Tag Archives: growing up

Girl Scouts’ Bridge Ceremony

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

“Everytime in Girl Scouts that we went up a level; so, Daisy to Brownie, Brownie to Junior, Junior to Cadet, Cadet to Senior, and Senior to Ambassador. We had a Bridge Ceremony to mark the transition. There are a lot of different ways that we did them. But, generally, they include a bridge or something to like physically pass from one side to another. And generally, before this ceremony happens, you will talk to the level above you to ask them about wisdom and what questions you might have and you talk to a troop in the level below you and pass on your wisdom to them”

“And then at the actual ceremony there’s plenty of stories that everyone has to read a bit and it’s all about like the Girl Scout Promise and Law. Sometimes you just skip straight to calling each girl across the bridge and then giving them their next badge that goes on their vest to signify ‘hey, you’re older!’ So each girl crosses the bridge. Yay! You’re all the next level”

What are some variations?

The informant described having “something reminiscent of the year below or the year that you are,” such as when transitioning from brownies to juniors, they had brownies and junior mints.

“There’s a lot of variations on that. One year, we limboed into cadets, I think. We started having pool parties, so we kind of just jumped into the next year. 

But the actual physical bridge is a big one. The most institutionalized version of this [would be that] many people when they bride to cadets fly to San Fran to cross the Golden Gate Bridge because thats when you’re younger girl to older girl. You’re expected to start volunteering and helping out with events and stuff. You’re going into middle school, so it’s a big transition.”

Analysis: While this ceremony is institutionalized in the idea, the international organization of Girl Scouts provides endless opportunities for multiplicity and variation of this tradition. In fact, not all troops even participate in this tradition since it is not a required ceremony. Other troops even have completely different ceremonies for transitions. These ceremonies signify the girls’ growth each year and excite them for moving up in the ranks. The bridge itself has a symbolism of moving on into the next state of life, which becomes a little looser as they get older and the bridge becomes less literal. The informant even recognizes an important coming of age transition into cadets and sometimes go to San Francisco, emphasizes the weight of their new responsibilities of an older girl. These ceremonies set the tone for the new expectations each year and celebrate their achievements thus far as well as getting passed down wisdom from the girls a level older, making them feel more prepared for their next year of life. 

Jumping on New Year’s

This is something I told my three children growing up — if they jumped as high as they could once the clock struck midnight, the tallest height they reached would be how tall they will grow up to be.

Background: The informant is a 60 year-old Filipina immigrant to the United States.  She told me that her mother told her and her own siblings the same tradition growing up. While she does not exactly believe in its practical use, it was a harmless and fun way of ringing in the coming growth in the new year.

Context: This belief was told to me during a weekly luncheon that always follows our Sunday church services.

Probably my favorite pieces in this collection are the rituals whose origins can’t really be traced, so it’s unclear how or why they came to be.  But used now, they are just a cemented given in family situations as part of their experience of the culture.  It’s unlikely that there is any real basis in the idea of freezing heights in time beyond the general folk belief, but most people nowadays just do them for the sake of novelty.

The Boy that Cried Wolf

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Event Planner
Residence: Excelsior, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/14/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “When [my children] were growing up, sometimes they would be upstairs, and I would be in the living room minding my own business, and suddenly there would be this frantic screaming from upstairs. And I would run up the stairs and I would go ‘what’s wrong?! is everything ok?! are you hurt?!’ and it would turn out that they just wanted to ask me a question or some little thing like that. And I would of course get mad at them because they just scared the crap our of me. And I would tell them this story about the boy that cried wolf and how they shouldn’t be yelling their heads off like there’s some emergency if there’s nothing wrong.”

Collector: And how does the story go?

Informant: “Well, the way I would tell the story is that there was this shepherd boy in this village somewhere, and he was in charge of watching the sheep. So he takes the sheep to the pasture and watches them, but he found it super boring though. So he says to himself, ‘I know, I’ll go run into town and yell “Wolf! Wolf!”‘, and so he runs into town and yells ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ and all the villagers run out to the pasture because there’s a wolf, only the shepherd boy bursts out laughing because he knows there’s no sheep. And he does the same thing the next day where he runs into town and yells “Wolf! Wolf!” and everyone runs out to the pasture and he starts laughing at them. Then the third day, there actually is a wolf, and when he runs into town to get help, everyone thought he was joking, and the wolf ends up eating all the sheep. And the moral was supposed to be that a liar can never be trusted. And I would tell this story to my kids and say that once they start yelling for no reason, I can’t ever trust them again. Actually [laughs] I remember I did exactly the same thing growing up, and my mother would tell me the same story.”

Informant is a middle aged mother of three who lives in the suburbs in the Midwestern United States. She identifies as of “American” heritage, which she bases on her admission that she never particularly looked into her family’s European heritage.

Collector Analysis: This is a relatively common variation of a well known story. In this case, it was used as a metaphor in order to teach a lesson the the informant’s children how to properly behave. These sorts of stories are important as they provide children with rules as to what to do and not do, they provide a memorable context for the lesson so that the children never forget, and they provide a clear depiction of the results of not following the moral of the story.

For an additional version of this story, see citation:
T. Ross, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1991.

Baba Ghanouj (my daddy is spoiled)

Nationality: Arab-American, mixed, biracial
Age: 22
Occupation: Waitress, activist, journalist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, some French and Spanish

Baba Ghanouj is an Arabic dish that means “my daddy is spoiled.” It’s also known as Mutabbal in different regions, which means “it’s mixed up.” She said that it’s common for kids to make food for their parents after a certain age in her culture, and baba ghanouj was such a delicious and straightforward meal, kids would make it and say something like, “look, see how spoiled my dad is?” My informant ate it a lot growing up; she learned all of her recipes from her mom, because recipes were passed down in her family and her mother also inherited recipes from her stepdad’s mother, because he is Palestinian-Jordanian, so compared so Saudi food, theirs is a little bit lighter and distinct in her mother’s recipe knowledge.

This recipe, as well as many others, is significant to my informant, because since her family was poor growing up, her mother cooked cheap recipes like lentils stews (which are also used as a folk remedy for colds) hummus (which literally means “chickpea” in Arabic), and baba ghanouj with pita for her and her siblings all the time.

She also listed the cooking directions for me:

Directions:
Burn eggplant skins on stove until eggplant juice is bubbling out, this is when they’re fully cooked
Let them cool & remove skin
Toss eggplants in bowl
Mash with fork
Place mashed eggplant in strainer over other bowl to remove excess water (save and use in soup or other recipe)
Return pulp to mixing bowl
Add smashed garlic (smash in wooden mortar)
Add salt and lemon juice
Mash together
Add tahini 1 tablespoon at a time
Mash together
Add Salt, Sumac & Olive Oil to taste
Mash together
Top with sprinkled sumac, chopped parsley, tomatoes and olive oil
*Do your best to get all of the skin off. Don’t use any hard parts of the eggplant (usually the little bump at the bottom)