The Arrow of Light is the highest award that can be earned in Cub Scouting, as well as the only award that you can wear on your Boy Scout uniform. The award itself is significantly different from other achievements in cub scouting, and is structured more like a Boy Scout Rank than other awards are. To earn this simple looking patch, my son (and hundreds of thousands before him) have had to memorize the Scout oath, Law, Motto, Slogan, and tell what it means in their own words. He had to earn certain Webelos Pins, and 'interview' several Boy Scout Troops. And perhaps the hardest requirement of all: He had to sit down and have a ScoutMaster Conference with a grownup all about his work on this rank, without his Mommy holding his hand or even standing by his side. It was the first of many Scout Master Conferences he will have to attend, and I will nervously be waiting in the wings, biting my nails, hoping he doesn't choke on his words. It symbolizes him coming one step closer to becoming the man I hope and dream he will become.
I have been an active Scout Mom for the last 5 years, and this marks a bittersweet end for me. I can now have my weekends and evenings back. I can clear out my hoard of "I can't throw that out, because one day the scouts might be able to do something with it" junk that consists of dozens of large coffee cans, baby food jars, oatmeal containers, tupperware boxes of glitter, crayons, and gluesticks, hunks of pvc pipe presawed into neckerchief slides waiting to be adorned with clothespins and felt. I have done my part. As my good friend Jennifer said to her son "I have held your hand and pulled you thru cubscouts, but now you have to hold my hand and pull me thru boyscouts with you". The ball is in his court. His success is now determined by his own determination. He is the master of his own fate. I hope he continues on in the path that we have both worked so hard on for all these years. But I cannot do it for him.
It is a small baby step in the journey of growing a man out of a small boy, and perhaps just a taste of what is to come when he brings home a girlfriend, drives a car, goes away to college, gets married, moves out, and starts a family for the first time. And I don't know if I am going to be able to handle it all that swell. I still want to hold his hand, to guide him along, to shield him from failures. But now that he had "graduated" into Boy Scouting, he will have to walk along this road on his own.
Many cubscout packs give their boys a Career Arrow as a special memento of earning this award and graduating into a Boy Scout Troop. I wanted very much to do something similar for my son. But as usual I have run out of time. He crosses over in just 5 short days and I don't know if I will be able to get it all done in time. I might just have to try. I want him to have something to hold onto that is tangible recognition of all that he has done. I know that it is really going to be a memento for me, because he will always take with him the knowledge and experiences he has gained along the scouting trail.
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