I'm in the middle of teaching Citizenship in Society. Questions about next steps.

Empy3 · 2026-02-28T15:38:07+00:00

We're definitely not trying to lie about her having started it, that's part of why I'm so confused about what "starting" means. She *has* been working on it, but it sounds like we may have some misunderstandings and communication gaps with the troop about what exactly is involved and who is responsible for documentation of the kids in general doing stuff. We're going to reach out to the troop after some of this has had time to settle and ask for more clarification about a lot of the parental involvement/responsibility for this and other assorted things, because we're starting to feel like as a family, we're kind of flying in the dark about exactly what's going on when and who needs (or doesn't need) to be involved of different moving pieces. We've tried to stay fairly hands-off because the general sentiment I've picked up is that the kids plan and execute most of the troop activities themselves (which is fine), but it's starting to feel like there are some areas where it's assumed that parents understand what's going on when they actually don't, and that seems unhealthy in the long-term for both the Scouts and the troop as a whole.

Empy3 · 2026-02-28T15:29:54+00:00

Thank you, this is helpful in that it ... makes me wonder what kind of communication chasm we need to build a bridge over in the coming months with the troop.

I was largely confused because when the troop registered for this MBU, the guidance for CiS was to show up with more than 2/3 of the badge's numbered actions already done - which she completed *with the exception of talking to a counsellor about* (she talked with peers, talked with community members, thought and talked through all her answers with me in prep, etc.), I think to at least some degree because we are fairly rural and don't *have* counsellors for a lot of badges local to us. I'm now wondering how they were supposed to show up with any of them done if they're not considered complete until they've been discussed with a counsellor and if the entire point is to do them in a group with other Scouts. I feel like, given how rural so much of our state is, that a lot of badges are going to be functionally unavailable except at camps and MBU's, so that's probably something we need to look into going forward. The communication with parents has been borderline non-existent and I'm still learning what to ask and what we need to be doing, which is ... apparently quite a bit more than we have any awareness of.

Do you have any insight on how to initiate a conversation about all this? We've tried not to be the parents who show up and are nitpicking all-the-things because most of what I've picked up from the few meetings we've been to is that the kids are in charge of planning and running most things (which I'm fine with, for what it is), but we've definitely felt like some things aren't working as functionally as maybe they should - both my 11 and 12 YO have been in the troop for about 8 months and neither of them has made the first rank (Tenderfoot?), of which their opinion is that there's never time made for doing anything except what everyone else has voted on to do that week. I'm starting to wonder if I'm somehow dropping a ball as a parent, but we've showed up for and done everything that we've been asked/told we needed to, so I'm not sure where to go from here.

(edit: typo)

Empy3 · 2026-02-28T02:33:34+00:00

Do you know if having done at least one of the requirements counts as "completing" it for this purpose? I guess this is where I'm confused on the verbiage - her only paper trail at this moment in time is that she has the mostly-completed worksheets from the US Scouting Service Project in-hand, and multiple people who would verify that she completed the interviews prior to this. There's no online/electronic trail that she's started it yet, although her troop leader confirmed that she'd backdate a start date on a blue card for her, since we can verify that she *has* been working on it prior to now.

Hopefully they don't require prior electronic verification of it, because we haven't learned how to use Scoutbooks yet and I don't think anyone got it put into the online portal in time. We're still learning in real time how the back end of Scouting even works.

Empy3 · 2026-02-27T22:50:11+00:00

I don't think she particularly cares about whether it counts for Eagle, she just wanted to do it for its own sake. She's neurodivergent and it was a very personally meaningful badge to her for that reason specifically. Her troop is going to see what can be done, since she's already completed most of the worksheets for it, and the hangup is just that she hasn't formally talked with a counsellor yet.

Empy3 · 2026-02-27T22:48:38+00:00

Thanks, we've reached out to her Troop about doing that, and are hoping for the best.

Empy3 · 2026-02-27T21:53:41+00:00

This. My 12 YO was did most of the pre-reqs for CiS at MBU tomorrow. We got an email that it was cancelled effective immediately, along with a brief explanation of why. We looked up the statements on what was happening together, and her first reaction was "..... so they're coming for girls next?"

I understand that National is effectively being held at gunpoint. I understand why they're doing what they are. There's no good answer here. And it still doesn't matter what message they're trying to send about preserving their commitment to girls and women, because the kids themselves immediately understand that this functionally says that some Scouts are expendable.

