I was schmoozing with Simcha, a young mother, yesterday. We met up in the hot tub at the J, where women gather to gripe and commiserate affectionately, unwinding after a workout and a long day. She mentioned her adventurous trip to the shoe store with her young brood in tow, and expected to receive a sympathetic nod.
“Oh, thank you for reminding me!” I gushed. “I’ve been meaning to write about the particular mommying challenge of shoes.”
“Glad I could help,” she mumbled, a bit surprised at my reaction.
Shoes. A disaster for a (not that organized or wealthy) mom.
Okay, maybe “disaster” is a bit extreme of a word; we’re not begging on the street in Calcutta, or digging out from a hurricane in Haiti, thank G‑d.
Let’s just say, a challenge.
I have few serious complaints to the Master of the Universe, few recalls I’d like to recommend. By and large, the world is a marvelous place.
But there’s got to be a more efficient system than shoes. Why can’t people be endowed with hooves or tough leathery soles that grow along with them?
Kids’ feet grow. Quickly.
Kids’ shoes wear out. Quickly.
Kids have to be at the store to try on shoes; you can’t grab them (the shoes) off a rack.
Shoes come off feet in many places, unlike clothes which more or less stay on the body most of the day, and are taken off and stashed in mostly predictable places, like under beds, closet floors, piled in the bathroom with the wet towels, and so forth.
A matching pair must be found in the morning before proceeding to school or camp. Not one, but two. Unless you can convince your kid to hop all day. These leather or canvas items are much more size-specific than other garments. Perhaps you could substitute big sister’s shirt or little brother’s shorts, but shoes aren’t usually interchangeable. You gotta find a pair for that wiggly kid who always seems to have just one.
How many promising starts of fresh days have spiraled into tears and frustrations, with a kid who can’t find their shoe, as everyone else is sliding out the front door and waiting impatiently?
And in our house, systems to line them up by the front door or find them the night before tend to erode. Whether slip-on crocs, or footwear fastened with velcro, ties or buckles, they tend to scatter all over the house. You can follow the day’s history by where the crumbled, odoriferous socks and kicked-off shoes end up: around and under the couch, under the computer desk, in the yard, and so on.
But buying them is really the pits.
March into Payless with your kids. As much as you’ve warned them to behave, they are excited and in high gear, pulling boxes down, trying on their fantasy heels, boots, sparklies, cool dude shoes.
We try to pick up after ourselves, but with apologies to the Boy Scout credo to leave a place cleaner than you found it, it seems there are always a few plastic shape-holders or wads of tissue paper that don’t quite return to their neatly lined-up boxes, so symmetrical, poised and inviting.
“Mom, does it fit? Feel it!”
“No, no, feel mine!”
“I don’t know.”
I press down on the toe with a fake expression of calm maternal authority, but I can’t crawl inside that shoe.
“It’s hard to tell where your toe really ends and where it rubs you. Hmmm, seems good.”
“Walk around, let me watch you.”
And so, I realized, shoes are so much more than a costly nuisance. They represent nothing less than the quintessential essence of what it is to be human!
“Forward march! Keep on truckin’!” I joyfully sang this morning as Chani showed me a broken strap on her shoe. (Well, not quite, but at least I didn’t groan as much.)
I kissed my daughter and thanked G‑d for her active, healthy, busy, shoe-destroying life.
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