Tag: discipline

Boundaries

Why are there boundaries?

Boundaries serve to delineate a difference – over here is Germany, over there is Poland. They serve to separate incompatible functions – on this side of the wall is Sales, on that side is Production (and dangerous equipment, pressurized gases, concentrated chemicals, high voltage electricity). And they serve to provide guidance / provide protection – if you go past the fence, the bull / deep ravine / toxic waste might get you. Valid boundaries are vital to your happiness / health / survival.

We went through, a generation back or two, a widespread rejection of boundaries – “tune in, turn on, drop out” in Leary’s phrase. Boundaries were seen as limiting, arbitrary, restrictive – as obstacles rather than protections. Boundaries kept people apart rather than kept people safe. Boundaries prevented free association instead of limiting contact between incompatible groups. Boundaries were bad.

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Counting our losses – the Boy Scouts

 

In the ongoing cultural wars, we have lost much. For a start, we have lost a lot of the distribution, impact and benefits that the Boy Scouting movement gave to America. What we had, how we lost it, and why we lost it is the subject of this rambling, unpoetic screed. Enjoy, detest, write hateful comments, whatever – YMMV, this is MY experience from forty years ago. I have no current contact with the Scouting movement, so feel free to add your two cents below as to what it is / does / should be.

I grew up in middle Tennessee in the sixties / seventies. Overwhelmingly white area, filled with fairly ordinary people, who did ordinary things. Our fathers were almost all living at home with us and our mothers, raising us as best they could, teaching, leading and disciplining us as possible. They were not perfect people any more than today’s are, but they gave us time, attention, and support above and beyond today’s call. We became better people because of it.

My dad was not a Scoutmaster – he didn’t have enough time. Five kids, a full-time job as a civilian contractor for the Air Force working at a wind tunnel facility ate up most of his time, along with a thirty-acre non-working (non-commercial) farm and various other things. For a couple of years we had a commercial greenhouse growing tomatoes for local supermarkets, but a nasty windstorm destroyed it and he let it go; wasn’t making a whole lot there anyway, too easy to grow tomatoes in Tennessee. But with all he worked and did and made and fixed and built and maintained and kept, he somehow found time for –
The Boy Scouts of America. As a parent, not an official.

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