Mmmm, Girl Scout cookies are F’ing awesome but here’s why they suck

Okay, so here’s the thing. Zoey is selling Girl Scout cookies. Now if you follow my Facebook page, you might know who’s really selling them. Yours F’ing truly. Here’s the post if you didn’t see it on Facebook. You can skip to the next part if you already read it.

Woo-hooo, Zoey is selling Girl Scout cookies!!

ME: Hey, Zoey, do you want to see if Ann wants to buy any Girl Scout cookies?

ZOEY: How?

ME: Ask her if she wants to buy any cookies.

ZOEY: Do you want to buy any cookies?

ANN: Sure. How much are they?

ZOEY: Mom, how much are they?

ME: $4.

ZOEY: $4.

ANN: Great, do you have any Thin Mints?

ZOEY: Mom, do we have any Thin Mints?

ME: Yes.

ZOEY: Yes.

ANN: I’ll take two boxes.

ZOEY: She’ll take two boxes.

ME: Great.

ZOEY: Great.

ANN: Do you take a check?

ZOEY: Do we take a check?

ME: She can pay when we deliver them.

ZOEY: You can pay when we deliver them.

ANN: When’s that?

ZOEY: Mom, when’s that?

ME: February.

ZOEY: February.

Oh wait, did I say Zoey is selling Girl Scout cookies? I meant I’m selling Girl Scout cookies. Where do you guys think I should iron my patch when I earn it?

Is it a pain in the ass that I have to do this with her? Absolutely. Did she start to answer the questions on her own after a while? Absolutely. So heyyyyy, she learned something! And that is why I make her do it with me. Because Girl Scouts don’t sell cookies because they’re F’ing awesome slices of chocolate heaven that make you have multiple mouthgasms. This is why they sell them:

When a Girl Scout sells you cookies, she’s building a lifetime of skills and confidence. She learns goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics–aspects essential to leadership, success, and life.

By putting her mind and energies to something, a Girl Scout can overcome any challenge. There are no limits. She can be anything. She can do anything. Help her build a lifetime of skills and confidence.

FYI, I did not write that shit (duhhh, otherwise it’d be filled with grammatical errors and colorful language). I stole it from the Girl Scouts website. That’s right, call the po-po, I stole it.

‘Cause here’s the thing. There are a shitload of parents out there who think the purpose of selling Girl Scout cookies is to sell as many boxes as possible and to win a prize from the prize chart and they’re like hellllllls yeah, I’ve got 300 people I can hit up at work to buy them. Shiiiiit, I’d probably do the same thing if I worked in an office. But for some reason yesterday when I helped collect the forms for our Girl Scout troop, it bothered me. I mean some kids had sold hundreds of boxes of cookies. How does a KINDERGARTENER sell like 300 boxes of cookies? Oh yeahhh, someone else does it for them. And this is totally NOT what selling Girl Scout cookies is all about.

I don’t really blame the parents. I mean if I hadn’t been standing there in a daydream while the girls were coloring, I probably wouldn’t have thought about it. Plus, how could we deprive alllllll of those people from awesomely amazing Girl Scout cookies? And some of the money goes to the troop and that’s awesome. And if the parents don’t sell them at work how can the kindergarteners sell enough to win that stupid cheetah wristlet that we could buy them at Claires for $4? And I’m sure the Girl Scouts organization never says parents can’t sell the cookies because they’re just super psyched to sell MORE cookies. Hmmmm, maybe because it’s a money-maker.

But we are doing our girls a disservice.

Would it be faster to get my kids’ shoes on if I put them on and tied them myself? Yes. Would a cake look better if I frosted it and I didn’t let my three-year-old take control? Sure. Would it be easier if I read books out loud to Zoey and didn’t make her……read……the……words……at……the……pace……of……a……snail……on……downers? Of course. But we let our kids do shit without too much help because it gives them seriously awesome life skills.

So I don’t care what you do. Take your daughter to work with you and make her do her sales pitch to everyone. Have two order forms—one for the cookies she sells and one for the cookies you sell so you can win your ugly wristlet prize. Whatever floats your boat.

And go ahead, call me an asshole for saying it, but when you sell your daughter’s Girl Scout cookies FOR her and then you hand her a big prize at the end, you have just lost a seriously awesome opportunity to teach her something.

P.S. Don’t forget to “like” this post if you like it. Thank you!!




