Weekly barefoot updates! Mum, dad, and two boys of 6 and 8.

Hey guys! I want to see if I can do a weekly update sort of thing where I talk about what we've done weekly day by day every Wednesday or so. Let's get started!

2/5/20-Wednesday: Nothing much happened! The boys didn't do anything special outside of our daily 6 and a half hour home-schooling session. I did a bit of housework. After that in the evening, we did go shopping for about 30 minutes. By the time we got home, our feet were pretty black.

2/6/20-Thursday: Went to the park. The boys had a lot of fun on the slides and swings and what not. Definitely a lot more carefree barefoot than with shoes! There were a few other kids but you could see them sort of slipping with their socks and shoes on the plastic play equipment. Eventually it was time to leave. While walking across the road, my 8 year old stepped on a thin shard of glass. Luckily I had a pair of tweezers, so he sat on a bench and crossed his foot over to remove it, then we went home. Hubby got home and we had some nice chicken.

2/7/20- Friday: The same old 6 hour session from 9 to 3. They played in the yard until about 5, then I told them to come inside. Nothing special.

2/8/20- Saturday: We made up for what happened on Thursday by having 6 hours of home-school.

2/9/20- Sunday: We decided to go for a walk along an old disused railroad nearby with the whole family. We walked maybe around 2 miles, and had a picnic in some woods too. The boys have really tough feet and are becoming very daring, so they decided to walk on the ballast itself for about half the distance. They even sprinted a few times but I told them not to in case they lost their balance on a particularly sharp rock. We had a whole ton of fun and once they got home, we had a shower, watched TV and had dinner.

2/10/20: The regular stuff

2/11/20: The regular stuff

In hindsight, half this week has been pretty mundane. There's just not much to talk about, but I hope to be doing this with greater detail, quality and events in the future.

 

Just FYI you can create a blog here and chronicle your experiences. It could be a fun read! I've seen some folks add pics to their blogs too.

 

Sounds like you lived a good, normal life, and did so barefoot. Yay!

 

I'm a bit wary of photos since even something like skin tone or backgrounds could give away our identities since we are the only barefooters in a gigantic radius.

 

Sounds like a fun week. Glad it was such a positive experience.

 

Yes, it is nice to hear your boys enjoy bare feet. Too many parents are so over protected in regards to their kids feet these days. So sad many will be missing out on what makes childhood so special.

 

Ok I understand your reluctance to do pics - just do the blog then - it seems like an appropriate vehicle to accomplish what you want to do.

 

I think this is a great idea and I hope you continue as I do enjoy reading all about your barefoot adventures.

 

You think if you did a close shot of your soles without showing where you are, someone could still find out?

 

Possibly not, I've already given a fair bit of information of the general area where I live, which I should avoid.

 

Yeah I post close up shots of my sole taking up the whole pic for the same reason. I'm very private in general anyway.

 

I don't think that there's any point in saying 'Wednesday: They were homeschooled' so I'll be skipping over a lot of our week because there just isn't any point.

Saturday: We went shopping for clothes and what-not. While walking back, one of them had the bright idea of finding a still orange cigarette on the ground and stomping it out. I told them not to do that since .... I don't know. But I felt that we shouldn't be trying to attract attention or act explicitly barefoot. It's very cold right now so I have them wear their beanies, jumpers, pants and thick t shirts.

Sunday: They do look pretty cute with their huge stuffy jumpers and long, thick pants but barefoot! It's a bit oxymoronic, seeing them super dressed up for the cold but also wearing nothing below the ankles because that is still more comfortable than wearing boots. The bright side of this is that once it starts getting warm again, they won't need to be conditioned for barefooting all over again since they have not broken their habit. Plus it toughens their feet to get used to all different kinds of environments.

