If You Donate Then You Get a Big Fat Reward: Perhaps I Am Overreacting?

Donating time, money, or goods to charities and organizations around the word is incredibly important.  Progress has been made in so many areas based on the generosity of collective groups of random people.  But there comes a time when companies and organizations take things a step further and turn things that should be fun into fundraisers.

My younger daughter attends a private preschool where school uniforms are mandatory Monday through Thursday.  The school is raising money for breast cancer awareness and in doing so they are allowing kids to “Wear Pink” or “Wear Jeans” on Wednesdays.  But showing solidarity with a color is not enough for the school.  Instead, they turned “Think Pink Wednesdays” into a fundraiser.

I have the choice of letting my daughter have an extra free day each week so that she can wear pink or wear her jeans, but this day costs me money.  Sure, two dollars is not a lot of money when you pay it once.  Over the course of this month there are five Wednesdays, which means I could potentially pay $10 to $50 extra to make sure I don’t have any Mommy Guilt to send my daughter to school in “Think Pink” clothes on Wednesday.  And yes, she quickly grasped onto the Think Pink Wednesday concept and was very excited about not needing to wear her uniform twice a week.

This is an “If-Then” situation.  “If” you wear pink/jeans to school instead of your uniform “Then” we would like a donation.

I texted my husband about this and he said it was similar at his work.  If he wanted to wear jeans to work then he could give a donation to the heart walk and wear jeans.

Now I like to think of “If-Then” situations as mandatories: If the light turns red then I must stop the car, if we run out of milk then I must go to the store to get more, if my child has a boo boo then I will get a bandaid, if I am thirsty then I will get a drink of water.

If I send my child to “Think Pink” day at school then I should not feel guilty if I do not donate money to the school.  Trust me, our family donates plenty of time, money, and materials to the organizations that we hold dearest to our hearts.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that breast cancer awareness/heart walks are not important (my grandma had breast cancer…I know how important it is).  I am just saying….don’t put me in a situation that makes me look like a bad guy if I want to donate my money to another cause.

And yes, I sent my daughter to school today with a donation.  The donation was $1 since I had a $1 and a $5 bill and nothing else.  Sure enough, my mommy guilt was there for not donating the requested (or was it almost mandated?) two dollars.  That mommy guilt would have been there though if I had sent her to school in her uniform.  Really, mommy guilt was out to get me today!

Have you seen this near you?  Am I overreacting?  Do you fear this will happen more and more?