It's parents like these...

that make people not want to volunteer for things. As most of my readers know I am the girl scout leader at my girls school. I have been doing this for three years now. This is my 2nd year as a Brownie leader being able to do cookie sales. Last year I seemed to have a nice bunch. We had a good group of girls who got along and while not many parents wanted to help out they were all pretty good about doing what I asked of them and not complaining.

This year couldn't be more different. Most of the girls are the same from last year, but for some reason they are a much harder group. They bicker about every little thing and they have even gotten to pushing and hitting each other. I have discussed it with the girls about Girl Scout behavior. I have discussed it with the parents about how difficult they are. On both ends it's like talking to a brick wall.

But wait, it gets worse. Last year we ended the year with a nice family BBQ with cute little bags for the girls with little prizes in it and the try its that they earned for the year. We didn't do anything big with the money they had earned because I was pregnant and had a high risk pregnancy. And because of that and when CJ was born I didn't end up starting up the troop until January unlike the usual October. Normally we met last year every other week so this year to make up for that lost time I told them we could meet every week instead. So that's what we've been doing. But there are two mothers of some of the girls from last year who were very upset that we didn't do a big trip over the summer with the cookie money the girls earned. Now keeping in mind that these girls were not huge sellers by any means. One of them did a decent job, but she wasn't the top seller. So these two mothers have been fighting with me about the fair thing to do with the cookie money from last year. I told them I wanted to combine it with this years money and do a really big trip. Well, that wasn't fair to them because there are girls who weren't in the troop last year. Okay, well how do they think they would feel if I did something for some of the girls, but not the others. And they are telling me well they'll just have to understand that these girls earned that money last year. They wanted a gift card for their girls. So I offered a gift card from Toys R Us, but they said no they wanted Walmart because then the girls can get toys, or clothes, or food if they want. What? Shouldn't the parents buy them food? I didn't like the sounds of that.

So I told the parents well since it's the girls who earned the money lets see what they want to do. So I had the girls vote on if they wanted to combine this year and last years money and do a big trip or if they wanted to get a gift card with last years money and then do something separate with this years money. Well, all of the girls wanted to combine the money and most of them chose that they wanted to do an overnight at an aquarium. Okay, so problem solved, right? Wrong.

So I've got the overnight all set. It's coming up two weeks from now. I'm trying to get a final head count on this so I can pay. Now these two mothers are complaining because it's Memorial Day weekend and their daughters can't go. So they wanted to know if they could get something for their girls in place of that. So being the nice person I am I offered them a day pass to the aquarium. Nope, that's not what they want. They want me to buy their daughter's season passes to a local amusement park. Ummmm, that's not how this works. The money is for the troop not for individual girls.

Now the even bigger kicker is that none of these parents have paid dues for this year. So when one of the mothers was complaining that the stuff the girls are doing isn't like what other troops are doing and the things they make go in the garbage and they want more I said well I can't do these things without people paying their dues. Well, this one mother informs me that she won't be paying dues this year. So I told her well without the dues the girls can't do all their activities and get their try its and have snack at our meetings every week. They don't feel they've gotten their "fair" share here. I've offered them things to try to make them happy, but if it's not exactly what they want they are telling me they aren't getting their fair share. This is crazy. This one mom I was talking to today told me that she was going to the Service Unit manager with this. I told her to go ahead. I said I'm sorry you don't feel that I've been doing a good enough job. Maybe you would like to have your own troop. She told me she's taking this over my head and it's going to escalate and I said fine go ahead. Then there was silence. She must have thought I hung up on her because I heard her say what a bitch and then hang up. No wonder her daughter acts the way she does.

So thanks to these parents next year I will not be a Girl Scout leader. There will probably be no troop next year of girl scouts at the school for the girls because I don't see any of these parents volunteering to do this. This is just sad that these parents have to act like this and ruin things for everyone else. I feel that I've been more than generous. I had no intention originally of offering anything to those who couldn't come and was just going to plan another trip based on how much money we had left over. But since they asked I figured I would be nice and offer the day passes to the aquarium, but they said no to that. Are you kidding me? It's not like you are paying for this or have paid a single thing this year. Why do they think they are entitled to things? Why can't they realize that this is not what girl scouts is all about? They are crazy! It's like they want something for nothing. I'm thinking since they are so concerned about exactly what money their girls raised I should figure out exactly what their girls raised and then subtract their dues and everything else I've ended up getting for them already from that and telling them this is what your daughter has left of the money she earned for the troop. I figure for one of them she's actually going to end up owing money to the troop. I'm not too sure that they want me to figure out what exactly their daughters are entitled to based on what individually they earned.