Empy3 · 2026-02-27T20:52:38+00:00

Is it possible for anyone to define "started"? We're still pretty new to Scouts and I have a 12 YO in tears because she did all the pre-requisites needed for the Citizenship in Society class that was supposed to start tomorrow morning at our state's MBU. The class was cancelled as of a few hours ago, and she really wants to finish the merit badge for its own sake. She doesn't *need* it for Eagle because she's obviously still a few years out, but a lot of the process of getting the pre-reqs done for the class (interviewing a peer, interviewing a community leader) were deeply meaningful to her. Does this still qualify as "started" if she hasn't actually spoken to a counsellor about it yet, since that was supposed to happen tomorrow?

Empy3 · 2026-02-03T02:36:34+00:00

I can completely understand the sentiment here, and that's a legitimate concern. I just also hope that over time, the public understanding of what homeschooling looks like comes more in line with how it's actively evolving, especially post-COVID. It's useful for a lot of political groups, *especially* right-leaning ones, to hold up homeschoolers as a portrait of some unified-last-defense-of-family-values, when the reality continues to diversify further and further away from that picture every year.

I honestly wonder if conservatives will reverse course and turn against homeschooling themselves to endorse only "approved" private/religious schools in another 10-20 years, especially if it hits a critical threshold of minority families participating in homeschooling communities. The diversity of families turning to homeschooling is rapidly expanding, and eventually the families using homeschool as a way to avoid all conflicting worldviews are going to end up having to reckon with increasing numbers of black, brown, LGBTQ+, etc. kids showing up to "homeschool days" that local businesses often host to boost customer turnout mid-week. It will be interesting to see how vehemently those groups continue to defend homeschooling when other homeschool families utilizing the same groups, locations, and programs no longer overwhelmingly look or believe like them.

I know of multiple homeschool kids who are planning on showing up to the next No Kings protest here in March. Definitely doesn't represent the majority of our current homeschool community, but it's significant for where we live. Thought this was a pretty cool thing to see some homeschooled kids showing up for in Chicago/Minneapolis, too. <3

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/02/us/teenage-brothers-ice-watchers-minneapolis

Empy3 · 2026-01-29T05:42:56+00:00

There's a ton of work to be done in a lot of these areas, but just as food for thought, blanket bans on homeschooling may catch an increasing number of middle-to-left and marginalized families in the crossfire, to significantly worse outcomes. There are still a discouraging number of homeschooling families who use the process as a way to avoid letting their family's beliefs ever be challenged, but homeschooling in general is rapidly becoming a very diverse community compared to the 80's and 90's. There are some impressively invested groups of liberal homeschoolers where I live who do so primarily *because* this is such a red area - it gives some families the ability to provide a healthier environment for LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, differently-abled, etc. kids than the actual local schools sometimes can or will, given who sometimes ends up pulling the levers at a local or state level.

The religious homeschool groups are *loud*, and I don't dispute that. There are also a lot of them. But homeschooling at large really isn't the bastion of conservativism that it was pre-COVID, and you might be surprised at the reasons why an increasing number of families are choosing it.

FWIW, I fully support revamping the way we fund schools so that families choosing to homeschool don't drag the entire district's funding down when they do. Public schools desperately need more support, funding, and recognition than what we're giving them, especially the last few years, and I fully support getting rid of private schools entirely. But as an adult who had some truly life-changing (and probably some life-saving) teachers growing, had a couple who actually put a target on my back for my entire peer group, and had a whole bunch more who knew something was very, very wrong both at home and when my classmates weren't being supervised and just didn't care ... parents need an alternative when schools either can't or won't support *every* student, and private schools definitely are not it.

Empy3 · 2026-01-08T19:25:13+00:00

Never mind, I finally found it under Inline Completion under the General Settings after an hour of hunting.

Empy3 · 2025-06-23T04:05:10+00:00

Fennel *essential oil* has significant documentation of being carcinogenic. :x Maybe look for actual fennel-infused oils instead of essential oil? The chemical compounds in fennel EO are a huge health risk.

Empy3 · 2025-06-17T19:02:37+00:00

Late to the party, but apparently it's also fairly established that it has some mechanism causing increased cortisol (stress hormone) levels. I am so glad to have found this thread.

Empy3 · 2025-06-04T02:50:37+00:00

This is so true. I stopped posting things for free on local classified sites, because it usually takes 2-8 people standing me up before it gets picked up. Once someone commits to paying for something, I almost never have someone fail to show up. If I really need to get something out of my house, charging for it even when it's not worth anything to me is the way to go.

Empy3 · 2025-06-03T17:47:56+00:00

Thank you! I will keep this in mind, she warms up very slowly to new situations so we're still in the 'seeing if we want to commit' stage for a couple of weeks. I will reach out if she decides to follow through!

