Lesson in Life Wrapped in a Box of Thin Mints
Hi, my name is Tessa, I am buying . . . I mean selling . . . oh, shoot.
Little girl learning to be brave, Take Two.
Hi, my name is Tessa, I have some, can you sell some . . . oh, buy some . . .
Little girl learning to be brave, Take Three.
Hi, my name is Tessa, I’m a Brownie Girl Scout, would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?
There. She nails it. The sales pitch that last year caused stammers and sweats she belts through our house like a tenor.
I wrap my arms around a fuzzy brown sweater wrapped around a giggling 8-year-old.
“I’m so proud of you, I don’t care if you don’t sell anything,” I whisper.
She sighs, rolls her blue eyes, pushes me away.
“Daddy!” she says. “I’m going to sell a bunch of boxes. I’m going to sell enough to win a T-shirt.”
A T-shirt is the prize for selling 100.
Last year, she sold 39.
I hug her again, longer this time, my sweet, brave little girl with freckles on her nose and heartbreak in her future.
She has no chance of selling 100 boxes.
Because, like last year, breaking with Girl Scout tradition, Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to sell them for her.
This is not about the cookies. They are good cookies. You ask me, one flavor has even replaced apple pie as our nation’s dessert.
Mom, hot dogs and Thin Mints.
It’s not the cookies, it’s the assumptions.
In these competitive times, those who work with our children assume we never want them to struggle, stumble, or--heaven forbid--fail.
They assume we will do anything to help them avoid life’s hardships, even if it means throwing them over our shoulders and sprinting them through the elementary school.
They take advantage of these assumptions by expecting our children to do things they cannot possibly do by themselves.
Used to be, having your parents help you with your homework was cheating. Today, it is curriculum.
The kids are assigned large science projects or book reports, the parents are persuaded to do most of the work, then everyone pats everyone else on the back. Much is accomplished, yet is anything learned?
The fine line between assistance and plagiarism has been erased such that during a recent visit to Tessa’s sophisticated third-grade science fair, it would have taken a scientist to uncover any evidence of third grade.
A couple of days later, I opened my daughter’s Girl Scout cookies folder and saw this note:
“Cookie sales begin tomorrow, Jan. 30, at 9 a.m.--so you can let Dad and / or Mom take an order form to work on Friday before girls start going door to door after school.”
There it was, in black and yellow. Parents were not only encouraged to help their daughters learn the benefits of salesmanship and hard work . . . but they were actually expected to sell cookies for them.
Attached to her main order form was a “mini-order” card that parents are subtly expected to take to the office.
“Huh, Daddy, can you take it to work for me?” asked Tessa. “Please, Daddy?”
This was hard. Tessa struggled last winter, her first in Brownies. She was so shy, she was afraid to even ring neighbors’ doorbells, cringed at their sound, with Daddy standing 5 feet behind her.
She spoke so softly, folks had to step outside to understand her. Make a phone sale? Never, because that would first require an actual phone call.
She wanted it to be easier this year. I couldn’t blame her. I momentarily despised the Girl Scouts for putting me in this position.
“I can’t help you,” I said. “And you know why.”
“I know,” she said. “Re, re-ponsi-bility. I know Daddy. But . . .”
I shook my head. She lowered hers.
The next day she hit the streets while I phoned New York, to the offices of Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
“This activity is for the girls,” spokeswoman Marianne Ilaw said. “But you can’t tell a parent what to do.”
Aren’t the mini-order forms telling a parent what to do? Isn’t giving awards based strictly on sales--including a 500-box award--telling parents what to do?
My daughter loves hanging out with the other girls at Brownies and, because of money generated from cookie sales, our expenses are virtually nil.
But if it comes at the cost of a lesson in personal responsibility, if the meaning of all this goes no deeper than the co-worker’s order form now taped to a wall near the Sports department, then maybe even the Peanut Butter Patties aren’t worth it.
So Tessa hit the road. Only this year, it was different.
She marched to front doors, fought with her little sister to ring the bell, looked at her accompanying parents like loiterers.
She worked the phones, calmly apologized for wrong numbers, called boys with no sisters at her school, tracked down our friends, made relatives feel guilty, cut deals.
One parent said she would buy cookies from her if, when her son was selling candy bars for his swim team, Tessa would buy from her. Tessa said she loves candy bars. Done.
At last count, she had sold 75 boxes.
Mommy and Daddy had sold none.
“You know, you’re growing up on us,” I whispered during a recent hug.
“I know, Dad,” she said.
Dad?
In these competitive times, those who work with
our children assume we never want them to struggle,
stumble, or--heaven forbid--fail.
