44M, married 22 years, 5 kids. Work from home most of the time (bad idea!) Few hobbies or friends. I have been lurking on the RP subs for a while now and casually read a few books; I'm finally starting to get serious. The MRP and TRP sidebars are gold.
Step 3 of the 12 levels of dread is to start building a life distinct from your wife. I'm a Scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts and have been for several years. I run a troop of 30ish young men, ages 11-17, mostly on the younger side. Recently I've been thinking about dropping that, and would appreciate your insights.
Pro:
- Opportunity to build up a new generation of men. (Some of my Scouts have little or no solid masculine influence in their lives - this is the closest thing I have to a mission beyond my own family.)
- Gets me out of the house for our weekly meetings and our monthly campouts.
- Hiking and camping are masculine activities; it's better than sitting at home watching Netflix
- Opportunity to lead the other adults who help out with my troop.
- Some (minimal) social interaction with other adults
- Increases my status in the community somewhat.
Con:
- I stopped loving this a couple of years ago. It's just another thing I have to do. I don't even like camping much.
- My Scouting responsibilities stress me out sometimes and that makes me into a whiney frameless baby.
- It takes a lot of time - time I should be spending on my work, with my family, or on myself. (Or maybe that's just an excuse for my own laziness. It's hard to be that introspective. I am not convinced that if I dropped Scouts, I would replace it with anything worthwhile.)
- My own sons have pretty much dropped Scouting in favor of other interests.
I would appreciate other opinions insights.
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