandal that came out of nowhere: Waffle quit Cub Scouts. Her timing was good. Minutes earlier, I had emailed her pack’s treasurer for technical help with paying the annual dues. We’re now required to re-up through an app, which of course I couldn’t get to work. The main role of technology is to make simple transactions take as many extra steps as possible. I’m one failed login away from becoming Amish. The treasurer had just replied with the special code I needed for the privilege of paying money when Waffle walked into the kitchen.
“I don’t want to do Cub Scouts anymore,” she said in her tiniest voice.
I was shocked. She and my ten-year-old, Lucy, love Cub Scouts. At least I thought they did. They were absolutely adamant that we had to be on time for the meetings every Thursday night. I only forgot half the time. Weekdays all run together for me. I’ve been stuck on Tuesday since 2012. The girls set me straight, usually reminding me immediately after I finished putting dinner on the table that it was time to drive them across town. If we were late, they would have the shame of walking in after the flag ceremony had already started. Everyone knows that if you miss the Pledge of Allegiance, Uncle Sam gives you seven years of bad luck. We were always on time, despite my best efforts to the contrary.
Waffle was good at Cub Scouts. She took home way more awards and trophies than her sisters, a fact she only rubbed in literally all the time. Every year, she claimed an age group award at the Pinewood Derby for having the fastest car in her den. So what if she won by default because everyone else in her age group quit? The best wins are the ones you don’t have to work for. Anyone who tells you effort makes the reward sweeter is trying to make you work harder for free. Technically, she did have to work for her win. She had to build a car that could make it down the track. That’s one more step than her non-existent competition. I suspect the lack of rivals was part of the problem.
Waffle didn’t have any friends her own age in Cub Scouts. In her first year, her Lion den consisted of her and four extremely squirrely boys who couldn’t sit still to save their lives. Waffle was a model student by comparison. She might sometimes be a terror at home, but she’s always a star pupil at school. She has great respect for any authority figure who’s not me. By the next year, when Waffle was a Tiger, all four of those boys were gone. She technically had a den leader, who very charitably volunteered to lead her group of one. The problem with good, selfless people like that is they volunteer for a million other things, many of which are also on Thursday nights. When her den leader was away saving the world somewhere else, Waffle got rolled in with one of the older dens. In hindsight, I should have taken over as den leader, but scouting has never really been my thing. If anything, I would have decreased her survival skills. She would have gone from being able to make it in the woods for a little while on her own to not even being able to survive in our own house. I love my kids too much to try to teach them anything. Someday, they’ll thank me.
Even alone in her age bracket, there was still plenty for Waffle to do. In addition to meetings where she hung out with bigger kids, she always did the all-pack activities. She and Lucy were a few of the only kids to go to summer camp each year. The group that went was so small that the pack leader drove them himself in his SUV. I owe him for that. It was a forty-five minute trip each way. He was going to be there anyway because he took a week off work to be one of the unpaid day camp counselors. Some people are wired to help others and expect nothing in return. They might as well be a different species than me. With Waffle gone, the number of summer camp attendees would be even smaller. I should have known that she would be missed.
After Waffle dropped out, I questioned my perception of reality. Perhaps I was wrong about everything my kids liked to do. I asked Lucy if she wanted to stay in scouting. She was offended I even asked. She loves Cub Scouts. Unlike Waffle, whose group disintegrated around her, Lucy is in the biggest den in the pack. That group just so happens to include her best friend. Thursday nights are the social highlight of her week. Plus she gets to play with knives and start fires. What’s not to like? She’s an Arrow of Light, which means next year she’ll transition to the BSA Scouts. My twelve-year-old, Mae, is already there. Scouting is her primary extracurricular activity and main friend group. A few months ago, Lucy went on a trial campout with Mae and the other BSA girls. She had fun doing the outdoorsy things I hated as a kid. It’s why I never told them about scouting. They found it on their own when the Cub Scouts came to their school and gave away stickers. It was more effective than handing out free samples of crack. With one hit, all three of my younger kids were hooked. The next year, BSA Scouts passed out ice cream bars and got my oldest daughter, Betsy, too. Other organizations could learn a thing or two from the way the scouts recruit. The military should stop offering free college tuition and start offering free Dairy Queen. They’d meet their yearly quotas in a weekend.
Recruiting is one thing. Retaining is another. Waffle wasn’t my first kid to quit scouting. That honor went to Betsy. She started in BSA Scouts. She was too old for Cub Scouts by the time she sold her soul for a frozen treat. She stuck with it for a year or so. She went to summer camp and enjoyed herself. The issue was that she was in too many other things. She does track, cross country, and a million other extracurricular activities. Most of them are related to FFA and its various subgroups. The weirdest one is livestock judging. We’re not farmers, although we do have more pigs in our house than the average suburbanite. Not that it helps. There’s no potbelly division in FFA. Betsy is currently learning to body shame cows. If you’re a fat heifer, watch out. There weren’t enough hours in the day for Betsy to do everything. She made the hard decision to give up BSA Scouts. It was fun, but it often required entire weekends for campouts. Plus most of the girls in her troop were a year or two younger than her. She stuck with the groups that her friends were in. That tends to be the deciding factor for where my daughters invest their energy. They have yet to realize how much time they could save if they didn’t have friends in the first place.
