I do not wear high heel shoes. I am already borderline freakishly tall at 5’9” – so I have never needed an extra boost to loom over people to an even more extreme degree. Even barefoot I am taller than most, so my experience with high heels is very limited. When I do try to wear them, I walk like a NBA player in drag. It is not a good look for me.
But I get why girls like them. They make your legs look sexy, they are sassy, and they perch up your ass like a cat in heat – but the are as uncomfortable as balls in fishnets. I just don’t think they need to be the uniform of all things feminine, and wish they were more of an accent rather than a required statement of fashion. My main issue with heels is that you are so limited in your movement when you wear them. I know Beyonce can rock out her booty banging choreography in them, but you can’t climb a mountain in Manolos.
I guess I could just be a hater because of my inexperience. When I lived in NYC my main mode of transportation was a skateboard, so I was always sweating and wearing high-tops Adidas – not the traditional chick attire. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fancy nightclubs and getting my groove on – I was just like a mythical creature in flat shoes surrounded by gazelles in stilettos. All these girls would be looking hot in their fuck me pumps, but I would be in sneakers, twerking without my feet hurting.
So as the universe would have it, of course my daughter is obsessed with high heels – BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T SHE BE!!!?? The Munch has these plastic Cinderella “glass” slippers that she insists on wearing every day, for every occasion. These shoes are the bane of my existence. Every normal kid activity such as running, skipping, jumping off rocks, all are done with caution now because of these goddamn mother-fucking shoes!!!!
It makes me so depressed because more than anything I want my daughter to be a bad ass and do physical shit. So when she is restricting her abilities because of this binding foot torture, it breaks my heart. Yet The Munch is passionately committed to her heels, as well as proving me wrong that they constrain her.
Munch: Mamma… I can’t climb up the slide!
Toni: That is because of those forsaken shoes Munch! I keep telling you those aren’t outside shoes! They are dress up shoes!
Munch: But I am playing dressing up and I am playing outside!
Toni: Yeah, but those shoes are just for dressing up inside. They suck as outdoor shoes. That is why I keep buying you other shoes to wear. So you can do all the stuff you want to do.
Munch: I can still do the stuff I want to do!!
Toni: Munch, no you can’t if you can’t climb up this slide. Look, take your shoes off.
Munch: I don’t want to.
Toni: Please just trust me. Take them off for only a minute.
Munch: Okay, I will listen to you.
Toni: Now climb up the slide with your bare feet…. See isn’t that so much easier?
Munch: Yes, but I can still do it with my high heels. I am going to put them back on.
Toni: I don’t get it! You just had such an easier time climbing with your bare feet, why would you put them back on?
Munch: Because I like them!
There I sat at the top of the slide, watching Munch struggle to climb up with her shitty plastic shoes on. They have no traction on the bottom, so she kept slipping, and slamming her knees. Yet she wouldn’t stop trying. At first we were laughing hysterically because it was so insanely hard for her. Then Munch got super angry that she couldn’t do it, and was basically proving my point. I will also add that I am sure I wasn’t helping by rubbing it in, reminding her just how right I was as she slithered down. So then she ran away, sulked for a while on the rock, and gave me dirty looks.
Then, as if possessed by ambition, Munch came back with the determination of an OCD ox. And I will be damned she climbed the shit out of that slide.
I guess if she is going to wear these stupid shoes, at least she is building her upper body strength.