“The fact is, sometimes it’s hard to walk in a single woman’s shoes. That’s why we need really special ones now and then. To make the walk a little more fun.” ~ the one and only Carrie Bradshaw. Shoe posts are fun. This one’s sponsored by Børn Shoes.
I wore a lot of heels in my twenties, even teaching in my classroom–pointy little toe-crampers ramped up on tall skinny stilts, the higher the better. My mom always laughed, pointing out that my craziness wouldn’t last forever and that someday I too would care about comfort as much as looks. I laughed right back, scoffing at her shoe-shopping standards. Arch support? Cushioned footbed? Ha ha ha. Give me height! Blisters! Heel spurs! I’ll take them!
Good shoes–along with college basketball, well-made dolls, homemade cherry pie, fabric stores and Gaither Band music–have been one of my mom’s obsessions since we were younger. “We’re going to run in real quick to this shoe store” sounded to us when we were kids a lot like “Here’s a fun Friday. How ’bout you roll around on the floor, bored, begging me to leave while I compare leather suppleness and examine insoles?”
I should have known though that along with “You won’t always be able to burn the midnight oil like this” and “Just wait ’til you have kids, you’ll understand it all,” my mom knew what she was talking about with the shoe thing. Let’s just make the overall statement like “I See Dead People” that Moms Know Things. Slap it on a t-shirt, put it on a plaque.
Oh, I still have the sky high heels–a few pairs that, given a good occasion–or not–I’ll slip on and proudly wear out maybe just to compensate for the other days when my soles are planted as close to the ground where I need them to be. But for the most part, my closet is full of flats, mid-heel compromises and investments in comfort and quality. “That’s my girl,” I can hear my mom saying.
For the record, how cute my shoes are is still the final deciding factor in shoe purchases though. My sister and I have also appointed ourselves as cute approvers for my mom’s shoes. She’ll send us pictures of on-the-fence purchases–the arch support, leather quality, stitching and fine details already passed through her rigorous approval standards, of course–and we’ll text back the final say which sometimes looks like: “God, no. Mom! Please! You’re still young!”
We’ve got a lot on our plate as moms and sacrifice a lot of things to make room for something else (clean house for hands-on kid-rearing, sporty car for functional minivan…), we can certainly put our foot down (har har) when it comes to shoes–give me “and“! Comfortable and stylish.
Børn gives moms both, providing all day comfort with on-trend styles, premium leathers, fine details and a unique hand-sewn technique that–are you listening, Mom? You’ll like this–allows for a more flexible sole providing a natural feel and ultra cushioning.
Heels that don’t teeter, toes that aren’t cramped.
And when you Clark Kent into the phone booth to transform from Park Mom to Drinks with Friends Mom, you can save a step and keep your shoes on because Børn has you covered on both fronts.
Push a stroller, pick up take-out, kick your heels, save the world. All in a day’s work, mom.
The Gaither Band’s not my thing and I haven’t seen a single college basketball game this season, but I’m proud to follow in my mother’s cushioned-insole, hand-stitched, supple-leather’d shoe steps. And I make a damn good version of her cherry pie.
A huge thank you to the folks at Born who contacted me earlier this year, wanting to get behind our Down syndrome awareness efforts. When they heard about our Ruby’s Rainbow 3-21 campaign, they wrote, “How can we help? Can we give away shoes?” They donated free shoes to five people who donated $50 or more, and we’re so grateful for their support.
