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To clarify, the parent chaperones for fieldtrips are allowed, in fact normally are normally required to ride the bus to the fieldtrips (not the school bus to school, the bus that is rented to go to fieldtrips), at least in my area. Can you imagine a bus full of , let's say two classes of kindergarten or first graders, 60 very excited children and just their two classroom teachers and no parent chaperones on the bus to help them on the bus and when they first get to the fieldtrip. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
But, those parent chaperones can not bring their other children, children that they babysit for or their pets along on fieldtrips. Don't laugh, I had a parent say that she couldn't leave their new puppy home alone and wanted to take the puppy on the school bus and to the science museum with us. She said that we could "lie" and call it a "helper dog".
That is ridiculous. I don't know how people think sometimes. Anyhow, I meant the extra kids as a liability. Makes total sense.
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I'm not that familiar with clubs or groups that meet in school building except that every child must be supervised and stay with their parent. Where I used to work, Girl Scouts met in the cafeteria right after school. parents would sometime just say to their other children who were not in GS "go to the library or computer lab or art room" (and other unsupervised areas) and wouldn't watch these other children (sometimes even toddlers). It got to be such a safety problem that all of the school rooms needed to be locked and special barricades put up to keep the roaming children out of the main school area (this was after school was over for the day or on the weekends).
Again, sorry to be off topic but I wanted to clear up the confusion about parents chaperoning fieldtrips.
Based on what I posted above about the conversation I had with my friend it doesn't seem like it has to be a PIA. That's another thing about having 1 kid vs many kids. She only has one, so any involvement she has with this stuff is only for her one kid and obviously the kid will always be with her. That's how it's going to be for me as well, but I can see that having a tribe in tow isn't doable like that.
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As an aside, I see the "working mom" vs "stay at home mom" fight is still ongoing. Each side thinks their group does more.
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Originally Posted by germaine2626
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In my daughter's Girl Scout troop almost all of the activities were held on the weekends and evening. The leaders, cookie moms and key adults were all working mothers. Ironically, the 25% of the parents who were SAHMs volunteered very little to the group.
I didn't intent to "add to the fight". In my daughter's specific Girl School troop most of the leaders & volunteers were working mothers. However, most of the SAHM in that grade also volunteered for the good of the school but in different ways (such as library helper, eye test day helper, sick room helper, classroom volunteer, fieldtrip chaperones, etc).
Block parties would be two much to split, and I can't imagine that being a good thing for a weekday anyway, but couldn't the group be split into two for day outings? This way there would be two options and one set of parents can chaperone at the water park or where ever on the weekend with those kids, and the other set can do so during the work week with the other group of kids.
The troop leader would then have to be available for both days. GS events require that. You cannot do a girl scout event without one person who has taken the gs training for the level of the girls you are taking on the event. Now if it is not a girl scout event, you might be able to do this, but not for an official gs event.
Re: the bold, if so, Girl Scouts could become prohibitively expensive for some.
Girl Scouts is specifically organized with volunteers because if they were paid, it could become expensive. All the leaders must take training to be a leader though and they must understand the safety issues.
Note too that girl scouts is one organization that provides financial aid for girls and families who need it. Some troops finance trips with their cookie money from the previous year. Extra money often comes from the council for trips where the fee would be prohibitive for the girl. Parents drive and in order to do that they must also be members of GSA so that they will be covered by the girl scout insurance when they drive a group of girls.
Also, unless they are expressly invited, siblings and friends are not supposed to be at GS events. GS troops are not babysitters. Now, our troop does allow siblings when the parent is staying to watch the sibs and sometimes the sibs are able to participate in some of the crafts or games, but often if the sib is a lot younger, these activities do not interest them or are too hard for them to do.
The troop leader would then have to be available for both days. GS events require that. You cannot do a girl scout event without one person who has taken the gs training for the level of the girls you are taking on the event. Now if it is not a girl scout event, you might be able to do this, but not for an official gs event.
Why can't multiple parents take the GS training? Is there a rule against that?
To the OP,
My kids are all grown now, but I was a full time worker with 3 children while raising all
of them.
I did it all, the daycare, taking my own sick leave when my kids were sick, taking less pay
to show up for school concerts, (during the day), always leaving early from work to make
all 3 parent teachers meetings every quarter, paying soooo much for the camps in the summer,
long train rides to work, having to bake cupcakes at 8pm for school the next day when I'm exhausted,
the hours of home work at night, every night, for all three, but I knew what every child was doing
in school for every class,
my daughter was not in girl scouts.
I didn't have the time. I have to prioritize, and that was not on the list.
My sons did not have sports to get into.
I had no time for sports. No money either,
All 3 of my kids worked, from an early age. I drove them for all their little jobs.
They were busy. Trust me.
It's hard. Real hard. But totally worth it!
They all turned out just fine. They are all smart, kept out of trouble.
Just one word of advise, your kids always HAVE TO COME FIRST.
ALWAYS.
I don't care how busy I was at work, if my child called, I took the call.
If it came to my job, or my child, my child would win hands down. Always.
No one or nothing is more important.
You can always get another job.
Your kids are irreplaceable.
Because it's a huge time committment, costs money, and people are reluctant to do it.
The initial training really isn't a big time commitment or very expensive, but I suppose that could vary from council to council. My issue with a lot of the training is that it wasn't offered at times when it was convenient for me to go
While I don't necessarily disagree with this, if you are going to go on an overnight trip which involves travel, or even do something involving a campfire, there is additional training needed for those things. I think that becomes a barrier for some troops doing what they would like.
We attempted to facilitate getting additional adults in the troop to do the leader training, and there was no interest. While this isn't always the case many times troops will be composed of girls who attend the same school. Some of the grades had troops and sometimes they did not. It was interesting to talk to some of the moms who were extremely bitter that there was no troop formed for the age of their girl, but they absolutely refused to do it themselves.
The other thing is that for some this sort of volunteering experience doesn't suit them. Some prefer what to do volunteering this they perceive to be higher status.
I have a normal work week Monday thru Friday nothing out of the ordinary but find a lot the stay at home moms or teachers that have off when kids are off school schedule events such as girl scout outings during the work week that would either require me to take off work, which I cant or hire a sitter to take my child. If kids did not talk which they normally do I could skip it and hope she doesn't find out. Recently they picked two days for everyone to choose from both during the week to go to a water park over an hour away (we also have one 10 min away not chosen) to take our 8 year old child to as a special outing for the extra money from selling cookies etc. I understand majority rules and you cant make it work for everyone but by them not even considering a weekend date to choose from they are eliminating the working parents kids. My child did the same cookie sales that everyone else did more then some but now will be eliminated from this because I would be extremely nervous to send with a young sitter to drive her 2.5 hours to spend at a water park. Am I being unreasonable to suggest they think about people that work.
You made the choice to have a child and you made the choice to work after their birth AND you knew in plenty of time beforehand that this outing was a "Possibility" so YOU should have made arrangements when it first became a possibility that you would need time off of work to go with your child. I did it with 3 children and their activities, "plan ahead" is the key. There are many Parents (this includes the men) who deal with the same things daily and do not whine about 'taking time away from their job', they are happy to be able to spend more time with their child in the middle of the week.
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