Bittersweet sales

With the Girl Scout cookie season upon us, there are a few problems with the sale that should be addressed.

Parents sell cookies for their young daughters, taking the sales that many older girls could have obtained.

What good is selling 700 boxes of cookies for your 5-year-old daughter? Is the troop planning any major trips, activities or trying to have a last hurrah before graduation? No? Then stop it.

The whole point of the sale is to grow the entrepreneurial skills of the girl selling cookies, not for the parents to sell the product for the girl and give her a reward she has not earned. It’s like the 16-year-old who gets a new car for her birthday; she is not going to appreciate it. Sure, it will make her excited for a while, but then the novelty will wear off.

All Girl Scouts are not little girls. Some of us would like to have an equal chance to sell our product without stereotypes and entrepreneurial parents who get in the way.

Maggie Swaim, Wendell