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The other day, out of the blue, my daughter asked me, "daddy when are you going to have your mid-life crisis?" Until then, I had never given much thought to the fact that I was a middle-aged man with teen-aged daughters. It also never occurred to me that in their eyes I was due for a mid-life crisis as some rite of passage to geezerhood. But I was soon to begin my crisis when my daughters demanded I take them to the mall for their "back-to-school shopping."
It was then I realized how out of date, out of taste and middle-aged I had become. My mall experience taught me that the teen-age fashion statement now runs the U.S. economy. To teens, looks is all that matters. And my two teens were determined to make the ultimate fashion statement on opening day at school, no matter how much it cost me.
From my point-of-view, our mission to the mall was simple - find a pair of sneakers suitable for wearing to school. Experienced shoppers hunting for bargains during the season of "back-to-school" sales head for the clearance racks and bins strategically hidden throughout the stores. This is my mode for shopping. But after about an hour of my coursing through the bins, and the girls rejecting every bargain sneaker I presented, I realized my female shoppers had another strategy at work. They decided just to wear dad down by agreeing to go with me from store to store heaping up rejections on the tasteless deals I unearthed from the bottom of the bargain bins.
The girls forced me to stop in at a trendy shoe boutique. We were greeted by a bell-bottomed youth with her belly-button showing. She was pierced from eyebrow to chin and outfitted with what she called a "retro-fit" pair of jeans. "I remember those," is all I was able to mumble as I quickly shuffled my daughters down the mall corridor and away from a potentially dangerous influence.
I thought I struck pay-dirt in the Sears hopper of clearance sneakers. The price and sizes were right but the kids would have none of them. "Those are ugly shoes" they informed me. "Why are you calling them shoes," I asked? I was astounded to find out from my daughters that sneakers are now call shoes though they admitted that no chic teen would wear them to a wedding or with a dinner dress.
At an upscale, high-priced department store, the girls would not go for the men's sneakers on sale. "Those look different than women's shoes" one protested. "But they are made better and will last longer," I cajoled. And no wonder these kids are confused. Shoes are now in the "footwear" section at the store. That was a clever move by the merchants. We have long ago accepted "eyewear" for glasses transforming the "old four-eyed" scourge into a fashion statement. And in the process, parents pay through the nose. Under this fashion trend, I guess gloves would be called handware.
When I was in school, sneakers were just functional rubber and canvas equipment for the forced classes in sweating during the school term. Today sneakers are manufactured for high performance and endorsed by super-star sports figures. And the more they cost, the more teens like and want them. Now a pair of sneakers cost a C note to outfit the teens who wear them to school to show they're cool.
I overheard one bold dad in a sporting goods store tell his unusually conscientious son not to worry about the price. "That's my job. Just get the shoes you want," he said. The song "Love Hurts" was playing in the background on the store's music system. I thought to myself, "what really hurts in not wanting to pay the price for these 'shoes', or not being able to say the price doesn't matter." Like this benevolent dad, most parents want to give free reign to their children's wardrobe choices but reality often gets in the way.
I complained, to no avail, about the exploited Indonesian workers who are paid 20 cents an hour to make name-brand sneakers and the shakedown of helpless dads in American malls who must pay up to keep peace in the family. My daughters just rolled their eyes at the speech. In the war between my wallet and their cool wares, these gals would take no prisoners.
As the mission wore on, and I wore down, it became clear my job was simply to drive them to the mall and to pay for whatever they picked out. After two hours, we ended up right back where we started. I resorted to a corner in the footware section of JC Penny to write notes about the mall experience. It was a way to keep my sanity while my offspring frittered away my few dollars dreaming of the statement they would make when the school bus pulled up in the morning.
The oldest girl interrupted me after a time and said, "we're ready for the payment." I approached the counter reluctantly and asked the clerk, "which payment plans do you have?" One acquiescent mom, a seasoned shopper no doubt, heard my question at the register and said "I've been in those shoes before."
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