Manipulation

I may be graduating with my degree in Business Administration, but my emphasis is marketing. So, I get it. I do. Mostly.

My children's school is starting to make me really angry. Strike that, I'm past angry and fighting the urge to go down and say something I'm not entirely sure I'll regret. Things just aren't like they used to be.

How many of you, as children, did fundraisers? I remember the flashy people coming to our schools and showing off the prizes you could win if you just sold enough wrapping paper, chocolate bars, or got enough donations for the American Heart association. As a kid, it was exciting. I mean, who didn't want a ballpoint pen that could tune into the radio during math class (and who cares that it was the 1980's, and the pen was HUGE. Not exactly covert ops.)

I remember those chocolate bars in particular. As a certifiable chocoholic, you have no idea how hard it was being given a box of 20 bars when I was in second grade and not eating the entire thing. Fortunately, being priced at a dollar each (which was way more than the average candy bar that was only $0.20) I pretty much stayed out of them. During one of those fundraisers my arch enemy and I got off the bus, and instead of going home, started selling our way in opposite directions around the block. Our parents found us around two hours later, and I believe my grounding lasted around two months long. My enemy got nothing but a pat on the back for her entrepreneurship. Witch.

The prizes were always stupid, but they felt hard won and somehow more valuable than the person who bought the same thing from Woolworth's. I remember being so upset when I raised money for the American Heart Association with their four hour jump-a-thon. I raised more than anyone else in the school, but they had set it up that if you raised more than a specific amount, you got nothing, instead of all the big prizes at the top level. I raised $5 too much. I walked away with nothing while the others got sweat suits, new jump ropes, t-shirts, and what have you. I got a paper saying "Thanks. You raised the most. You should be proud." I wasn't. I wanted the stuff. I got nothing. I'm still bitter.

So that pretty much sums up my fundraisers through school growing up. Lots of chocolate. Lots of knocking on doors, competition, disappointment, and looking at it from a parent's perspective - lots of danger. They've wised up to that last part.

The children are not allowed to sell door to door now. All the rules have changed. Does that mean no fundraisers? Are you kidding? Guess what? All the parents are expected to do it. We can accompany our kids when they talk to any family members or well known neighbors, but then we are instructed to take the stuff to work and sell it to our co-workers. Then we're supposed to collect money and deliver the goods too... and our kids get the little prizes for our efforts. The only difference is that I don't get grounded for selling now, and I have an iPod and could care less about a pen that gets radio reception (still one of the prizes.)

I don't participate. If they're selling something I want or need, we'll submit just our order, but that's it. They yell at us about how we're unsupportive. Never mind that we paid almost $6,000 in property taxes that 90% of went to the school, that my husband runs their soccer program and we both coach, that our teachers are actually reasonably paid, and that our school does pretty well financially. It's never enough. And I get that, I want everything for my kids too - but not enough to go hawking wrapping paper to every person I come across.

But now they're starting to get overly manipulative with their fundraisers. Just this week, the school had all the students work hard on a "special drawing just for mommy and daddy." They then scanned the drawing on the back of an order form. The fundraiser is that you order printed sets of this drawing that your children just spent all day working on, and you wouldn't want to hurt their feelings... now would you? They were even told to remind us that the drawing was special just for us, and how much effort that they put into it.

The other fundraiser situations were just mildly irritating. This fundraiser is making me flat out angry. Rabid dog angry.

I love my children, I love their drawings. I am NOT paying $30.00 (minimum amount) to order these. I explained to my crestfallen children that I love all their drawings so much that I would much rather go purchase some blank card-stock and have them draw originals for me instead of the same one printed over and over. But this one on the back of the order form should absolutely go up on the fridge! Look how wonderful that is!

But they're still sad about it. And I'm angry. If it's unethical to use children in marketing (and believe me, I have gone to the mat on this one - it is 100% UNETHICAL,) and even the teachers agree in normal conversations, it's interesting how their own convictions get shelved in the hopes of bringing in more cash. I'd be a lot more likely to contribute funds if they simply sent home a letter saying "here are things that we need, and here is why..." This just makes me want to scream at someone.

I realize they did it wrong when I was a kid. But this isn't right either, and it's somehow a little more sickening.