I’m generally pro-quitting, especially when it comes to my children. Growing up, I almost never quit anything, usually to my detriment. I should‘ve bailed on basketball when it became apparent I didn’t have the hand-eye coordination to catch, pass, or shoot. Luckily, I was pretty good at sitting. I excelled at warming the bench. I also should’ve abandoned all the school groups I didn’t enjoy but that I thought would look good on my college applications. I was basically committing fraud by implying I was a good person. Luckily, my college closed, so it’s too late for them to sue. Sometimes, I’m the one who forces my kids to quit. After our one-year experiment with soccer, I told the younger three girls that we were done for good. The test run failed when I ended up having to drop off and pick up the kids from nine different engagements in nine different time slots each week. It was simply too much, especially when most of the soccer games consisted of them frolicking in the grass and not paying any attention to the ball. They can pretend to be wood elves at home. When we drive past the soccer fields, they still sometimes mention wistfully how they used to play until I made them quit. Every story needs a villain. Despite the hit to my reputation, I remain pro-quitting. I didn’t stop Betsy when she left BSA Scouts or Mae when she said she was done with running. Life is too short to spend your free time doing things you hate. Only do things you hate on the clock for a paycheck. If you’re doing something for free, you better like it.
Nobody said anything when the girls left soccer and running. It was a different story when Waffle left Cub Scouts. We sent the pack’s entire leadership team into mourning. The pack treasurer said she was sad to see Waffle go. The pack leader told Lucy every week to remind Waffle that he missed her. Besides driving my kids to summer camp multiple years in a row, he also gave me the Great Dane-sized dog carrier we used to rescue Onyx. Anyone who materially supports me when I need to catch a pig will always be a standup guy in my book. I was disappointed in myself for disappointing him. Finally, even Waffle’s former den leader texted me. He was devastated that she left and felt personally responsible. He couldn’t lead her den this year because, for most of the fall, he’s been across the country repairing hurricane damage. These are fundamentally good people. It’s why I don’t hang out with them outside of scouts.
I assured the former den leader that Waffle’s departure wasn’t his fault. In fact, I didn’t really know why she quit. She never gave me a straight answer. I’m guessing it was just because she was the only kid in her age group. Plus, she likes hanging out at home and doing nothing. She gets that from me. Individually, though, she liked all the activities in scouting. The den leader’s deeply-felt angst got me thinking. Perhaps I shouldn’t always be quite so pro-quitting, especially when kids are too young to know what they really want. I questioned Waffle again to get to the bottom of what happened. She still didn’t have a firm reason for leaving. I went through the scouting activities one-by-one to figure out if there was anything in particular that drove her away. Did she like summer camp? She enjoyed that very much. Did she like the Pinewood Derby? She liked winning, especially when she came home with trophies and her sisters didn’t. Did she like the Christmas parade? She paused.
“I forgot about the Christmas parade,” she said in awe.
I hate parades almost as much as I hate camping. The kids are the opposite. In a few weeks, the Cub Scouts will again ride their train-themed float down dark, cold streets in a procession to the main Christmas tree in town. Waffle wouldn’t be a part of it.
“I want to do scouts again,” She said.
Just like that, she was back. Maybe I was wrong to let her quit. Maybe I was wrong to question her until she went back. The only thing I know for sure is that she’s going to enjoy the heck out of riding in that fake train in a few weeks. If that’s the small push that leads to her eventually being an Eagle Scout, then it was all for the best.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.
James
My daughter wanted to quit ballet when she was about 6 and had just been in for part of a year. I wasn't going to force her to continue of course, but then I got out of her that it was because a girl in her class stuck her tongue out at her on the playground at school and she was super hurt. I encouraged her gently to keep going and ignore that particular girl's behavior (unless it became bullying of course, which it didn't). The other girl quit after that year and my daughter ended up doing ballet all the way through high school and is still dancing in a group for non-majors college. All of her positive social activities, exercise, discipline, joy, and friends have pretty much come from dance. She had all the top roles in the Nutcracker eventually and was invited to the Joffrey. And she almost quit because of hurt feelings when she was tiny. I'm glad you asked gentle questions and got Waffle to reflect. If she doesn't end up sticking with it, it's also o.k., but by golly that train is waiting... ;-)
This den leader seems to be an angel in disguise! Nothing but sheer respect for him.
I like your pro-quitting approach. I believe wanting to try different things and the possibility to opt out (even if sometimes a fair sample of time, like a year, should be required) can only be beneficial and uplift the feeling of subjectivity and self-esteem of a child. Your policy is very inspirational for me.
I was allowed to do so only after providing a list of reasons in favor and a replacement activity, rarely I could bail out by being really unhappy. But there were times I had to give up the alternate stuff due to others' busy schedules, like when to avoid swimming-improving classes I picked sailing instead and was willing to put in a lot of effort to get to the lake far away for practice. As for guilt/shaming into coming back, that tactic was used on me only once - when the conductor of the choir I sang in wanted me to stay, she said I was wasting a "Singing Mozart"-scale talent.
The way the girls found out the Cub Scouts reminded me of how I twice signed up for robot programming by LEGO Mindstorms in primary school. The first time was after seeing a demonstration of it in a shopping mall, then after it was gone for a year I was hooked thanks to seeing a poster with children doing programming on laptops. Dreaming of having the possibility to use electronic-devices even for a short-strictly purposed time, my begging was successful and my mum signed me up. I really loved spending time on building, programming and running those robots.
I can see why Betsy had to make some cuts - when I was her age, having few intensive extracurricular activites plus participating in many knowledge competitions I sadly had to give up the hiking circle - I felt too exhaused after each week to spend several Saturdays in the mountains, despite that it meant doing little to no chores.
"(...) likes hanging out at home and doing nothing" - I was like that too. Yay for introverts!