I want to live in an America that shares the virtues of the Scouts: brave, trustworthy, reverent and helpful

By Elizabeth Grace Matthew

When my oldest son wanted to join the Cub Scouts — a K-5 coed program of the Boy Scouts of America — I resisted at first. I told him we could go to one meeting, just to check it out, but that we might want to preserve more downtime in our family’s schedule rather than adding yet another activity.

But after that meeting, he came home reciting the Scout Oath, which reads in part: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty … to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

They had me at “do my duty.” We’re now a Cub Scouts family. Here’s why.

We live in an increasingly politicized country, where parenting and educational practices diverge ever more by ideology — to the detriment of us all.

On the right, the old-fashioned authority that children desperately need is too often coupled with racial and religious prejudice. Some lean into theocracy, teaching that only the principles of their faith should govern the country. Others, dubbing themselves “legacy Americans,” claim American values only for white, Protestant people whose ancestors have been here for far longer than mine.

Meanwhile, on the left, a worthy emphasis on inclusion and pluralism has become too often inextricable from the denigration of longstanding American values like personal responsibility, agency and hard work. For example, some proponents of “anti-racism” ideology say that an emphasis on high standards, measurable outcomes and writing well are characteristics of “white supremacy culture.”

No wonder we’re polarized.

Yet Cub Scouts manages to square this increasingly impossible circle in a way that feels reminiscent of my own 1990s childhood. There is an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, as well as an acknowledgement of past wrongs and a commitment to youth safety, alongside an appreciation of the old-school American values that rightly belong to us all.

The organization emphasizes the personal accountability of “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” John Bunyan’s allegorical guide to Christian self-mastery that was many 19th-century Americans’ educational text of choice.

https://www.deseret.com/2023/4/17/23671525/cub-scouts-boy-scouts-of-america-pilgrims-progress