kids that sell stuff door to door
 

okay. some random kids were in my neighborhood today, i think they live on the street over and a block up. they were going door to door selling stuff like candy and wrapping paper for their school. i felt a guilt trip coming on and so i bought something from each of them (3) here's the thing though, i don't really KNOW these kids and i've been getting the feeling that i'll never see my caramel meltaways and that kinda pisses me off. ehhhhhhhh... anybody ever have that happen to em? buy stuff from kids and never get it?

marissa

No, but I would never give cash to a stranger. You should have held back the money until delivery.

Thankfully I've never had that happen to me, but I can't stand those friggin kids who set up shop at the shopping center RIGHT NEXT TO THE FREAKING ATMs!!!

There's nothing like taking out a $20 or a $40 outta the machine and having the kids ask you "WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY SOME...?" Errr... You CAN'T say I don't have any money...talk about friggin guilt trip!

I don't like the idea of whoring children out to make a little money for PTA/football/band. My parents never allowed me to solicit, nor will I allow my children to do so. I think it's highly rude and disrespectful of children who do not know any better.

I think in this day and age parents who let their children go from door to door soliciting need to have their heads examined.

Tell the 8 year old kid to get a job........

When I was a kid, two girls in my neighboorhood were kidnapped while selling fundraising tickets door to door. With all the recent abductions going on today, I don't know how these parents can let their kids go about by themselves.

I had to sell my boxes of Girl Scout Cookies back in the day--but my mom refused to let me solicit. Either she'd buy the boxes herself or she'd take em to the office and sell em there. Then there's the family--"Well I bought a chili ticket from you last year, so you need to buy at least two boxes from us." That's how it was done!

Yeah, I was allowed to sell my GS cookies, but my mom hocked 'em to her friends & family over the phone and my dad took the order form to work. GS cookies are about the only thing that kids can sell that other people actually want. I know I always buy from the little kids who set up tables in our cafeteria every spring. And I always write them a check when I sign up because (a) I know that the Girl Scouts are good for it, and (b) I want to make sure that I have the money so that I don't stick some poor kid with 10 boxes of Thin Mints. My big grew up in Iowa City and lived about a block from Greek Row. One year she got the brilliant idea that she'd sell all her cookies to the Greeks. Well, she sold the most boxes, but an entire sorority house full of women (which shall remain nameless) welched on their end of the deal. "Oh, I'm sorry little girl, but I don't have that money right now." Her family got stuck with more than 100 boxes of cookies and it took almost a year to get rid of them.

I still stand by my opinion that it's poor form to whore children out like that. And in this day and age there's no way my kids would go door-to-door.

This is an excellent thread. When I was a girl we had 2 children come to our door ostenisbly selling "fund raising" tickets for a "youth group." It was a weekend night and it was dark out. My mother asked the children a lot of questions, reasonable ones like, where are you from, where are your parents, etc...
She got extremely vague answers from the children, so she excused herself to go get her pocketbook. While she was away she called the police.
The police found that these children were being coerced into selling these tickets by a group of young men whom they knew from their neighborhood. The children's parents thought that they were playing basketball at the local Catholic Church when in fact these young men were picking them up at Church and threatening them making them sell tickets and candies bars in different towns.
The young men were eventually arrested.

Many, many school districts have rules against using children for solicitation of any kind. Even though schools and many after school programs are sorely under-funded to use children to fundraise is simply wrong.

Not that I ever see many, but door to door avoidance is easy---just don't answer it! What gets me is the unbelievably huge number of brochures/ catalogs / etc brought by parents to their workplace!

I went door to door. I was a little candy whore. ;)

I sold door to door, but then I lived in Pleasantville :). My mom always went w/ me and we never went to neighbors we didn't know. The trouble is no one knows their neighbors these days.

I would never buy anything from random kids, or anyone random for that matter, that has to be delivered - sorry, but if they want my biz it's going to be COD.

Hey clueless ones:

It has actually come out that there are not more abductions now then ever before, but there is more media coverage of it!

Ok? So can we stop saying that there are more abductions now and do some constructive and logical thinking?

i used to sell things door to door...GS cookies, cheesecake for a band trip, etc. everyone did it.

i just gave out the candy sale envelopes for our school sale on friday. there is a note attached from the PTA telling parents NOT to allow their children to solicit.

you probably will get your caramel things...but next time place the order and give the money when they come back with your candy!

True, the fact is that abductions have gone down in many areas. This is the same thing that happened with sharks a summer ago.

-Rudey
--The smartest kids sold candy outside of Yankee Stadium. We were able to save more of our money for beer last week because of those sweet kids.

Politically Correct kills sometimes also . . .

ITs funny. But people are so hysterical about some stuff you can't have a dialogue about it.

For example. The new Amber alert system.

I bet you a few years from now it comes out that it kills a bunch of kids.

Imagine a situation with an abductor that normally doesn't kiill his victims . . .

All of a sudden he sees the kids voice and face everything via the Amber Alert System . . so what does he do? He kills the kid.

