Opinion

Baby needs new shoes or why children’s shoes get on my nerves

7/5/2021

Whether it’s a shoelace, velcro or a speed lacing system – something always breaks. When it comes to the bow, it’s my patience.

Children are smart little people. They don’t dwell on things that are superfluous. Small talk? That doesn’t exist in their world. Breaks? At the most, to hastily drink something and get that blood sugar pumping. Using your hands to put on shoes? Only in extreme emergencies and under protest. My youngster stomps himself forcefully into boots. Or he gracefully let’s someone else tie them for him. Kneel before me, mum and dad.

A velcro kid

I used to be a smart little kid, too. A velcro kid. Kkkriiiish, shoe on. Krtchchc, shoe closed. Simple. Nothing else was allowed on my feet. I had no fear of commitment, but saw no reason at all to learn a to tie a bow. Adults could complicate their lives with the most obviously stupid method of closing shoes. It’s the ticket to a difficult world that children instinctively refuse to enter.

Buying shoes with us kids was horror for my mother. While busy sales assistants were measuring feet and dragging in boxes of orthopaedic leather shoes covered with quirky floral patterns, I had long since made up my mind. While my sister was struggling to find the pair of her dreams, I looked at the neon-coloured sneaker with three velcro straps and decided: the shoe fits. And no other would do.

As I said, children are smart little people and sense when they’re in the driver’s seat for once. I tried the sneaker on with joy. No one could counter the killer argument, «Ouch, it’s squeezing my feet!» No matter how many adults spoke to me with angels’ tongues – in the end, the frustrated salesperson had to pack up the beige eco-slippers with the perfect footbed and Mum had to pull out her wallet for a synthetic nightmare. Not breathable and actually two sizes too big? Whatever. Velcro closure. Victory! And I had chosen wisely.

Stinky boots

Thirty-five years later, I rarely feel as old as when I lecture my children on the proper way to use shoes. «Use your hands! Close it properly, it won’t last long like that. It’s still much too big for you. Hold on, let me help you. STOP, BEFORE YOU GET IN THE HOUSE...» Too late. I now hear myself saying sentences like these with beautiful regularity. Or screaming them.

What goes around comes around. Only this time, I’m not in the driver’s seat. On the contrary, I kneel on the floor, stuff wet stinky boots with newspapers, remove traces of dirt and wonder about the existing opulence of shoes, although the same two pairs are always worn anyway. The ones without laces. Why? Because they’re not annoying. I totally get it.

A search gives it away: not round («rund») nor brown («braun»), but shoelaces «without tying» («ohne binden»).

Worn-out alternatives

The well-liked alternatives are loved and mistreated. On velcro fasteners, the eyelet tears. Or the small plastic claws dissolves into dust, exhausted by the constant krich-krach. Even the popular quick-release fastener doesn’t pass every tear test.

Our latest outdoor shoe was beaten in a record time of four weeks and is now at the top of the dad-take-care-of-this pile. I envisage the Boa dial system being my kids next victim. I don’t care. I like to mend it all. The main thing is avoiding tying a bow at all costs.

Tough love: Purchased in April 2021, torn in May 2021.

Which how-to shoe are you watching?

To this day, I don’t like to tie my shoes. Preferably, I tie them only once. And in such a way that I can easily get in and out for forever and a day. Ideally, without having to use my hands, unless the children are looking. I’ve already tried elastic laces for their lace-up shoes, which after initial enthusiasm were treated with disdain and disappeared without a trace. And rightly so.

That wasn’t the solution either. The bow is never the solution. It is and remains an imposition. What is this unspeakable way of closing shoes when it takes «how-to» YouTube videos with millions of views on to do it. Even the very first TED Talk, that smart format for smart people, was devoted to this problem in 2005.

Now up until that moment, I would have thought that, by age 50, one of the skills I had really nailed was tying my shoes.

Terry Moore at his TED Talk in 2005 on his «aha» moment

End of the story? No, in 2017, he followed up with a talk on "An Even Better Way to Tie Your Shoe Lace." We’re obviously dealing with one of the very big questions of humanity. Or maybe it’s just an exercise in humility that needs to be completed over and over again. Kneel, tie and feel in your back how you’re inexorably getting older. Until you eventually buy a shoehorn and a bench while watching «How to tie your shoes with back pain». That’s another reason why children’s shoes get on my nerves. Every time I sink down sighing in front of a bouncy five-year-old to untie accidentally tied double knots at the expense of my fingernails and dignity, it reminds me of the gradual onset of decay.

Anger in an endless loop

My anger at the antiquated method has increased since I started coaching a soccer group of G-juniors. Nine bundles of energy that never stand still. Unless one shoe is open. Then they’re helpless. When experienced club colleagues said at the beginning: «Half the time is spent tying shoes anyway,» I still smiled. Not any more, because it’s true. For every 100 shots, the little ones take at the goal, I suffer from lumbago because I speed-lace shoes while the kids use my head as an armrest when they take a breather. Like Bill Murray, I’m caught in an endless loop.

Tactics board for G-Juniors:

Motor skill toys

small foot tie one's shoes

Only customer review: «Looks cool, haven’t found the added value for the kids yet.»

But the solution – krich, krach – has actually been known for a long time. One of the boys regularly exclaims triumphantly, «I’ve got velcro!» At least above the bow. Even that works wonders. But it can be even better. To the parents who send their kids to club sports too young to tie their laces: the magic word isn’t «Expelliarmus», but «laceless». Freed from the shoelace syndrome, real leaps in performance would be possible. Because then real training could take place. A shout out to all primary and kindergarten teachers – how do you actually do it in gym class?

Wearing his best indoor shoes, I can’t send my five-year-old to polysports by himself. Getting dressed is a medium-sized father-son project, unthinkable without shoehorns, grunts, yelps and stage directions. Yet they’re still too big for him. Like half a year ago, when he decided: they fit. And no others do. It just so happens that they have his favourite colour. And three stripes. The entry is narrow, but unfortunately not laceless. The worst of both worlds. When the foot is finally inside, the icing on the cake is the bow. Shortly after, it’s untied again. My intervertebral disc jumps when I kneel down and my patience runs thin. With a quiet sigh, I collect myself and think: damn bow. At the very least, we have to stick together now.

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Michael Restin

Senior Editor

Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.ch

Simple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.

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