There are 46 comments for this article
  1. Life With Teens and Other Wild Things at 10:08 am

    We dodged the girl scouts bullet- Babygirl just wasn’t that interested. Did Cubs with Thing1, and he dropped out in the first six months, because it REALLY didn’t work for him, for a variety of reasons.

    Yes, to everything you said. This is an opportunity for these kids to do something for themselves… and ugh, I do feel like it’s not at all about the kids actually learning something. It’s about an organization making multimillions selling their products and using little girls to do it. :-/

    But lets be real. We’ll all keep buying the stupid addictive things. Because they’re girlscout cookies. And hopefully some little girls will learn something along the way.

  2. Lorene at 10:22 am

    If the troop leaders are doing the right thing, the girls are learning what they are supposed to learn, but keep in mind, I have been a troop leader for 8 years, this is how you MAKE MONEY FOR THE TROOP. You can earn 75 cents per box. Yes, 75 cents. That’s nothing. So when you have parents selling cookies at work and the girls selling also, that’s a win-win situation as far I am concerned. My girls know about the financial part of the cookies and they want to sell as many as possible. So, long story short: Buy the d**n cookies!

    • Moira at 10:13 am

      Only 75 cents per box????? Even as the price per box continues to increase and the number of cookies inside decreases?

  3. Tracy at 10:26 am

    at……the…..pace…..of…..a…….snail…..on…….downers!! O……..M…….F’ing……G. If they want to get information out of terrorists the should have a 6-7 year old read chapter books to them. It’ll work better than waterboarding.

  4. Emily at 10:30 am

    I remember being so irritated because my parents were the ONLY ones who wouldn’t take my forms to work with them when I was in Girl Scouts. So I never got as many fabulous prizes as my friends did. Now that I see it from the perspective of a parent, maybe they were onto something…

  5. Jennifer Hoffmann at 10:38 am

    I totally agree. My boys are Cub and Boy Scouts and they have always sold popcorn on their own. I stand at the end of the driveway if they need help, but they go door to door, give their speil, accept payment and deliver on their own. They do the work. They love it and are really proud of themselves in the end. They sell over $1,000 dollars each every year. I’m really proud of them too.

  6. tessamartinuk at 11:04 am

    We don’t get Girl Scout cookies here in England. We get Girls, we get Scouts, we get cookies, we even get Girl Scouts but we don’t get Girl Scout Cookies. so unfair :/

  7. Jaya at 11:12 am

    I’m really glad parents bring order forms to work bc otherwise I’d never get asked to buy cookies bc I have no Girl Scouts in my neighborhood! If girls do some if the work, they’re learning something. Helping organize label and deliver cookies for parents to bring to work teaches them and helps them too. Plus money for the troop. Hundreds of boxes of cookies sold = a great budget for a troop trip! Win-win.

  8. scrappinjen at 11:28 am

    So I was a girl scout for 10 years, my parents NEVER took my cookie order forms to work but you know what?! I still earned Girl Scout camp for free every year by selling my d**n cookies and so did a lot of my troop friends. Don’t just assume that since they sold hundreds of cookies its because Mom and Dad did all the work.

  9. Wendy at 11:47 am

    Former GS here. My mother was my leader as well. My dad took order forms to work and hung them in the break room. He helped me out a ton in that respect. I had to schlep from door to door to door for each of the ten years I was a scout. Or else dad wouldn’t take an order form to work! Another thought. Boy Scouts (at least when I was a Girl Scout) receive donations from United Way. Girl Scouts do not. The cookie sales fund most of what the girls do throughout the year. The cookie sales are pretty important for them.

    • Ashley Moore at 11:55 am

      My son is a scout and my husband our assistant leader, I can assure you our pack never receives any donations of any kind unless it is a fundraiser we are holding in our own. Our boys have sold popcorn, held a car wash on 3 different occasions, cleaned college football stadiums and many other activities but they have learned something from each of them. I won’t buy GS cookies except directly from a scout herself, I will not order from a mother or father as it teaches them nothing! But let me tell you those cookies are laced with crack because why can we not just eat a few, we have to eat the whole d**n box!!

  10. mishellls at 12:39 pm

    I totally agree but………being the troop leader I spend so much of my money on stuff because I feel guilty using the girls money for stuff. So the more the parents sell the less of my money I use. The girls work on financial badges during our meetings and even though they might not sell every box they should all know how much and what kinds we have. The rest sometimes I even have to ask. Love your take on it though!

