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7.22.05
Lemon-Aides
-- OR --
Tycoon Tikes
It must have been around '79 or '80. Just around this time of year. Summer had already become a major bore. One more game of TV-tag, one more bike ride around the neighborhood, one more turn around the back patio on my clunky roller-skates (the adjustable kind that hooked onto my sneakers) -- it all held about as much promise as the odor of my gasoline-scented scratch 'n' sniff sticker lasting till school started.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. My brother and I paused our otherwise endless rivalry for the afternoon, and in a brief moment of sibling detente, decided we'd construct a mock carnival in the backyard. Then, we'd rally all the kids on the block to blow their allowances to partake in our imaginative yet pathetic amusements. Well, we couldn't compete with Kelly's swing-set or David's pool, and nobody in his right mind would pay even a nickel to play on a teeter-totter built from two crisscrossed picnic benches. Alas, our bastardized Barnumesque venture went bust. Still, we had a pretty enjoyable afternoon creating kooky "rides" and bragging about what we'd do with the loot we never made.

It's a good thing I was able to eke out a laid-back youth before the rise of the engineered childhood -- or our leisurely spontaneous day of carnival creation could have become another parental excuse to make us learn something or build self-esteem -- or worse-yet -- donate our earnings to charity. Sadly, some kids these days can't escape the clutches of their micromanaging parents, nor the marketers helping to fuel their extreme parenting. Consider seven-year-old Alex, whose second-year lemonade selling venture is viewed as a business endeavor by his mother. "Why shouldn't he learn how to run a business?" she questions in a 7/17 New York Times story. "He needs to learn how to take care of himself."

The poor kid! I just hope she waits till he learns how many dimes are in a dollar before she drills him on his elevator pitch.

Then there's Kate, a Baltimore 10-year-old lemonade purveyor whose parents spent six hours toiling at the juice stand with her and her friend. Evidently, her dad "helped the girls set up their stand in a park frequented by dog walkers and suggested bringing along dog treats as a way to drum up business." Oh, and surely the fact that her mom is a social worker had no influence on Kate's decision to donate the profits to poor kids....

According to the article, both of her micromanaging 'rents think her sales experience taught her "what is needed to prepare for a new business, as well as the importance of meeting deadlines." If she's smart, she also learned to do the lemonade stand thing next year at the home of a friend whose parents are less overbearing.

Needless to say the adult marketers are scrambling to get in on the mini-merchant movement. The Times piece mentions an online children's store, One Step Ahead, which peddles a wooden lemonade stand for $99.95. The retailer's site also offers a kit that includes lemonade and lemon cookie mixes, a cookie cutter, a banner, a price sheet, a wooden spoon and a paper hat.

What, no inflatable mascot?

Also noted in the story, "The Sunkist Company provides a how-to list on its Web site for youngsters setting up lemonade stands, including requisite legal coverage (get your parents' permission) and a semi-sophisticated worksheet for calculating profits." Big surprise: the Take A Stand campaign site lists lemonade recipes calling for Sunkist lemons and oranges.

National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship founder, Steve Mariotti, "noticed an uptick in the number of calls he received from parents seeking advice on their children's lemonade stands," according to the article. He adds, "The sooner a young person can put together resources and communicate a need to other human beings, the better."

Why? As a complete proponent of people learning about finances early in life, and a believer in free-market capitalism, I mean it: why? Why should kids enjoying what could be the most carefree times of their lives have to succumb to such overly-structured approaches to recreation? Inherently, running a lemonade stand will teach kids a bit about organization, counting money, supply and demand -- and yes, marketing -- all that preliminary business stuff. But must they be pounded over the head with it by zealous parents who seem more concerned with their kids' success tomorrow than their one-time-only shot at a free-spirited childhood today?

Let's compare the lemonade stand sales experience of these overly-parented kids to that of less supervised tots. Just think how much Lucy's psychiatrist stand would have sucked (pun intended) if her parents were involved. For one thing, she'd have to donate half her earnings to Pigpen's family and save the other half for one of those special shrink sofas. Rather than being a precocious, humorously tactless realist, Lucy would be conditioned by her doting P.C. parents into accepting Charlie Brown's weaknesses and insecurities, and probably end up dishing out a bunch of spineless psychobabble instead of her lovably acerbic verdicts. Snoopy wouldn't be allowed in the booth because it would be unsanitary. Plus, you know the Van Pelt parents would horn in on her patient interactions -- they'd probably even end up pronouncing diagnoses for her, making them, of course, impossible to comprehend! And worst of all, Lucy's obsessive parents would have her schedule so jam-packed, she'd never even have time for football.

Talk about making lemons out of lemonade. Good grief.

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