Parenting Teens: Year Round Sandals
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 12:00AM We live in the South. Not the deep South but southern enough that if you ask for tea in a restaurant you will receive cold sweet tea, not hot tea with lemon on the side.
Morning temperatures in the 30s and 40s during the winter months are common. Once in a great while we get a significant snow. You can get by most years without gloves and hats. You can usually run and grab the newspaper off your dew-chilled lawn in the morning in bare feet.
It does get cold here. My teen boys seem to a have a footwear issue. They want to wear sandals or flip-flops year round. Forget want to, they are wearing sandals year round. This seems to be one of those weird macho expressions of independence young males make. I guess it is better than a truck with monsters tires and a shotgun rack.
I suppose there are some who think it would be easy to talk common sense into a 17-year-old head and convince said mind that the whole body would be happier if he wore shoes to school so the rest of the body would not be chilled upon arrival at the place of learning.
The difference between an ornery 17 year old and an ornery 3 year old is height.
There are others that might think, “If you would just exercise some parental discipline…”. Since either those others do not have a 17-year-old male living in the house or they have a compliant, sensible one, I am ignoring you.
This issue will be resolved in the normal teen way: some pretty girl at school will tell him how dumb he is being or his toes will freeze and fall off.
Does your resident teen male have a weird way of expressing his independence?
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Reader Comments (5)
My nephew up in NY did the same thing only he was wearing Tinker Bell flip flops because he thought it was funny.
It's a good thing he's pretty to look at.
I long for the day when I could dress them appropriately for the weather. I don't have the flip flop issue, but its hard to get my son to wear anything warmer than a sweatshirt for a jacket year round, and it NY it gets very cold in the winter. And forget about snow boots. So what if his feet get all wet in sneakers.
I love the 3 yr old/17 yr old line! LOL
Mine wears sandals and shorts until it's below 50 degrees. And I live in the northwest. I think men just have a warmer internal temperature.
I am so glad I am in alone in raising boys. Thanks ladies for the encouraging feed back. He is not unique among his peers. It helps to know.