  11. Alycia at 1:41 pm

    I was a girl scout from brownies (1992) – seniors (2006 and earned my gold award. I never once had my parents take the forms anywhere I wasn’t with them. One year I sold 1500 boxes. It was an obscene amount of work but I had friends at privately owned business and was allowed to sell alone in front of their businessess. I also had (YOUR FAVORITE EVER) an American Girl doll that looked just like me and I dressed her in my uniform so we matched and oh my gosh did that attract people! I remember one specific instance where a guys friends dared him to buy all my cookies and didn’t know I had three cases under the table. He was out $200 bucks hahahaha. Now I saw an e-mail from a friend who’s daughter is selling and she says she doesn’t want her wasting time selling but wants us to sign up online to buy. GARBAGE!!

  12. Peeps at 1:58 pm

    I agree wholeheartedly! Two years ago a distant niece was selling GS cookies. She sent out an email request to sell them to the family. I had forgotten she had done this. Mind you she also lives close to 2 hours away. Last year she wasn’t a GS for whatever reason, as she is this year. I received at least 10 emails from some girl I didn’t even know last year trying to sell me cookies. I was so irritated. Contacting the GS site that these requests were being sent through I was told that once your email is in the system it stays there even if the member that put it in no longer sells cookies. They send them out for underprivileged girls that don’t have anywhere to sell them. Whatever that means.

    So now I will only purchase my GS cookies from the first GS that asks me in person or calls me. Not an email from them or the parent. Not from moms or dads at work. They have to at least make an effort. I have purchased from the group hanging at the exit of grocery stores, if they’re making an effort. When I was a GS I worked my tail off and I did sell over 300 WITHOUT my parent’s assistance. I wanted that badge and I was going to get it. Yeah, we used to get badges for selling over 300 boxes. Just saying. It can be done but it probably isn’t as ‘easy’ as it was back then as I went door to door. I even colored my own ‘calling cards’ leaving my name and number if they wanted cookies ~ if they weren’t home or wanted to think about it. HA

  13. enad at 2:04 pm

    loved it!! ha ha!! letting your kids do their own things is exquisite torture. when we visit my sister i dread hearing my niece say “can i read a bedtime book?” BUT i let her and then i let my mind wander and then i say “okay i’ll read the next two cause my kids need to go the F to sleep TONIGHT and not tomorrow.” except i don’t say all of that out loud.

  14. Alycia at 2:12 pm

    @Peeps hahahahaha I love the calling cards I never thought of that! That’s hilarious. My dad grew up with all the neighbors and I was the only girl scout for years so I lucked out with that one. They were all begging for cookies like drug addicts. Nobody sells my favorites from like 10 years ago though (I mean thin mints are freaking amazing as well as samoas and dosidos) but we had these delicious cinnamon snap things that were to die for.

    • Honest Mom at 7:06 pm

      We did the same thing, Kim. And now our troop leader is asking the parents pay more money because the girls didn’t each sell their quota of 35 boxes. Annoying.

      • Andrea in Maine at 1:38 am

        There should not be an imposed quota, and they definitely shouldn’t be making you pay extra! In our council (Maine) they’ve asked people to report leaders who do that….

  15. Cheryl Gustafson at 6:25 pm

    I totally agree that the parents are not doing the girls a favor by doing the work for them. It happens every year where I work. I do see a lot of girls outside stores and set up in different areas to sell cookies.

  16. Julia at 12:35 am

    Sorry, but I think the Girls Scouts is a crock of sh*t. Good thing they have yummy cookies though. That’s the only thing they’ve got going for them.

  17. stacia at 8:12 am

    Well my daughter is a daisy and age 5 she sold 375 bcause she wanted those prizes. And other then about 30 boxes SHE SOLD ALL OF THEM yes I had to walk with her and answer a few questions but she did most of it herself.

  18. Gina at 9:46 am

    Love it it similar with fundraising for school stuff .

  19. Erin at 8:21 pm

    I love this post! I totally agree! This totally reminds me of when a Kindergartener’s homework looks like a beautiful, Pinterest project. Where is the lesson if a parent is doing all. of. the. work?

    Thanks for posting!

  20. Sarah at 9:56 am

    My daughter is a daisy. She honestly sold 300 boxes herself. Soooo…don’t write off the power of a 6 year old.

