What age did you start barefooting?

Anyways, like the title says, I was just wondering, at what age did you start barefooting (and enjoying it - not when you were a baby and you didn't even know lol) and why did you start doing it? I guess mine would be when i was like...5 or 6, and I just suddenly got this craving to go barefoot all the time (at the time I thought that it was really enjoyable and fun).

 

For me it was around 6 or 7, at the time we as a family were living in southern California. I remember asking my mom if I could go barefoot, she responded that it was ok by her. Barefooting was really enjoyable for me as a child, I can remember enjoying the freedom of shoelessness without any hesitation.

A funny thing happend though, as I got a little older I still enjoyed barefooting but somehow turned into a closet barefooter. I would only be barefoot when home alone or when outside as long no one else saw me without shoes or socks on.

Around the time of my mid teens I dated a girl my own age who loved to go barefoot, so naturally she wanted me to do the same. Looking back, there was one time when we were sitting on the lawn outside her house, she was of course barefoot and I was wearing high top sneakers without socks. She got up, untied my shoes and yanked them off. I was mortified with the idea of being barefoot in front of her, but I tried desperately not to show it.

Over time those feelings waned with each summer I went barefoot. Now that I think about it, I can't believe I denied myself of the fun with barefooting just because I was too shy for anyone to see the real me.

 

I did the reverse of the poster above me. I only took my socks/shoes off for showers and going to bed and such. Crazy, huh?

I always wanted to be barefoot, though; there was some distant longing in me, but nobody in my family did it, so I didn't think it was right.

By the age of 10 or so, I finally started going barefoot around the house when it was hot... Then when I felt like it... And then I was brave enough to wear SANDALS outside!!!!!

It wasn't until this year, though, that I seriously started going barefoot. Even now I bring sandals with me 98% of the time... My feet are still sort of tender and weak, though, and I don't want to overdo it. I don't even care about the social part anymore.

 

I came into barefooting pretty late in the game, starting out in my twenties during the summers playing Frisbee at the park or hanging out at the lake and then embracing it full-time upon coming to Micronesia in the early 90s.

 

I started wearing flip flops most of the time at age 18 and sandals at 16. Now, I'm starting to go barefoot more, and I'm 23.

 

I had always known that I enjoyed being barefoot from around 14 or so - I can still vividly remember getting a great deal of enjoyment from the many swim parties in the summer, running barefoot on the grass. But I never thought about it as anything more than a "summer thing", and always ended up putting shoes on once events like that were over.

It was actually my cousin who had visited us when I was 16, who really inspired me...he was from Australia, so naturally going out without shoes wasn't a big deal to him...but I was amazed because so few of my friends ever did anything so bold. And I remember he got a talking to from my dad for going with us to the store barefoot one time. After he left, I began to think more and more about it, but knowing how my dad had reacted, I suppressed my desire to try it.

So I was 18 before I finally got to take it to the next level - I had finally moved out of my parent's house to come up to Seattle for college, and I embraced that freedom to explore being barefoot more and more. I did a lot of barefooting those first couple of years, and then settled on flip flops and Birkenstocks for a lot of my daily walking, eventually dropping the Birkenstocks altogether.

 

When i was a teenager, i read Mark Twain's novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and it made going barefoot seem cool, so i started going barefoot, first, just occasionally, then more and more, and now i only wear shoes for Work, Winter, and Weddings!

 

It gave my parents fits, but I always did go barefoot. they knew I was headstrong and was pointless to argue the 'taboo' about going barefoot.

 

For me it was a very early age. My parents were naturists, so I was raised that way. Other than having to wear some sort of footwear to public school, I was barefoot all the time. Obviously in the very cold weather I was not.

 

Since birth. I was lucky to have parents that didn't care about shoes. In fact they would go lots of times barefooted as well. They figure their just shoes, something you put on your feet when you need to protect them.

 

ever since I was 5.

 

i grew up in the rural south, so i have gone barefoot since i was a child. it totally pissed my parents off, that i never out grew my childhood habit when i became an adult.

 

My mother told me that I would scream at the top of my lungs when shoes where put on me when I was less than a year old. Nothing has changed, hehe.

 

I don´t know about my years as a toddler but I remember being barefoot from about 4 and I went barefoot as much as possible until the age of 13. Then I kind of became foot shy, felt childish, considered my feet ugly and I almost never went barefoot. I had a hard time even show up barefoot around my family.
I remember at the age of 14 I had to do a minor surgery of my ingrown big toe nail. I were recommended by both the nurse and my mother to go barefoot at least at home to relive the pressure. But I just couldn´t do it.
It´s something with hormones and bad self confidence and how the brain works in that age.
I the age of 20 I got so tired of having ingrown toenails and aching foot muscles I didn´t care what people would think anymore.
I started step by step going barefoot just about everywhere.

 

For those who started barefooting early in life I want to ask.

What do you remember from that time?
What did you think about it back then?
What do you think about that period of time compared with the situation today?
How do you think barefooting during young age affects you personally or maybe in general?

 

I was born barefoot

 

I too felt the same way, when I got older the foot shyness began with feelings of it being childish and unattractive. Even though I hated being barefoot in front of my family, sometimes it was simply unavoidable.

One time I had to assist my mom with cleaning the livingroom carpet with those machines you rent from a department store. In the process the carpet was getting too wet so my mom made me take off my shoes and socks to keep from resoiling the carpet until it dried. I remember feeling quite awkward spending the rest of the day barefoot around my family.

 

Ive always detested wearing shoes, even as an infant. The only time that I wear shoes are when I got into a store and then i wear flip flops. Also, when its snowing, I do live in Nj where it snows lol

 

Hey Northern, do you live near the shore in NJ? If so, you can skip the shoes/flip flops there too!


To answer the question on here, I started really going barefoot a lot when I was 15.

 

I've been barefoot my entire life! However, it's been hard...my mom has always bugged me to put my shoes on. When I HAVE to wear shoes (like for my job), I wear flip-flops