Letters to the Editor: Girl Scout cookie sales are fierce. Blame our expensive world, not Girl Scouts

Girls Scouts sell cookies in Mar Vista on Feb. 11, 2022. ((Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times))

To the editor: Like editorial writer Karin Klein, I miss the low-key, no-pressure days of Girl Scouts. As a parent and Scout leader, I have watched the pressure on our children to sell cookies increasing every year. It’s not caused by the Scouts; it’s just the world we live in. (“Stop pressuring Girl Scouts to be ‘cookie bosses,'” Opinion, Feb. 12)

When my daughter was in first grade (she’s pushing 40 now), I drove her and her friends to our first-ever booth sale. I could hear them talking in the back seat: “What if we don’t sell any cookies? What if the people are mean?”

Of course, the people were not mean, and they bought lots of cookies from us.

When my daughter graduated from the troop, I stayed on and still serve as an adult volunteer. Recently I watched a little girl who was afraid to face the people work up the courage to turn around and ask them to buy. This change occurred in a span of two hours, the typical booth sale time limit.

The world is a lot more expensive than it used to be. Parents can’t be expected to fund all the activities the girls crave, so the Scouts work together toward their goal. No matter what, they know they earned the money themselves.

And those nervous little girls in my back seat all those years ago? On the way home, they talked about how much fun they had and what great sellers they were.

Nancy Garf Moses, Irvine

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To the editor: Klein is correct when she writes that young girls shouldn’t be lured with stuffed animals and bossy, pseudo-corporate titles into relentlessly selling cookies.

She’s also right that most sales seem to be made by the kind of competitive parents who make cookie season a time to dread. I knew one woman who proclaimed on Facebook that anyone who didn’t buy at least five boxes from her daughter should consider themselves shunned.

Of course, all of this can teach girls something that everyone not living in a fantasy world must learn about life in the modern world. And that’s the fact that everything costs money.

If you want camping adventures and chances to learn robotics, local Girl Scout councils need money (and lots of it) to pay for such activities.

Such a lesson may be hard to learn, especially if one has a parent intent on conquering Mount Cookie. But it’s a valuable lesson still.

Mary Stanik, Tucson

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To the editor: I could not agree more with Klein. When I was a Girl Scout, I had to walk up and down the hills of my neighborhood selling boxes. If I sold 20 boxes, that was fine; my parents didn’t pressure me.

Parents, step back and take a deep breath. Stop making cookie sales a competition between the adults. You’re doing your children more harm than good.

Kids today are bombarded with pressure from every part of society. It’s no wonder that so many suffer from anxiety and depression.

I suggest that the Girl Scouts organization and its well-meaning parents reexamine their priorities. This can’t be what founder Juliette Gordon Low envisioned back in 1912.

Tracey Pomerance-Poirier, Chatsworth

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.