  21. Shelly at 10:35 pm

    I am a troop leader for my daughters Daisy troop and have been working my a*s off to push these cookies…thank you for the reminder that as a mom and leader its my job to teach her to work her little a*s off to sell these cookies!! which she will be doing next month outside of a grocery store dressed in a pinterest inspired cookie costume LOL

  22. Grace R at 11:42 am

    Coming from a once girl Scott who sold over 1000 boxes, it can be done. Lots of store sales and a thing called door to door. I knew my stuff and many times was the only show for those darn stores. When my girls sold we did the same. Honestly, parents aren’t supposed to sell at work or over Facebook, but most do anyhow. It’s all about hard work by the girl. I am amazed at how easy it is for the girls I see outside the stores. 2 hour shifts and standing is how is done. Engage the customer and know your stuff. I even had to send a girl home because she had no coat and it was snowing.

  23. Amanda at 5:39 pm

    I Really do feel your pain. I am the mom of a daisy and cookies are just an annoyance to me. I don’t make a huge effort, sent one email at the office. And we aren’t allowed to sell via FB. And depsite major council issues and a troop change x2, But my girl still loves being a GS and totally helps me with the process. She’s 6 and definitely managing any money that’s for d**n sure. And certainly she’s not writing the check for the gd 600 bucks we owe between pick up and delivery. We met our troop goal so we are done and not continuing thru booth sales (at savers? I mean for real life?) or any of that other jazz. My compromise is that she delivers. No matter who sells the cookies, she gives them out…

    …and hello have you tasted the lemonades??

  24. Dawn at 10:48 am

    “That’s right, call the po-po, I stole it.” ……. LOL
    I haven’t enjoyed reading something this much in a while. You all are too funny.

  25. RH at 1:55 am

    DD is way too young to be a Girl Scout right now. But I’ve never thought about it this way really and you’re totally right!! I was never a Girl Scout, but went a a private school and we sold different things every year and my mom would go with me door to door and stand at the end of the driveway. I always sold a lot and did it all by myself- it felt great and knowing that I had earned the prizes myself was awesome. Same thing as GS cookies, I just never really put too much thought into it because I hadn’t needed to yet but your completely right!!

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  27. greenapples at 8:03 am

    I’m so grateful my daughter wasn’t/isn’t Girl Scouts. I know that cookie selling is all about teaching kids lessons about ‘doing something’ and ‘earning money’, but think about another aspect; I believer selling should be limited to the parents work, family, friends or people we actually know (like neighbors). Otherwise, it’s like giving our kids candy to sell to strangers. (I’m talking to all you who put up a table outside Walmart and then try to guilt me and everyone else who walks through, to buy your kids cookies!) *cue to puppy dog eyes*

  28. Rebecca Weaver Armes at 11:34 am

    As a girl scout leader here’s my perspective on it. Our girls are earning about 45 cents a box they sell. (It’s higher in some areas-the amount is decided by each council). The proceeds from cookies are what fund our troop activities. We have girls that have tons of family and friends that can buy cookies and some that don’t. Booth sales (like at Wal-mart) are an opportunity for our girls to practice talking to people, sales skills, marketing, and a whole host of other things. And for some unfathomable reason (because frankly I hate them) the girls love them. Our girls have been drilled that if someone buys great, help them and thank them, if they don’t tell them thank you anyway and have a nice day.

    As far as selling at parents work most of our girls don’t have that opportunity. Typically they’re in school while Mom and Dad are working or their parents work in an environment where you can’t just come in and sell. The hubby works in a medical clinic-kid can’t be roaming around with her cookies. He takes orders at work, she fills the orders and handles the money, and then Dad delivers.

    It is what is-we try to make sure every girl gets the opportunity to personally sell and work toward her goal but I’m not going to turn my nose up at money for the troop because the parent took them to work with them.

  29. Sid at 3:39 pm

    Only 35-45 cents per $4 box goes to the troop? I know 25% goes to the baker but where does the rest go administration pay?…That is almost slave labor from a 700 million a year cookie sales…These kids and us parents are doing all the hard work…If the GS say this is all to do with teaching goal setting, decision making, money management..They should add negotiating to that list so these kids get more then a few cents from that $4 box…My 8yr old girl was asked to sell 115 boxes…Really makes you think that they know us parents will be doing a lot of the work for the most part to get them 700 million…More money to the troops and kids I say!

