Sometimes I just don't know...

[conuly]

Last week one of the people waiting to pick up their kidlet from school noticed that said kid (in Ana's class, so first grade) had both shoelaces untied. "Didn't the teacher tie them for you???" "No." (Well, duh.) "Unbelievable!"

Unbelievable? UNBELIEVABLE?

Dude, they spent the greater part of last year learning to tie their shoes. (Except Ana, who already knew. She spent the greater part of the year conniving her teacher into tying them for her. "She can tie her shoes? But I've been doing it for her all this time!" "Well, don't.") There are 23 other students in that class besides your kid, and the teacher has a hundred better things to do every minute than tie their shoes. If she spent her day doing that, I'd like to know when she'd teach!

Now, I didn't learn to tie my shoes until late in my childhood. And nobody, but nobody expected my teachers to tie them for me!

If your kid can't tie their shoes in the first grade, well, it happens, but unlike when *I* was young *you* have the option of getting velcro for kids that big. Or springy laces that don't need tying. I just had to take the laces out of my shoes and go like that. (Or you could invest some serious time in trying to teach this, whatever.) But getting upset that the teacher isn't tying your kid's shoes? At the age of six or seven? That's what's unbelievable.

Heck, earlier this year Ana was late coming out the door because she'd tied her shoes together. The teacher tried to say sorry, but I was too busy laughing to hear her, really, and I didn't think it was her fault anyway. She's got a lot of kids to watch.

And when after getting safely down the stairs Ana took a step a little too big and fell I'm not ashamed to say I pointed out that if she'd spent her time doing something a little more profitable than tying her shoes together, this would never have happened. (Funnily enough, she actually did this again a week or so later, but this time she took smaller steps. Not the lesson *I* would have taken from this experience, but so long as she doesn't hurt herself, I guess.)

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Really? When you were young? I thought we were reasonably close in age. How odd... I didn't learn to tie my shoes til Middle School. My family tried to teach me when I was in kindergarten, but offended me so badly, I refused to learn from them. Nobody else tried to teach me after that point. So, I just wore velcro until partway into Middle School when I was no longer able to find velcro sneakers in my size.

On a side note, my family members trying to teach me something and it backfiring into me not learning it and finding the entire subject traumatic is a common theme in my childhood.

[conuly]

There may have been velcro shoes for older kids - although my feet were huge as a child, even in proportion to my height (and given that I once saw a picture of myself at four and thought I looked seven going on eight, this is saying quite a bit), so there might not have been in MY size - but there was that stigma to wearing velcro. Not being able to tie your shoes was bad enough, but to wear *velcro*!

I'm 27, btw.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Ah, so close in age. I'm 32 and 3/4. However, I was always one of the smallest or the smallest for my age, so that was likely a significant difference. It's also possible that I caught and rode a velcro fad, and the age difference, while not large, was large enough that velcro was simply becoming less common as I was getting older.

I wasn't aware of any stigma, and I wouldn't have paid it any attention had I been. I was a very stubborn child in some ways. Fortunately, I outgrew the being a child part.

[conuly]

I don't know if other people had the same thoughts I did, but I certainly associated velcro with BABY shoes. I have the same thought about shorts, actually - they're for kids or tourists. Or the beach. I don't know if other people feel that way, but *I* do and *I* am the one getting dressed every morning.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I'd always tie the shoes of all the children in my classes. I tie 'teacher knots', where after the shoe is tied in a bow, the loops of the bow are tied into a tight half-hitch. These will stay tied all day, and then one gets the parental complaints because they can't untie them. It's always something.

[conuly]

I don't really care if the teacher did tie this girl's shoes, I guess. I just don't think it's "Unbelievable!" that she wouldn't... especially if (as I suspect) the kid didn't even mention they were untied.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I didn't wear tie shoes until... um, high school sometime? That was when I finally decided that bunny-ears would work and that 'does not tie shoes' was no longer an important part of my identity. I was a senior in college before loop-swoop-pull became clear to me. It just wasn't the fight my parents wanted to have right then.

Although I did learn to tie them pretty young, but got a pair of (My Little Pony?) high-tops that I didn't untie or tie, just pulled on, and then I forgot how.

[invsagoth.livejournal.com]

Why in the world would you expect the teacher to tie your kid's shoes? Growing up, nobody would have even considered doing that. I had velcro until I learned how to tie my shoes, which was early on but since I can hardly remember not tying my own shoes I'm not sure when that was... If I got confused or something about tying them I would have just left them untied. My little brother was lazy and didn't want to go through the effort of learning to tie his shoes until pretty late in the game, but mom always got him velcro shoes until he finally did.

Geez, kids these days. *shakes cane* haha

The tying of the shoes together is rather amusing though I have to say. :3

[leora.livejournal.com]

Actually, I find people often tie my shoes for me. Partly though because it bothers them more than it bothers me to have them untied. But sometimes it's because they're tired of the fact that they point out that my laces are untied, I tie them, and then fifteen minutes later they want me to stop to tie them again. I've had boyfriends get fed up and tie my shoes for me.

I'm not very good with knots. I was always annoyed that Girl Scouts never did knot-tying. I hear Boy Scouts does. But my many years of Girl Scout experience plus my utterly hellish Girl Scout camp experience taught me almost nothing useful. (But we did do how to properly set up a camp fire, which I was glad to have learned.)

Anyhow, I am now in my thirties and still bad at tying laces so they stay tied. Fortunately, it's not a skill that matters all that much. But if I wanted to get seriously into bondage, I suspect I'd be far behind the learning curve.

But I can tie a square knot and a slip knot, which is generally enough for packing things or securing things. And I suspect shoe laces secretly have gremlins embedded in them anyway. Evil little things!

[redbird]

I'm not much good at tying shoelaces either, but too old to have had velcro as an option growing up; I suspect my partners would tie my shoes if I asked, but they seem content enough to just stop as needed for me to re-tie them.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever asked someone to tie my shoes, at least, not since I turned 6. It's more of them saying things like, "Oh, let me tie that for you" and me letting them.