Known to local scouts as "Mall Mania" and billed by the Girl Scouts as "Mall-ticultural Mania", the field trip consists of "locking-down" a local mall from 10 pm to 4 am for local Girl Scout troops who will be encouraged to "shop till they drop" at selected stores that will remain open exclusively for them. Other activities, such as "rock-climbing" and swapping hand-made crafts with other scouts will also take place.
"Since when did the Girl Scouts encourage conspicuous consumption?" Eric Phillips complained. "And what does the mall and shopping have to do with multiculturalism? Unless they're going to spend the night looking at clothing and toy labels and discussing the wage slavery and child-labor in the third-world and how it's perpetuated to fulfill our every whim, I just don't get it."
That's just the problem, his daughter says. He doesn't get it.
"I just want to fit in," complained 10yr old Emily, in tears. "The other girls keep talking about it and I feel left out. And when they get back they're going to talk about how great it was and how I should have went. It's not fair!" She said she'll probably spend her weekend in her room, alone, with nobody to play with.
Two other local parents also rejected their daughter's involvement in the trip. One cited the early pick-up time (4:30 a.m.) as "terribly inconvenient" and the another girl's biological father has legal visitation that weekend.
Emily's father says he doens't mind picking his daughter up in the early morning, and "totally understands" the trip is primarily about bonding with other girls and just having some fun. But he has other concerns besides an inappropriate theme, he said.
"I really wasn't satisfied with how the whole thing was explained to me," said Mr. Phillips. Among his unanswered questions were the ratio was of parent-chaperones to girl scouts, the total number of girl scouts participating and what, if any, extra security precautions were taken to ensure his daughter's safety. "If your gonig to lock my kid up in a mall in the middle of the night in a strange city, I want to know exactly who will be responsible for her safety at all times."
In the meantime, Emily will be selling Girl Scout cookies with her father at a local produce market on the very day the field trip will take place. She's still upset about not being allowed to participate in "Mall Mania", but says she understand her father's ruling.
"I know he has his reasons," Emily said. "And I know that he loves me and wants to protect me."
"I don't want to be an ogre," Mr. Phillips said. "But if I didn't question her activities and associations I wouldn't be doing my job as a parent."
Still, feeling a bit guilty for his refusal, he promised to make it up to her.
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