  30. Sapphire Soprano at 7:57 pm

    Af*ckingmen. Not buying girl scout cookies unless the actual GIRL SCOUT is selling them to me. By herself. ANd even then, I might not buy them, because it’s a total crock.

  31. Danielle Rush at 10:54 am

    My daughter, a kindergartner, is a Daisy Scout. She and I have shared the cookie selling duties this year. I posted on Facebook and brought the form to work. She and I did some door to door selling in our town, and she’s taken the form to school and worked at a couple of cookie booths at Wal-Mart with her troop. Between the two of us, we’ve sold about 300 boxes. Her troop is fully funding a camping trip with the money they’ve raised. I sold a lot of cookies at work. When the cookies arrived, I took an afternoon off and brought her to work in her Daisy uniform to deliver, collect money, and say thank you. She is gaining the skills she should, but I am helping as well, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. I know the troop needs all the money it can get. I lead my son’s Cub Scout den, and 90 percent of what his den does comes out of my pocket, due to lack of money. I want to do what I can do our Daisy leader isn’t funding all of our activities out of her pocket.

  32. Mandy at 3:23 pm

    Only 75 cents? My little sister’s troop earns way more than that per box. And at $4 a box, they’d better get more out of themß

  33. Grace R at 11:59 pm

    It goes to the baker and the local area council. Only 50 cents per box (for us) went to the troop.

  34. Abby at 8:54 pm

    I hated selling Girl Scout cookies. My mom hated selling Girl Scout cookies. My dad worked from home as a minister. We never got anything but a big ball of anxiety from them. So imagine my surprise when my daughter tells me she really wants to try her hand at it. She sends the form with dadda to his little nine-person office, then goes in on her day off from school to tell them thank you. And she went door to door in our neighborhood, in 20° weather, & did the whole spiel. I did nothing but wait across the street to make sure she didn’t get snatched. I have no idea where she got it from, but good for her.

    My problem with cookies is they’re selling someone else’s product. Girl Scouts don’t actually make the cookies. They don’t learn about consumer demand, budgeting, purchasing, recipes, mixing, baking, or advertising. Because seriously, GS cookies don’t need advertising. They don’t learn about gross income vs net income. I get it when they’re wee ones, & hurrah for self-confidence, but if we’re really prepping them for the future, why don’t we teach them concrete things that they really will need in the real world?

  35. K at 9:45 pm

    Sadly yes. I’ve had many people (upon finding this out) that skip the cookies and just donate the money. There were many times at booths where we as a troop earned more money in donations than we did in selling the cookies! However, we always managed to have enough troop funds to do the projects the girls picked as well as the camping trips and the fun outing (usually Disney world).

  36. taniabakerhui at 6:14 pm

    For the little girls, yes, they don’t learn a ton about business or finances but they do learn how to behave in public and as they get older they learn more. The key is to tell the girls to treat it like a business. We have 16 6th grade cadettes and 10 sold over 500 and 2 over 1000. These are the girls who take the time and treat it like a business for 6 weeks out of the year. They know that we don’t ask parents to pay for anything but registration so they need to sell in order to do the things they want to do. They want to go to Europe in high school so they are selling a lot. We tell parents not to sell for them because we encourage the girls to earn what they get. It really is all about the attitude.

  37. NoAdditives at 2:23 pm

    My 7 year old sold 1600 boxes of cookies this year. 200 online, 500 in person, over 800 at cookie booths. Sure, she had help with the in person part. My husband works from home and I’m a SAHM. A couple of our friends sold to their co-workers, my husband and I sold to our friends, I hit up our neighborhood association email list (rural neighborhood, 1 acre lots, fenced properties, not suitable for door to door sales). But still. Over 800 boxes at cookie booths. My first grader worked her b**t off and she absolutely earned every single patch and prize. She sold over twice as many boxes as the next closest girl, whose mom sold tons at work.

    As a troop leader, I can ten you that while we “only” get up to 75 cents per box, no one is getting rich from this. Money from the cookie sales stays within the council. It’s about $1.25 to pay the bakery and cover the cost of the rewards. The other $2 goes toward maintaining camps, providing financial assistance for families who can’t afford memberships, uniforms, camp, etc., paying salaries for the council employees, council events, etc.