‘And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair’ ― Kahlil Gibran, poet
Growing up in New Zealand we NEVER wore shoes during summer.
They pretty much came off on the last day of school – socks being peeled off as you hopped through the front door – and didn’t go back on until the new term started (by which time they felt really strange, like lead weights dangling off your feet).
I haven’t been home for a few years, but have been told that – even to this day – it’s common to see people walking around the shopping centre or doing the supermarket shop, sans shoes.
As kids we were always burning our bare feet on hot concrete and burning sand, but the joy of feeling the earth under your feet made up for every prickle, splinter and bee sting.
It actually wasn’t until I moved to Sydney that I started wearing shoes all the time; I lived right in the city centre so it wasn’t safe or clean enough to bare those tootsies (I remember running shoeless into the corner store once, and feeling horribly self conscious – like those dreams when you’re walking round and suddenly realise you’re completely naked).
London was even more extreme; you don’t walk around with bare feet there. You just don’t.
Then I read this WASHINGTON POST feature and tried to remember last time I walked barefoot in public. And I couldn’t, which made me a bit sad – not just because all of the great points brought up in this article, but because I realised that somewhere along the path of life I’d lost that tiny slice of freedom.
It made me think back to the end of last year, when the girls and I were at the local park making the most of the last warm days of autumn. ‘Can I take my shoes off?’ Big Sis asked.
My immediate response was to say no, but then I caught myself. What was I worried about? That they’d hurt their feet? It was a well-kept green in a nice village. That their feet would get dirty?! So. What.
‘Sure,’ I replied. With a whoop they threw off their shoes and went sprinting off across the grass. As I watched them chasing each other, squealing and laughing, it struck me that this was childhood – approaching life head on and with wild abandon, and not really giving two hoots what other people thought.
Big Sis was born with positional tallipes (her left ankle was slightly turned in), and when I took her to the paediatric orthopaedist one of the recommendations they had was to let her go barefoot as often as possible. By allowing the body to stand naturally and put the right pressure on all the joints, the foot would straighten on its own, she told us.
Ironically, she confided, it was wearing shoes in the first place that gave most people problems with their feet, including bunions, sore arches and balance problems (because the feet aren’t able to feel the ground underneath them and make natural corrections). Huh. Go figure.
Obviously, we’re no longer cavemen and modern life requires us to wear footwear. But I know that this summer I’ll be encouraging the girls to lose the shoes as often as possible, and be footwear-loose and fancy free.
• image of ‘Barefoot legs‘ courtesy of Shutterstock
Ah I’m STILL a barefoot girl, I can’t bear wearing shoes and the minute I get in the house they come off my feet, no slippers, rarely socks. If I need to go outside near our house I rarely put shoes on and it’s one of the reasons I love camping because I can walk everywhere without my shoes. The children are just the same, I tried buying them slippers but like me they choose not to wear them and very often when they go out to play I will find a pile of shoes at the front of the house as they run around barefoot and it’s lovely. Yeah sure we get the odd ouchee but we soon forget about it 🙂
Nothing beats the feeling of grass between those bare tootsies, right? Although I do remember standing in my fair share of cow pats when I was a kid… another occupational hazard of growing up in New Zealand, haha! x
[…] Basically, shoes that are designed around this technology aim to replicate the feeling of being barefoot as much as possible – plenty of space inside for those growing toes, and thin soles that allow the foot to make contact with the ground for a more natural movement (I’m a bit obsessed with bare feet, as you can read about here). […]