Black girls and Girl Scouts: It’s more than selling cookies
From girl’s guy to Girl Scout
She asked her adult daughter to change the dead battery in the bathroom clock. Her daughter refused, telling her, “That’s Shamontiel’s job.”
The woman scoffed, “I don’t know if I’ll even see her this year with coronavirus going on.”
Her daughter shrugged. “It’s her job. Shay* updates your clocks every Christmas. I’m not doing it.” And she still refuses to follow her mother’s orders.
Last week, I listened to the woman tell this story over the phone and laughed. It’s true. I don’t know when it became an official thing for me to do, but for well over a decade, I have gone to my Girl Scout leader’s home and made sure her clocks were accurate. It started off as one innocent trip to her restroom and became a thing.
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Like clockwork, and up until my grandfather passed away, I went to both of their homes back-to-back on Christmas Day. Still when I visit her home, I roll my eyes because she never changes her clocks to reflect Daylight Savings Time. I fix them; I didn’t earn all of those badges on my Girl Scout uniform for nothing.
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I’d never really put much thought into Girl Scouts as a kid, but my mother was a credit union manager. When one of the members mentioned that she was a Girl Scout leader, my mother had another one of her ideas to keep me busy. When I wasn’t flustered that she kept putting me in day camp and my paternal grandmother was obsessed with me going to a beauty salon, my mother was trying to figure out other ways to keep me active. I was too old to be a Brownie but too young to be a Junior. Green won out, and off I went.