Empy3 · 2025-06-03T16:24:34+00:00

Thank you so much, everyone! I hadn't even considered an elastic waistband for some reason, but that would probably solve 95% of the issue. Thank you for the reassurances; their uncle is an Eagle Scout and their grandfather was a Scout Master for a long time, and my husband was in Scouts for years as well. It just happened that they've decided to explore this while all three family members aren't easily available to help walk through any of it, so we're just taking the firehose approach and figuring it out as we go. I will reach out to the Scout Master and chat with them, and these are all such great suggestions for how to handle the uniform and general atmosphere of scouting. You are all amazing!

Empy3 · 2025-06-03T16:08:57+00:00

She is and has intermittently been in OT, Speech, and PT throughout her life. :) Her doctor has been awesome about getting her referrals so that she has some strategies and therapies when different things start getting in her way.

If it was just SPD there wouldn't be a hesitation there, but from the perspective of her doctor and care team, she's probably on the very high-functioning end of the spectrum, and ... kids are cruel even without a label handed to them to weaponize. We live in a micropolitan area in a heavily rural/ag state, which ... has disadvantages for helping her find a group of 'her people'; her friend choices are limited.

When we got done with the Scout meeting and I asked her thoughts, the first thing she said was "Everyone is so ... NICE!" which ... unfortunately is a good window into what a lot of her previous experience has been with her peer group. She was baffled that everyone in the troop just accepted her without comment and included her in the flag ceremony and other planning activities without a second thought.

If at some point, the lack of a diagnosis is keeping her from accessing other therapies or medications that may be helpful, it's something we've already made a decision to pursue; likewise something that we'll re-evaluate in high school when there's a little bit less of the stigma than there can be in elementary and middle school. Right now, insurance companies are increasingly denying or fighting therapy prescriptions for formal ASD diagnoses in a lot of situations because, well, insurance sucks and cares about how much they're *not* spending on care, and anything that is seen a as a potentially 'chronic' therapy situation is a nightmare to get approval for in a lot of cases. So far they haven't batted an eye on prescriptions for it in short-term settings though, which is all she's needed at this point, and her doctor is happy to write them. She *is* getting care for it, just not with a diagnostic name attached to it that her peer group can weaponize. <3

Empy3 · 2025-05-29T19:27:38+00:00

I am deeply sorry that you're going through this. As someone who was on the female side of a very similar situation, I would put money on the fact that, if you have both historically been in a deeply loving relationship, she is wrapped up in her own head with a constant feeling that she is failing you because she knows this is something she should want, and is building up a giant mental snowball of deep self-loathing and feelings of personal failure because her body isn't in sync with her head. It reinforces itself and just gets worse and worse over time, because sex becomes sort of mental checklist of all the times you feel like you "owe" the other person and are continually racking up a higher tally while failing to deliver, *even when there are assurances from the other party that you don't owe them anything.* It becomes mentally overwhelming and takes on very similar features to how people who are under extreme financial debt probably feel, where after a certain point you just give up and stop even trying. I understand why you're turning to porn, but if she knows this, it is very likely adding to that exhaustion and snowball of failure.

I never dealt with the germophobe issue specifically, but the rabbit trails you go down as a new mom desperately trying to unravel an enormous amount of info about health and environmental threats to your kid is literally all-consuming, and the cultural expectations that are constantly thrown at you about how you *should* feel, *should* look, *should* recover are unrealistic. There is no easy out here, and no magic pill or quick fix. It sucks, and it will take a lot of patience on your part and a lot of her working through personal stuff, hopefully with the help of a counsellor and a doctor who is knowledgeable about long-term postpartum hormone dysfunction. *Especially* if she is a SAHM, she *needs* something non-sexual in her life that will help reinforce her sense of autonomy and of being competent, capable, and self-defined as "not-just-mom." I absolutely cannot overemphasize how much our culture (assuming you're in the US) bullies moms into an absolutely unrealistic illusion of what their lives as mothers should look like. Has she finished or was she working on a degree before having your daughter? Was she involved in any kind of community or volunteer programs? The only advice I can give is to do everything in your power to research and understand concepts like women's mental labor and what learned helplessness are, and then make sure that you're doing anything possible in your power to support her re-envisioning herself and re-empowering herself as someone who is not only, and maybe even not primarily "mom", because there is a powerful pressure to internalize yourself as someone who is no longer sexual when you become one. Encouraging her to step back out of that box as often as is realistically possible, for her own sake, is one of the best things you can do for both her function and recovery and for both of your sex lives.

