Girl Scout Night

I wrote this about a month ago. I had forgotten all about it until I sat down at my laptop at the dining room table shortly before 5 this morning. I really wish I was still asleep… and today is my day to take SG to school, so I could have slept until the lordly hour of 0615. As it turns out, I have been awake since 0345. Where is the justice in this world? I ask you?  So, here I sit on a(nother) rainy Virginia morning, telling you things about my life that you probably don't want to hear... but I am in a sharing mood today, brethren, and that's what friends do.  So listen.

 

It’s Brownie night… but only sort of. You see, instead of taking SG over to the church for their meeting, and nipping off to Borders to type and observe…. And instead of getting to meet one of my favorite bloggers, who is in DC for business, I am at one of the local middle schools with SG and three other Brownies from her troop who are attending their first Junior troop meeting.

You see, SG and ten other girls from her troop will be aging out of Brownies into Junior Girls Scouts in the fall, and this meeting is to give them the opportunity meet their new Troop-mates.

I was assigned to be their “chaperone” and take them to their meeting, and introduce them to the troop leader, and stick around in case they were shy, or nervous and needed a familiar adult face. Do you think that’s how it went? If you said: “Oh, hell no, GF!” you’d be right. Since this troop is fed by the same school that feeds SG’s Brownie troop, all four of the girls saw friends of theirs right away, and went scrambling to pal around with them, forgetting good ol’ Gunfighter immediately. Well, I’m man enough to handle that, so I went and introduced myself to S, who is the leader for this troop. I told S I was going to stay for the whole meeting, and would help in any way that I could… How do think THAT went?  If you said: “She (and the other troop mommies) gave you a blank, open-mouthed stare and said that you could just leave if you wanted to”, you’d be right.

Well, there is only so much rejection a man is supposed to take before he gets irritated and has to take active measures to stand up for himself. So that's exactly what I did.  In case you were thinking that I made a scene, be assured, I didn't... I dislike drama.  No, I did what people do when they are made these days, and don't shoot people because of it:  I went out into the hallway, found an electrical outlet, whipped out my laptop, and started to blog!

Pardon me for a moment while I fume… Someone help me out here…. Women complain that men aren’t doing enough of the parenting… we aren’t doing our share, and blah blah f***ing blah, ad nauseum, but I think that it’s all a front. I really do. Oh, I’m not saying that there aren’t men who aren’t pulling their weight in that department, I’m simply saying that I believe that there are many women who covet their roles as “gatekeepers”… controlling access and participation in their children’s lives.

Is it that far-fetched that a father would attend his daughter’s Girl Scout meeting and help out? Is it, really? For the love of merciful God… A woman is running for president, a black man is her rival for her party’s nomination, and at least their party isn’t blinking an eye over it, but if a Dad wants to help out at the girl scout meeting, I might as well have been a space alien for all the gaping stares.

Well guess what? Children need their father’s EVERY BIT AS MUCH AS THEY NEED THEIR MOTHERS! That’s right ladies, read that a second time, if it didn’t scratch the surface the first time. Finished? Good. Read it again, just to make sure. Who else is going to teach your daughters what a good, decent man is like? Who else is going to teach your sons how to be good men?

Alright... I'm done for now.

GF