a born quitter.

I was one of those kids who wanted to try everything. Soccer, piano, softball, dance, gymnastics, clarinet, track…the list goes on. I would last a few years in each activity, and then slowly become less and less interested. I don’t know if I am just indecisive or simply a quitter, but I would just sign up for the next thing. Some activities lasted longer than others, like soccer, dance and softball, probably because they were the things I was best at, but I never really excelled in one thing because I only made it to the beginner or intermediate level of everything I tried. Hmm… I am getting off track as usual, talking about myself, but I am starting to wonder. Should we encourage our children to try every activity or try to limit them to only a few so that they actually have the chance to excel at something?

I do have a point, I promise. The Girl Scouts made it to my list of activities when I was around 8. I lasted about five badges and maybe two years? I am all for girl power and girls learning how to do productive things, but there were a ton of meetings and other activities and way too many cookies to sell. Since there’s no such thing as a lazy Girl Scout I had to take my leave. What took my mind back to my brief experience as a Girl Scout was receiving a copy of Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts by Stacy A. Cordery.And there we have it, my point. Juliette Gordon Low, known as Daisy started the Girl Guides (the female equivalent to the Boy Scouts) in 1911 in England and quickly brought the Girl Scouts to her hometown of Savannah in 1912. Last month was the Girl Scouts’ centennial and this is actually the first full-scale biography of its founder. It is a well-researched narrative, following a very strong female role model from birth to death, and all that she accomplished (once she got rid of her man) in between.

(circa WWI.)