Are My Teen’s Non-Standard Shoes Appropriate For High School? What I Learned As A Parent
Last Sunday night, I was wiping crumbs off the kitchen counter after taco dinner when my 15-year-old son Milo leaned against the fridge, holding a scuffed thrifted shoe box, and asked exactly what’s been floating through a million teens’ heads: “Is this appropriate to wear to high school? Or am I just overthinking?” He pulled out the boots: tan leather, pointy toe, stacked two-inch heel, the kind of vintage cowboy boot you see in old John Wayne movies, not on a 10th grader walking to first period PE. I’d watched him spend an hour the night before conditioning the leather with a rag he stole from the garage, so I knew these weren’t just a random pair of shoes. He’d been obsessing over western films with his grandpa all summer, and this was the first piece of that new interest he’d gotten to bring to school.
My brain immediately went into overdrive. Would he trip over that heel running up the stairs to chemistry? Would the vice principal pull him aside for violating some unwritten dress code rule? Would the other kids tease him so bad he’d never wear them again? I still carry the trauma from my own freshman year, when I got sent home for wearing overalls that the assistant principal called “too distracting” even though they were plain blue, covered my whole body, and didn’t break any written rules. I immediately started projecting that onto him, ready to say maybe just wear your sneakers for the first week, break them in slow.
But before I could say that, he pulled out his phone and pulled up the school’s student handbook, already scrolling. “See? It says no slippers, no clothes with hate speech, no rips that show underwear. Nothing about heels, nothing about boots.” He said he’d already asked three of his closest friends: two said the boots were sick, one said he was being stupid for worrying, so that didn’t help. He just wanted my take. I bit back the list of worries I had, and said, “What if you wear them tomorrow? I keep an extra pair of your sneakers in the trunk of my car, so if anyone says anything, I can drop them off no problem. No big deal either way.” He grinned and put the boots by the front door, and that was that.
I dropped him off the next morning, and I sat in the pickup line for five extra minutes watching him walk in, those boots clicking on the sidewalk, shoulders held a little higher than usual. I spent half the morning checking my email, waiting for the front office to send me a message saying I needed to bring new shoes. It never came. When he got home that afternoon, he kicked the boots off by the door, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and started telling me about his day. The vice principal stopped him in the hallway between classes. My stomach dropped, and I asked what he said. Turns out the VP just asked where he got them, said he’d had a pair almost exactly like that when he was in college, told Milo he did a good job getting them clean. His chemistry teacher asked for the Goodwill address because she’s been looking for a pair for her brother’s birthday. One freshman made a dumb joke about them being cowboy clown shoes, and Milo just shot back that his sneakers looked like they’d been pulled out of a cafeteria trash can, and that was the end of it. No drama, no write up, no tears.
That’s when I realized how much I overthink these tiny high school clothing choices, for no reason. As a parent, I’ve gotten so used to hearing about strict dress codes and teen bullying that I automatically assume any choice that’s outside the norm is going to end in a problem. But the truth is, most high school staff don’t care what kind of shoes your kid wears as long as they’re closed-toe (for safety) and don’t break explicit written rules. Most kids don’t care as much as we think they do, either—everyone’s too busy worrying about their own outfit to care that much about yours.
I’ve started doing a couple small things that cut down on all this overthinking, for me and for my kids. First, I always ask them what they’ve already checked before I give my opinion. More often than not, they’ve already looked up the rules, asked their friends, and just want validation that it’s okay to take a small risk. They’re not asking me to fix their problem, they’re asking me to confirm they’re not being silly for wanting to try something new. Second, I always keep a backup pair of plain, neutral shoes in my car. It’s a $5 pair of canvas sneakers I picked up at Target, one size bigger than Milo’s shoe size, that fits both my kids if they need it. If the school does say something, I can drop it off in 10 minutes, no fight, no big lecture about why they shouldn’t have worn what they wore. Third, I try to remember that when a teen asks “is this appropriate,” they’re not just asking about clothes. They’re asking if you trust their judgment, if it’s okay to be a little different while they figure out who they want to be.
Now, three weeks later, Milo wears those cowboy boots at least three times a week. He scuffed the heel jumping off the bleachers after the home soccer game last week, and he just shrugged and said it gives them character. Last night, he asked if he could get a tiny nose stud for his birthday, and I immediately felt that old panic creep in—what will the school say? What will my aunt say when we see her for Thanksgiving? Then I thought about the boots, sitting by the front door, scuffed and loved and totally fine. I told him to check the student handbook first, and if it doesn’t say anything against it, we can go to the piercing shop next Saturday. I still don’t know how it’s going to go. I might still overthink it a little while we’re sitting in the waiting room. But I know now that most of the time, the thing I’m panicking about isn’t a problem at all. And if it is, we’ve got a backup plan. That’s enough for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Are My Teen’s Non-Standard Shoes Appropriate For High School