The paragraph of offence

Online editor and mum-of-three Florina Schwander believes thatheels have no place on children's feet. But then a harmless question gets her thinking.

My daughter was given shoes with heels for her third birthday. This caused me to gasp - and that very evening I hid the shoes in the top shelf of the wardrobe.
Naturally, my daughter asked about the shoes for days and didn't want to understand why they were suddenly missing. For me, however, it was just as obvious: heeled shoes have no place on children's feet! Because of foot health. And because, for me, heels belong in the same category as bikinis for little girls: they have a completely inappropriate sexual connotation.

My shoes, yes. My own heels, no.

In our house, both my daughter and my two sons are allowed to wear my heels. I have a few shoes with different types of heels from the earlier, well-rested years when I liked wearing high heels. The children stomp around the parlour in them and then take them off again. Because they are simply uncomfortable and impractical. The heeled shoes I gave them in the right size, on the other hand, wanted to be worn for longer. In the playground too, of course, as my daughter made clear as soon as she unpacked them.

Am I being too strict?

We recently discussed the topic of children's high heels in a women's group. «Why are you withholding them from your daughter when she loves playing with them so much?» asked a friend. My brain went into overdrive: do I have to give her these shoes if she wants to wear them so much? Could we perhaps put them in the dressing-up suitcase and just use them as a costume? Am I being too strict?
The colleague had hit a sore point: nobody wants to deprive their child of anything. But does that mean, conversely, that you should give your child everything they want without reservation?
I think so: No. I think there are things that are for the grown-ups. You can look forward to them, you can borrow them from time to time, but you don't have to break everything down to the little ones.
In the meantime, we've found peace with our shoes again. My daughter has forgotten her shoe present. And I'm glad that I was able to stick to my conviction against high-heeled shoes. Now nobody is allowed to give us a children's bikini, please.
Picture: zVg

Florina Schwander trägt zur Zeit am liebsten flache Schuhe. Mit den knapp zweijährigen Zwillingen und der gut dreineinhalbjährigen Tochter verbringt sie viel Zeit auf Zürcher Spielplätzen, da bleiben die Hacken einfach zu oft im Sand oder Kies stecken. 
Florina Schwander currently prefers to wear flat shoes. She spends a lot of time in Zurich playgrounds with her two-year-old twins and three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and her heels simply get stuck in the sand or gravel too often.