Mother of the Year

I am not a beautiful or unique snowflake. It's a tale as old as time. I'm not boldly going where no woman has gone before. Why yes, I probably could squeeze a few more pop culture references in here, if I tried. Thank you for asking.

Every woman who has ever called a child her own has had a moment or two (or a thousand or a million) when they felt unworthy of the task. Today's mother of the year moment? Well, it involves shoes.

Liv has always had an interesting relationship with shoes. As the second daughter, she wore hand-me-down shoes from her sister for the first three years of her life. As fast as kids grow out of shoes at that age they were always in really good shape and I never gave it a second thought. Then one day - right around her third birthday - someone - probably my sister - bought her a pair of shoes. Her eyes lit up and she said "My own shoes? My very own shoes? Just for me?" I vowed that day to never make her wear hand-me-downs again. I had no idea. She never complained.

That was around the same year she discovered The Wizard of Oz and, along with it, Dorothy shoes. She, like so many toddlers before and since, NEEDED red sparkly shoes. And she had them. She had them through three size changes. She rarely if ever wore anything else for the next couple years. She wouldn't tell us when they started to get tight, because she didn't want us to take them away from her. I don't know if she just couldn't quite grok the fact that we'd buy her a new pair, or if she just didn't want a replacement because it wouldn't be the same. She had an unnatural attachment to those shoes.

Fast forward to last year. She found a pair of Iron Maiden Vans. That's right. Vans adorned with pictures of the iconic Eddie. To say she loved these shoes would be a dramatic understatement. She alternated them with her equally beloved knee high combat boots. I think it would be safe to say, wearwise, that she wore them for six solid months. Canvas shoes weren't made for that kind of abuse. They started to tear. She wore them like that for awhile, right under my oblivious nose. When I noticed, we started shopping for new shoes, but there was no satisfactory replacement to be found. And if Liv doesn't like it, Liv isn't going to wear it. I opted not to waste my money.

This morning she came downstairs to breakfast with her shoes wrapped in duct tape. Part of it was functional - where the upper had started to separate from the sole in the front - but then she'd repeated it on the back for purely aesthetic reasons. She was clearly thrilled to have Eddie back on her feet and was all ready to head out the door to school.

"You can't go to school with shoes held together by duct tape."

"Well, I can't go to school with ripped shoes."

Those were not the only two options at her disposal and I told her so. She didn't fight with me. She didn't say a word, actually. She went upstairs for a few moments, then came back down and finished her breakfast. When she left the table, I noticed that she'd changed her shoes. I also noticed that she'd been crying.

"What's wrong?"

"I was just trying to be creative."

"I know - put them back on if you want to."

"I can't."

"Yes you can - you still have a few minutes."

"No. I can't. I ripped them up. Duct tape won't fix them now."

I resisted the urge to say, "Oh, sweetie! Duct tape can fix ANYthing!" because it was time to head for the bus.

I hate that I made my baby cry.

I hate that I squelched her creativity.

But more than anything, I hate that I let my own class issues hurt her. I was more worried about what people would think than about how she felt.

I'm going to spend the day trying to forgive myself.

Right after I order a new pair of heavy metal kicks.