Duck! They’ve Got Band Candy! : Fund-Raising: A parent would rather scale than turn kids into pint-sized tycoons to pay for education and after-school activities.

It’s the time of year when normally good-natured neighbors draw their curtains and cringe when I walk up the driveway with my son or daughter in tow. They gather and hide behind closed doors because it’s time for the annual attack of the grade-school sales kids.

Foster Elementary School in San Diego fired the first salvo of our current fund-raising season during the second week of school. Margot, my third-grade daughter, came home with a notice about the PTA’s annual wrapping paper drive.

Maybe it was the recession, but, even with birthdays, Christmas and other gift-giving occasions, we’ve yet to make a dent in the pile of gift wrap sitting in the garage from last year’s sales.

We’ve done better with the Brownie cookies and Cub Scout chocolate bars that, for so many months, filled our freezer. But there is still Boy Scout popcorn on the top shelf in the cupboard and there are a handful of candy bars from last year’s baseball and soccer league fund-raisers.

I won’t go into the details, but my attorney is drafting a threatening letter to my sister, advising her that it’s illegal for her wards to use the U.S. Postal Service for interstate sales solicitations.

When I was a child, my mother made it a practice to buy whatever my neighborhood friends and I were selling. Her rationale was that door-to-door sales at selected neighbors’ houses helped build confidence.

Our occasional sales ventures were loosely organized. We were selling homemade items in a bid to raise spare change. For big money we turned to paper routes or cutting lawns. And we kept whatever money we raised.

Today’s junior salespeople aren’t working for themselves, though. They work on commission, lured by promises of awards or gifts. They compete against each other to sell the most chocolate or sign up the most sponsors for their jog-a-thon or read-a-thon.

True, no one forces the kids to join the fund-raisers.

But, given tight budgets, troop leaders and PTA officials are in the uncomfortable position of having to pressure children to convert cookie boxes, popcorn containers and candy bars into cash.

Overnight, it seems, we adults have assigned our kids the tough task of paying for their education and after-school activities. Want a good education? Sell wrapping paper. Want to learn about the outdoors? Sell cookies.

We seem intent upon turning our youth into pint-sized real estate tycoons who’d feel right at home closing deals alongside the characters in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

As a Scouting leader, I’ve sent my share of Cub Scouts into the marketplace and watched the uncomfortable response from their parents. Earlier this month, our Cub Scout pack held its annual organizing event.

Fund-raising was right up there at the top of the list. And, oh, you should have heard the parents groan.

We’ve signed treaties with friends, neighbors and relatives: You buy my kid’s chocolate and I’ll buy your kid’s wrapping paper. You buy my kid’s popcorn and I’ll buy your kid’s cookies. That way, fewer feelings get bruised.

But it still hurts to turn down the fifth Brownie who rings our doorbell, especially if she sits across the aisle from my daughter in school. And it’s still painful to turn down the kid from around the corner who’s doing his best to pitch chocolate bars for the Little League. Maybe what we really need to do is get our kids out of the fund-raising business. Adults should be paying the bills through donations and taxes. And if that means scaling back, so be it.