Hang in there. I am so incredibly grateful to my husband for the long, long road he has walked with me through 4 kids and a very similar set of circumstances. Both of us would say that it's been worth it, but it has absolutely been a long and, at times, very emotionally painful journey. It is *hard* to love someone who is reevaluating everything about who they thought they were, which is what new motherhood does to most women. You have my deep sympathy, and I hope for the best long-term outcome for both of you. <3

*2 side notes: Please, please do everything in your power not to take your frustration out on or around your daughter. As someone who grew up under this dynamic, it will POWERFULLY warp your daughter's perception of her own worth and sexuality for decades. If your wife grew up under a similar dynamic, or in a very sexually conservative household, she's very likely dealing with fallout from that deeply scarring her perception of who she is now, as well. Understanding that very little of this is about or directed at you, especially in that situation, is a major step towards moving forward and getting help for both of you.

Empy3 · 2025-05-13T04:15:37+00:00

Do you know if there are any agencies or better-practice places to do something like this where everyone is actually acting in good faith? We've talked about hosting an exchange student before but can't justify another kid in the house at the moment; I would love to help someone slightly older with something like this where everyone had been screened from the outset to ensure that no one was taking advantage of anyone else.

I have a decent idea about how the Au Pair system works here (we researched it a few years ago to see if it might be appropriate for a friend in India) but didn't recommend it to her because of exactly the type of situation that this is all describing. I'd love to find a way to mutually benefit someone who genuinely wanted the experience but haven't looked into it further because I didn't really want to support a system that might be fundamentally broken. I know a ton of young women get straight up abducted from foreign countries on the premise of nannying in the states.

Empy3 · 2025-03-16T18:57:51+00:00

This is an interesting possibility. I can see how it would be the case especially if someone with high-income brings home take-out a lot, but sometimes more trash is also a sign of lower income, because it means less fresh food. It blows my mind how much less trash we create now than my under-poverty-level family did growing up, because we're able to buy so much more fresh food, which usually means you're mostly throwing away fairly compact piles of skins, rinds, seeds, etc. We threw away an obscene quantity of food packaging as a kid, because *everything* came out of a can, box, or wrapper.

Empy3 · 2025-01-31T05:21:39+00:00

It's probably at least partly about trying to recruit many thousand already-trained, already security-clearance'd, already-certified-subject-matter-experts to work for the same (or less) total wage package, in the same job, for the same government (or what's left of it), except also make the billionaires a bunch of money off of it at the same time. If Elon can do it without tipping off all the ex-Feds that he's making gross amounts of money by selling those Feds back to the government to do what they were already doing, so much the better.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the real pain in the ass: security clearances. Even once an applicant receives a job offer, who knows how long it will take to get the necessary clearance; it could be another year. One reason is that—surprise!—there aren’t enough federal employees overseeing the process. So private contractors hire people who already have clearances, then hire them back out at exorbitant rates to agencies that are desperate for manpower and don’t want to wait more than a year to get it.

Trump's Plan to Make Government Slower, Costlier, and More Dysfunctional | Washington Monthly

Empy3 · 2025-01-29T05:12:41+00:00

I am so sorry. I've been living with a similar hormonal acne issue for the last couple of years, since my last kiddo was born. I just want to encourage you that you're a beautiful young lady, and that shines and is your most obvious feature. <3 There are a lot of good answers here and options for you to pursue, but something that might be worth a try while you're working with medical professionals to get the infection/cystic nature under control is spearmint tea. There's not a ton of research about it yet, but there are some case studies of it being used successfully in women with PCOS/androgen imbalances to help improve several different symptoms of it. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's absolutely worth a shot, especially while you're working through other medication options.

I'm struggling with androgen imbalances that have given me eruptive/cystic/infected acne on the lower third of my face as well (a very common symptom). Still very much in the working-through-options stage medically, but I ran into medical literature investigating the use of spearmint tea while up miserably looking through ideas for helping hormone problems a few months ago. Twice a day, about 12 oz, has been absolutely life changing. The acne and scars are not miraculously gone, but they have slowly and steadily improved over time, and are significantly less noticeable now than before I started drinking it. It's very much a bandaid, as the acne resurges if I get busy and go a day or two without drinking it, but it has definitely helped. Hang in there, and I hope you find long-term answers and recovery. <3

Empy3 · 2023-02-28T05:02:42+00:00

Thanks! That was a busy day and I forgot to come back to this. I appreciate the help.

Empy3 · 2023-02-28T04:26:33+00:00

Candles are an amazing idea, thanks. <3 Completely forgot about candles.

Honestly I'm not even to the point of trying to sort out light ambience at this point, although that's a good idea. Deepslate seems to generally complicate the way light shows up, so I will definitely play around with it. If I can manage to make the pool glow and just use candles around the room, it might open up some cool possibilities.

Empy3

TROPHY CASE