Parenting Debate

Dear Jack,

I have recently been involved in an epic parenting debate with myself. No, it's not the breast milk vs. formula debate. Or the co-sleeping vs. your own crib debate. Or the stay in the house or take you out debate. Or the to vaccinate or not debate. I actually had already decided all of those issues. The thing I had not fully settled on was whether or not to put shoes on you as a baby.

I know, I know. It seems like that isn't really a parenting decision that is debate worthy, but I swear I have had more conversations over this topic than any of the others I mentioned. It may well be that every polite person has decided that the breast milk vs. formula thing is too hot of a topic to touch on but the shoe issue makes for interesting conversation and that's why it has come up more. Regardless of the reason, the shoe debate rages on.

I think every single mother has an opinion on this one, too. (Fathers seem more ambivalent, for some reason.) The folks I have talked to who are anti-shoe for newborns have an argument that goes something like this: Babies do not actually need shoes since they don't walk. (Makes sense.) Therefore, shoes are a waste of money. (True.) A waste of money that may well irritate the baby for no good reason. (I guess that might be true.) And being purely decorative, it seems like the mother is dressing up the baby like a doll, rather than attending to what the baby needs, which is not shoes. (This may be taking it too far, I think.) Some of my anti-shoe friends stop their argument at the money part, others of them really do take offense at the idea of using the baby like a doll to dress up. (Which, I guess if the dressing up was going as far as the crazy beauty pageant people, I would agree, but really, it's just a pair of shoes.)

The pro-shoe folks have this to say: itty-bitty baby shoes are just too darn cute. That's it. That's their whole argument.

Your sister wore shoes all the time. Her first pair were these little white shoes with pink flowers in a size one that she wore with her baptism outfit at two and half weeks. She had shoes in every size after that. One time, I even bought her a pair of fushia crocs to go with a fushia bathing suit, hat, and bathing suit cover-up when she was six months old. I loved those crocs.

Knowing that I put your sister in shoes so very young, I know it seems silly that I even had this debate, but everyone knows that boys and girls are different and sometimes parents do change how they do things when they think there might be a better way.

In the end, though, this is what it came down to for me.

Itty-bitty baby shoes are just too darn cute.

So mark it down. Your first month birthday was also the day you wore your first pair of shoes.

Love,
Mom