Story 5:
I am a registered lifetime member of the Girl Scouts and have been approved as a helper parent. This means that I have undergone the necessary background checks. My daughter’s troop is excellent. They’re all really nice, and we get on well. However, when I took my daughter to a district-wide campout last year, it was a different matter entirely. My daughter asked me to go, so I agreed. I was one of two dads, and we were placed as far away from the other campers as possible.
It took me 10–15 minutes to walk to my daughter’s campsite. The tag-along mums slept in the cabins. I didn’t expect that, but I figured that I would at least be able to camp outside the cabin. The attitude of the other volunteers and leaders was clearly that my presence was tolerated, but not welcomed. Despite helping out in the kitchen and making lunch for the campers, virtually nobody acknowledged my presence or spoke to me all day.
This was OK, as I was there for my daughter, but there was no need to make me feel unwelcome just for trying to get involved. I’ve had a similar experience at birthday parties and so on, where I don’t know the parents beforehand. It’s usually the mums who take the kids, and while I’ve never been made to feel explicitly unwelcome, it’s kind of clear that I’m the odd one out. © TehFuriousOne / Reddit
