When my daughter went to Brownies, she wasn't that bothered about badges. Between us, we scraped through the Hostess badge and noone got food poisoning - yey, result! But I'm sensing a different atmosphere to ..... dare I say it, the "Cub & Scout" movement .... {drum roll}. What is this thing about Beavers, Cubs, Squirrels etc? Can't we have proper names like "Marco Polo" club, "Neil Armstrong" club, "The Space Invaders", "World Determinators"? But no, we have to have "Beavers" with the staff called the names of birds - Wren, Woodcock, Cuckoo, Chaffinch. If I ever worked at Beavers, I'd at least call myself an exciting name, like Australasian Babbler, Penduline Tit, Welcome Swallow, Clapper Lark, Bananaquit or Pale Breasted Illadopsis. Perhaps we need to be grateful it's bird's names. A friend has a son who goes to Cubs where all the staff are named after animals. Imagine getting a phonecall from a man called "Rabbit" (and that's without taking hallucenogenic drugs!) Wonder if Rabbit works at the Treasury. Let's hope he doesn't forget sometimes, and pick up the phone to say "Hello, Rabbit speaking ... oh, I mean George Osborne".
So, the other day, I was a little put out to discover that some of the boys had an array of badges up and down their arms that might as well have spellt out "yey, I've got a brilliant mum, it's a shame you haven't". Feeling a little rubbish, I began to think about badges that my son could get but was disappointed to see there was no eating badge, no sleeping badge and no annoying your sister badge. Damn it, this was going to be a challenge. He'd already got his friendship badge at the Beavers sessions; me to son "what did you have to do to get the friendship badge?". Son to me "er, you just sort of turn up."
I spotted an Explorer badge where you can talk about anything you've explored anywhere. Mmm, I thought, maybe he could explore the corner of our bedroom ... the bit with the cobwebs and an old trainer. We're still working on it but expect exciting shots of dark, spooky corner and insect habitats. Surely there must also be an Entertainer badge where he can do some finger shadow puppets and that thing where you put a quarter of an orange in your mouth and make it look like a big smile? :)
