Image Credit: Lee McCoy, Flickr
The other day, my 3rd grader came out of his classroom with a gleam in his eye and excitement in his voice.
“Mommy! We’re selling candy bars!”
“Mm, hmm,” I say without looking up. “That’s nice.”
“Can we go get a box? RIGHT NOW? You just need to sign this paper and then I can get a box to take home.”
I wanted to read the fine print before signing, but this 9-year-old was so persistent. With the confidence of a multilevel marketing recruit, my child is ready to sell.
I imagine the assemblies for these fundraisers must be like timeshare presentations, only without the alcohol. Sometimes these motivational speakers offer trinkets for the high-performing sellers, such as decorative rubber duckies that they can wear around their necks, like so many notches on a lipstick case. A few years ago, the 1st graders nearly rioted over the last ninja duck. But there were no prizes for this latest fundraiser, so if my kid wanted to sell candy bars for his personal satisfaction, who was I to stop him?
Read the full post I Don’t Want My Kid to Sell Chocolate at Mom.me…
I think most parents dread these fundraisers and the pressure to buy and sell more. There’s only so much overpriced things you can buy.
At my high school the only fundraiser they had was a flyer that said “We won’t ask you to commit time if you can’t. We won’t ask you to donate money if you can’t. But if you can donate $20, that’d be the only fundraising we will ask you or your kids to do. No selling things, no middleman, no more bother.”
My mom LOVED that fundraiser.