I hate Girl Scout Cookies.
Now, don't get me wrong here. Girl Scout cookies taste amazing. Of course they do. They have sugar. But, personally, I just can't stand that time of year when the Girl Scouts start busting out their order sheets and start storming the neighborhoods, the schools, and the work areas.
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| Look at the poor girl! Source: http://files.schuminweb.com/journal/2012/full-size/girl-scout-cookie-sale.jpg |
As some of you can guess, I am a Girl Scout.
I remember distinctly as a brownie, wearing my oh-so-cute little brown vest and walking around the neighborhood with my mom, ringing doorbells and accepting rejections with a sad little frown.
I was a shy girl. I still am.
But what sticks in my mind after all these years are four things:
1) The feeling of disappointment and shame when I was rejected more than five times in a row
2) The feeling of disappointment when my parents rejected my request to have them sell my cookies for me
3) The feeling of shame when I heard the 3-figure sales the other girls in my troop were getting
4) That sense of dread when the next cookie season came
The most cookies I ever sold in a year was around 60 boxes. About 20 of those were from my parents.
It seemed that everyone had little daughters or nieces or friends who had already sold to them. Or everyone thought that cookies were evil.
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| Evil cookies hate you. Source: http://healthyfoodietales.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/evilcookiehate128623606813138417.jpg |
I would hear stories from my fellow Girl Scout troop members of how they got their mom to bring in the sheet and sell 100 boxes in a day. I would relate those stories to my parents, and I would get a stern, "Those girls are cheating. You are not a cheater. Don't make your parents do all the work. You have to do all the work."
Back then, my eight-year-old mind only heard "You have to do all the work."
I tried. Really, I did. But after stopping by about 20 houses and hearing only "No thank you"s, I felt bad. At night I would tell myself, Look at all your friends! They have people skills. How come they sell that many boxes? Look at them, getting all the stuffed animals and water bottles and t-shirts and necklaces and watches and beach towels and then look at you, who can't even earn the stupid participation patch. What kind of a person are you, anyway? You're going to fail at life and live in a ratty shack and starve and die.
I was a very happy child.
I still tell myself these things. I still can't bring myself to keep going after those 20 houses have failed. I always feel envy at the girls whose parents bring the sheet to work and carry home the filled out sheet, like Veruca Salt's dad in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, bringing home that Golden Ticket.
Part of the problem with my lack of cookie-sales was attributed to my lack of self-confidence and people's fear of evil cookies. But a major difference, especially earlier when I was young, was the parents doing the work for the kids.
There are over 2 million girls doing Girl Scouts in the USA. There are about 313.9 million people living in the USA. Girl Scouts is pretty overrated, in my opinion. It's just one of those things that all girls do, like playing in the local AYSO for a year or two. Girl Scouts is supposed to teach you essential life skills. All it's taught me is that my life would be so much easier in February if Girl Scout Cookies didn't exist. Also how to knit. But that I forgot after a month.
But, let's just say that girls really do learn "essential life skills" by selling cookies. Do they really learn those skills when parents just take the form and do a lot of the work? This is really equivalent to parents doing the homework for the child. I have nothing against the parent supporting the Girl Scout when selling the cookies by helping prepare the sales pitch or something else. But parents selling it for the kids? That's giving them the wrong impression, cause if "relying on your parents until they die" is an essential life skill, then I think the next generation of girls will be rather helpless.
In a way, I feel envious that those girls sell so much. In another way, I really wonder whether Girl Scouts as a program should be held to this kind of level.
I could write more, but my thoughts are so jumbled that if I tried to make any more points, this blog post would go on my wall of shame.
So I hope you get my point. If you don't, there are tons more articles out there about this same topic that are better written. Go read those.
It's mid-January right now, and the 2014 Girl Scout cookie selling season is coming up. This time, I think I'll be lucky if I sell 10 boxes around the neighborhood. And I'll be spending my nights in bed, thinking about those lucky girls whose parents are giving them such an "essential life skill."
Let's just hope the evil cookie has chosen to follow some other unfortunate Girl Scout this year.