*sigh* Just because we believe a situation to be urgent, doesn't mean we should take non-constructive actions . . .

We have people/kids in our neighborhood all the time doing the door-to-door thing. I rarely answer the door.

Sure, I sold my GS cookies as a kid, but I was never allowed to go door-to-door, and my parents refused to take the order forms to work. I was always one of those kids sitting at the table just outside the store entrance.

Now, I have to deal with the school fund-raisers for my son. Sadly, he isn't even in kindergarten yet. I'm not about to take him door-to-door, but I do mention them to my parents or his father's family IF I think they MIGHT be interested in something I see in the catalog. Otherwise, we just don't do participate.

Just last week, he brought one home for magazine subscriptions. Then, I noticed that there's another one coming in October. :rolleyes:

I don't have a problem with kids selling things for school and scouts fundraisers. However, if I was a parent, I'd be sure to go door to door with my child, and I would stick to our neighborhood where people knew us.

I currently live in a neighborhood full of kids, most of whom attend the same elementary school just down the road. Right now, they're doing their annual wrapping paper fundraiser.

Last week, 3 little boys came by selling their items. There was no parent present, which was, to me, not so smart. However, the kids stuck together and took turns selling at each house so that the neighbors didn't get pressured into buying something from each child.

I thought taking turns selling was a smart way for the boys to go about their task. It taught them to share, and hearing "no" every now and then from a potential customer was an important lesson also.

I used to do door to door, I hated it. I always felt like people were buying things out of a guilt trip rather than an actual want of the product. I was pretty good at selling girl scout cookies but by the time i got to high school and I had to do door to door to raise money for the band, I was bad at it. My first summer job was with an enviromental group that does door to door canvassing, except they didn't tell me that in the interview. I showed up to work on the first day and they told me I had to go door to door to solicit funds. I was fired on the second day before I got the chance to quit.

Selling cookies at work is the best. I sold 4 cases of GG cookies in a morning at my office for my niece. It is just best to forwarn people ahead of time, so they know to bring cash.

And I would never let me kids go out without an adult, door to door!

I sold door to door, but it really wasn't a big thing because back then I lived in a much smaller town, and everyone knew me! I was the little girl that rode her bicycle (brother in tote) up and down the block a billion times a day.

That, and my neighbors were all old people whom invited me in for cookies and gum and stuff.

Although my best friend, her grandparents lived two doors down...when the girl scout selling began I had to make sure I got my block first...otherwise she would...that girl scout HOG!

Hootie:p

There's a difference between parents' bringing the order forms to work and parents' soliciting at work for their child. Whenever my parents took GS order forms to work for me, it was always with the tone of "Thought you might be interested, but there's no obligation and please don't feel bad if you don't want anything." My dad worked with a bunch of bachelors, and GS cookies were always very popular.

My parents explained to me early on that organizations that do this (PTA, band, football, etc.) are being manipulative by using children to guilt people into contributing. They use the incentives to make the kids want to do more selling. It's all about the money. I never wanted to sell stuff and was content to have my parents' friends buy GS cookies off me. That and I didn't even make full Girl Scout; I washed out of Brownies after four months because I thought it was stupid. All my troupe ever did was color cards for nursing homes.

How about the kids who approach you outdoors and try to sell you stuff and won't go away? We were sitting at Taste of Chicago this summer, enjoying some food, and these two kids, about 10 years old, came by to try to sell us subscriptions to the Chicago Tribune. I already have a subscription to the Chicago Tribune. These kids (one in particular, his accomplice was pretty quiet) didn't care -- I should CANCEL my subscription and get a new one, never mind the administrative nightmare that would be. I didn't have cash, so I should put in on my credit card! This went on and on (my companion got off the hook by saying that he couldn't read and they actually left him alone). About 15 minutes into the "pitch" (we had all kinds of food out or we would've left) the kid actually suggested that I get a subscription for somebody else and not tell them about it! He just wanted SUBSCRIPTIONS (apparently he belonged to some organization where they can win a trip or something for selling a million subscriptions) and didn't care if the people actually paid. I wonder where this guy will be in 10 years...

As for Girl Scout cookies, I can never find someone selling them when I want them...

Rudey and James....

I am not trying to be politically correct nor am I reacting to the spate of abductions that occurred over the summer when I say that anyone who lets their children sell door to door needs his/her head examined.

Back when I was a kid, it was okay to sell door to door because we knew everyone in our neighborhood. The houses in the neighborhood I grew up in are 40+ years old and most of them STILL have the original families in them.

Now, however, I live on a street where I know most of the people to say hi to but I couldn't tell you most of their last names or what they do for a living. So, I sure wouldn't allow my kids to go up to their doors to try and sell them things.

I freely admit that concern for my childrens' well-being and safety is the overriding concern in my life, and no one has the right to judge decisions I make regarding what I allow and don't allow them to do.

That said, you both know I luv ya! :D

Shut up you little brat. If your mommy really loved you, she would have found you by now. You're stuck with me so get used to it.