Anyways back to the conversation, I took them to the park to play. The park is a 10 minute walk, through a sort of alleyway down to the main road. You have to go down the main road, then you go in another street which leads to the park. All in all, a pretty comfortable walk asides from how cold the concrete and asphalt can be. Once they got there, they got to work going up and down the slides (yes, up). Eventually they got bored of the play equipment so they set their sites on the trees. There is one tree that has very prickly spines. Shoes simply can not grip, and most kids can't handle climbing up those trees barefoot since they wear shoes 24/7. Both of them managed to climb it, to the awe of 2 other children nearby. Once we got back home, they did some work and eventually we went to sleep.

Monday: While taking out the trash, one of them spilt open the bag of gross juicy garbage and treaded all over it. Washed it all of but not sadly there's a permanent stain on the ball that just won't go away.

 

love reading your weekly blog babe! ours is pretty much the same, although i dont homeschool. Mine go to a local school, and are barefoot all year round, which is quite common down here in NZ.
Last night we went to a local, upmarket restaurant for dinner.....no problems with us all being barefoot there. Summer down here so the weather is gorgeous. Kids ran round the restaurant a bit and had some fun, so the management could clearly see they were barefoot, no problems at all. i was wearing a pair of cut off denim shorts and a halter top, so again they could easily see that I was in bare feet.

 

Just wondering have you had any problems in the past whatsoever with bare feet in NZ???

 

nope never have had any hassles getting anywhere....restaurants, shopping malls etc. Definitely have had one or two "looks" from busybodies and comments, but i am immune to that shit!

 

It's been sleepy these past few months! Nothing much has particularly happened except for I guess, a bit of a thought I had.

I've always held the idea that my kids should choose to be barefoot and that there is no pressure. A lot of parents tell their kids to do sports and to eat healthy because it's good for them in the long run, and I do the same. So I reckoned that I technically should be regulating shoe wearing while they are young. There is no need to, obviously if they become more sensitive to societal expectations, then the emotional stress of that could be far more damaging than any shoe wearing. But at home, for short trips to the store or the car wash, anywhere that will take less than a while or out in the countryside, I technically should not allow them to wear shoes. Right now, I don't need to enforce this but it kinda makes sense even if it feels wrong. If we are going into the city centre of Philly for example, by this new rule, I'd say "Ok, just for today you can wear shoes". It's just like saying "Ok, just for today we can head to McDonald's." It's for their health. It feels wrong but it somewhat makes sense for the sake of their health. There's no reason to enforce a rule like this right now, but it was just a thought. Any other....thoughts?

Also please excuse grammar errors, spelling issues or whatever. I wrote this on the move.

 

I like the way you have let your children be barefoot their entire lives. If there was something where they absolutely needed shoes, that's one thing. But I'm guessing that doesn't happen often, and I would bet that as they get older, they will still choose to be barefoot as often as they can.

 

When they are older is different, but plenty of people would say that it's reasonable to restrict how much fast food your kid eats. In the same way, it would be reasonable to restrict how often you don't go barefoot. All the benefits of not crushing your feet are one thing, as well as the benefits of having sole to ground contact instead of a piece of rubber in the way.

 

Well,

Things have changed. Obviously covid19 is wracking the place so this won't happen yet, but my kids are going to go to school soon. I can't still teach them and they are definitely up to date, but the effects of not having proper social skills will be far more damaging than the effects of going around with shoes. They are going to start going to school soon, is what my husband and I have decided. It's for their future.

Hopefully they'll stay barefoot. I think they will, they've come too far too just ditch them now. But if they decide that whenever we go to the supermarket or to the park, they don't want to wear shoes, I won't stop them.

I will make sure they are barefoot at home and the garden however. I still have some responsibility to not cause them long term damage, and they are good kids, but if they decide to change their minds for the public, then that's ok.

 

You have to do what's best for them and sadly that may mean they will have to wear shoes but hey they could potentially end up wearing shoes anyway and they can still enjoy being barefoot after school and on weekends which for as long as their mom is barefoot I'm sure they will do too.

As you say development of social skills is essential and will help them combat that difficult question later in life "where are your shoes?" Hehe

Would be interesting to keep us updated and maybe you will find a school that allows bare feet. Is there one of those sudbury free schools near by?