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]

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.