I was a Rainbow, Brownie and Guide. I don’t think I ever expressed any desire to join any of them, but my mum felt it was one of those things all children must do 😆 I was a reluctant Rainbow and Brownie but absolutely loathed Guides, and begged to leave until my mum finally relented when I was about 15. The camping was particularly awful, partly because I had heavy periods which were just nightmarish to manage in a tent.
But I think I was also unlucky with who was in my group- the girls in charge of the sixes (I think that’s what they were called) were on an absolute power trip and were unbearably bossy. They were my classmates at school and it created a really weird situation having same-age peers in a position of authority over me. One was so awful on one particular camp, lots of calling us ‘girls’ like they were an adult and giving us all the shit jobs and shouting at us when they weren’t done to her standards, that her mum made her ring and apologise when we got home 😆
Our leaders also weren’t brilliant. One was very focused on trying to watch us get changed and making inappropriate comments(🤢), and there was a massive emphasis on housekeeping, tasks like constructing elaborate washing up bowl stands and mug trees out of bamboo on camp and so on, that I was very aware my friends in the scouts were not being made to do. I can still remember how to build a washing up stand with integrated draining board out of sticks. Strange, nonsensical restrictions on how often we were allowed to wash during camp (which also made dealing with periods harder).
I think I just drew the short straw with the ones I went to tbh. I have loads of friends who absolutely loved Guides (different groups to mine) and I was always jealous, guide camp especially in our group seemed to be deliberately planned to be as unpleasant as possible!