I'm a Girl scout leader (who's about to quit!)

[janeway]

Sounds like you put up with a lot of neglect/abuse from these parents, Captain Janeway.  I taught middle school for 25 years.  Even if you enjoy their energy and are motivated to do them some good, you can eventually get your fill.  I don't have anything to do with kids except for my niece and nephew now.

Oi. 25 years with middle school children.... you've earned the right to avoid children for as long as you want

I actually wasn't frustrated with the *kids* in Girl Scouts at all.. only the adults. Although I'm sure that might have shifted as they got older!

If I'd been supporting my family through my Girl Scout efforts, I probably could've stuck it out through 12th grade. 

The biggest problem was that I also work full-time. And Girl Scouts was my "hobby"... and my hobby was causing me aggravation that my actual profession NEVER causes. Towards the end, I had to realize that I was putting more time and energy into dealing with the crappy behavior of Girl Scout parents than was required for any other aspect of my life. So as much as the kids and I enjoyed the activities... it had to go. Haha. In fact, one of the things that I screamed in the middle of my house as I made the decision to quit was "THIS IS THE WORST HOBBY EVER" 

I really need to figure out how to let it go. I still find myself dwelling on it nearly every day, at least briefly. I'm on the autistic spectrum and it's in my nature to overly analyze social interactions... and trying to be a Girl Scout leader was undoubtedly the biggest social interaction failure I've ever experienced. I keep feeling like there has to be some.. correct way to handle things to make it feel right and make it all OK, and that if I were just more normal I could fix things up. But there probably isn't. I tried my hardest. I tried to be polite and ask for help and to be firm about the rules without being unreasonable to to offer assistance to everyone in every way that I could... and I feel that every single thing I did backfired via the counterintuitively rude behavior of other adults. Haha. The kids all seemed to "get" me. The parents were just inexplicably determined to take advantage of me and crush my soul...which... they did. 

The real captain janeway wouldn't get bogged down in all of this... she ticked off most of the delta quadrant and kept going. I bet they had kickass psych meds in her future though.  

And now I'm repeatedly venting online to strangers... At any rate, it was therapeutic to see the original post here, and know that someone else got just as fed up as I did with the Girl Scout structure which seems designed to lead to leadership failure.

[Whateverist]

The real captain janeway wouldn't get bogged down in all of this... she ticked off most of the delta quadrant and kept going. I bet they had kickass psych meds in her future though.  

And now I'm repeatedly venting online to strangers... At any rate, it was therapeutic to see the original post here, and know that someone else got just as fed up as I did with the Girl Scout structure which seems designed to lead to leadership failure.

Well welcome back to the alpha quadrant. Not as many bogies hereabouts. Live long and then expire.

---

Not sure if I have that last part that quite right but you know what I mean.

---

[Mr.Obvious]

As a former scout, i can only wonder how you managed so long. That's like a million times as much effort as i had to put in that one year i was a leader. (Stopped for different reasons.)

[janeway]

It was something that I really wanted to do. And I sank so much time and money into it, I felt like I had to make it work. And I thought that over time, since many of the parents were vocally appreciative of what I was doing, they would eventually back that up with helpfulness.

It took three years for me to accept that I was just digging a deeper hole for myself and that the parents only appreciated what I was doing enough to tolerate me, not to help. The torrent of abuse that they let loose when I quit confirmed that they'd only been tolerating me in exchange for the cheap babysitting.

I wonder if there is some part of Christianity that specifically encourages sending abusive letters to the mom who has been running little programs for your kids for three years?

[LastPoet]

It was something that I really wanted to do. And I sank so much time and money into it, I felt like I had to make it work. And I thought that over time, since many of the parents were vocally appreciative of what I was doing, they would eventually back that up with helpfulness.

It took three years for me to accept that I was just digging a deeper hole for myself and that the parents only appreciated what I was doing enough to tolerate me, not to help. The torrent of abuse that they let loose when I quit confirmed that they'd only been tolerating me in exchange for the cheap babysitting.

I wonder if there is some part of Christianity that specifically encourages sending abusive letters to the mom who has been running little programs for your kids for three years?

Aroura, to the best of my knowledge should be around. Beam her a PM, because I know next to nothing about boy or girl scouts. In Portugal, scouts have no distiction in gender, so yeah, girls and boys do whatever scouts do.