Parenting Advice from the Shoe Shop

We went to town to purchase some trainers for four year old Smudge. And we came away with unexpected parenting advice from the man in the shoe shop! Who knew such a service was available to needful or just plain old incompetent parents ? How marvellous!

We had tried on most of the trainers in Launceston. Because Smudge wears elastic sided boots come rain or shine, summer and winter, he’s not used to the feel of a shoe shaped to fit snugly around the back of his ankle. He just couldn’t get on with it.

We’ve got the shoe thing down pat with both my children. They try a pair on, then they go for a long walk around the shop.

‘Are they squeezing?’ I ask. ‘Are they slipping?’ I get them to focus their thoughts, as much as they can focus their thoughts off the topic of pretzels, Zchu Zchu Pets or Pingu. If they’re not sure, they do another circuit. Usually they come back first time with a nay or yay. Meanwhile, I’ve got down on the floor and am watching their departing heels as they corner the gumboots display, assessing for slippage.

And you know what? If my kids say shoes are slipping or are not comfy, revolutionary though it may seem, I believe them. And that way, we’ve chosen shoes that everybody likes and which they can wear. It’s a system which works well.

This day, slightly frazzled after a tour of the shops and having returned to try on the very first pair again, I mumbled something like: ‘If he says they’re not comfy, I usually go along with it.’

‘Oh no,’ the man from the shoe shop corrected me. ‘Don’t give him his own way all the time.’ And went on to regale me with the story of another customer who ‘said yes’ to her daughter ‘all her life’ until finally, when the daughter was fifteen, she asked for a double bed so that her boyfriend could stay the night. ‘Finally her mum said no to her,’ recounted the shoe shop man victoriously.

Confronted with somebody telling me a sensationalist story in order to make a high moral point, I usually turn into a feeble-minded, compliant zombie, complete with verbal prompts, ‘Noooo, realllly?!’
They’re not to know I’m actually an opinionated vixen with little care for their shitty anecdote.

Back in the car I spent the journey home reflecting on things. He’d made a bit of a leap, I thought. One minute I was opting to pass on some shoes for my child on account of their not being a good fit; the next, I was condoning underage sex between teenagers.

Furthermore, he made me feel like an INADEQUATE MOTHER. This is a crime of unforgiveable proportions for which he should be dressed in a burqah, buried to shoulder height in St George Square Gardens and slapped with wet bunny rugs by the single mothers of Beaconsfield who are usually in need of a good day out, until he begs for mercy.

Shoe shop man is in no position to judge what sort of a parent I am on the basis of one frazzled comment. If he had any sense, he’d know that like most people I parent like the weather forecast – with highs and lows.

The fact that he was prepared to tell me a story at another customer’s expense isn’t great salesmanship in a place the size of Tasmania, where we all know each other. If anything proves him to have the intellectual dexterity of a rubber insole and be in no position to give me unasked for parenting advice, it’s that.

Will I go back to that shop? Well, yes I will, because they have great shoes in a good price range. But my opinionated vixen will be keen to know whether what he says about me to his other customers.

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Anyway, my Other Half had underage sex in his bedroom and it didn’t do him any harm, although the mother of the girl in question was a bit taken aback.