To be surprised how many parents can't afford children's footwear?

[moita]

I must have been living under a rock but: I recently started volunteering for a charity that donates coats to children who need one.

I live in a village just outside a deprived city and we have lots of requests for coats from struggling parents.

It was eye-opening. We then started having the same request: for footwear, most specifically wellies. We put out social media messages for used but good condition wellies. Lots of people donated and they were all pretty much snapped up.

I've got to say: I was surprised, naively so? I felt guilty buying my toddler wellies from the supermarket but here were parents happy to take used ones away. And a lot of the people who came to use are single mums who have fallen on hard times.

I don't know. I just feel so sad that our service is so needed.

At my youngest’s secondary school the rugby shirt cost £45 and even though he hadn’t grown out of them they changed the design 3 times. I did approach the pta and the school about a secondhand uniform sale but it was dismissed as they didn’t want to have their children in 2nd hand clothes.
Yet parents couldn’t afford to buy brand new and were struggling buying the clothes which impacted their income each month. It just seemed such a waste of money.

@Bythemillpond I thought ours was bad enough at £24! DS is in year 10 and still has his year 7 one but his wrists are sticking out so I'm hoping to get a second hand one seeing as he'll only have a year and a term left. I think schools should have to have a minimum of two years crossover, including new students, if they insist on changing uniform. Parents should always have the option of second hand.

Not surprised they can not afford them but they would wear other people's footwear is not a good idea we all walk differently.
So sharing another persons shoes is not ideal, unless you have too!
It is sad we now have to pass footwear on.
I have worked in charity I was upset by how poor some people genuinely are for the essentials in life.
The cheap range of shoes is affordable and most of our kids wear these, if you buy nice shoes or coats chances are they get stolen.
With charity work the worst was the suitcases of recently deceased and how upset they were asking for the suitcase back.

@TheWashingMachine

Please prioritise your child's feet.

Read the room.

Unfuckingbelievabley smug.

@Bythemillpond

When you say you approached the pta and school. You mean you volunteered to completely set it up and run it. Or did you expect them to do that work. On top of all their other work.

I hate it when people give ideas. That they expect other people to do all the grunt work for.

@unmarkedbythat

State schools should not be permitted to have strict uniform policies. They are barriers to participation. Dress codes are fine, strict uniforms are ridiculous. Schools need to be less image focussed and remember the role of state education. If I had the power, no state school would be permitted to insist on a strict uniform as opposed to a sensible dress code they could evidence could be easily adhered to by families in the lowest income decile.

Bravo.

There's a phenomenal organisation in my city that takes clothes/ shoes/coats for 0-16 and also adult. It has a large warehouse and is so well organised by volunteers. It advertises on FB for exact sizes it needs that month and you message for a time to drop off. Even in the pandemic I dropped 2 bin bags full of boys' sizes they needed just last week.
They also take toys/books/ baby equipment and have a special section for work/ interview clothing and prom/ special occasion wear. It's beautifully organised so people can browse and take what they need just like in a shop.

They do a huge Xmas drive every year where they provide a warm coat/ Pjs/ a toy to about 1500 kids.
I am in awe of the work they do. Every city should have one.

RosesAndHellebores Maybe not an 18m old but lots of 2 year olds are potty training (so might need their shoes washed). Also, lots of nurseries ask you to provide wellies.

(Although DS1s spare pare of shoes was always from the supermarket/or fake crocs in the nursery bag)

SodapopCurtis

I would have done but this was just before ds was due to start and was told in no uncertain terms that secondhand clothes were something the school were not interested in as they saw second hand clothes as beneath their pupils

@feelingverylazytoday

Justanotherposter this kind of thing is nothing new, and happened when labour were in power as well. Obviously the pandemic is exceptional circumstances, but plenty of parents struggled to provide essentials for their kids, long before the last 10 years. I know because I was one of them.

Are we ignoring the Sure Start centres opened under Labour and closed by the tories, are we also ignoring the massive cut to welfare spending on disabled and working parents by the tune of billions? The bedroom tax? The 5 week wait for universal credit? Sure you had it worse under Labour? Or are you out of touch on whats happened in the last decade? because from where Im sitting youre clueless

A friend told me to only buy from Clarks when they're so young, but I'm looking forward to when I can buy cheaper footwear in other places!

Blimey, whatever advertising agency Clark's had a few decades ago were well worth whatever money they spent on them.

@Neemi1201
How do you think children's feet in other countries manage to grow properly?

@solicitoring - my DCs grew up in a MC area in the US. Their RC uniform-wearing elementary school had a uniform swap every year on the last day of school. The school phased out formal footwear in favour of sneakers (no wild colours, just white, black, navy) with the uniform and for PE. There were no school blazers or school outerwear. Christmas recitals featured costumes lovingly fashioned from garbage bags and tinsel. For high school (no uniform) they bought the school issued PE T-shirt and nylon basketball style shorts at the school bookstore for under $10. They lasted four years. I compare and contrast with the hoops my Dsis has to jump through to get her DC dressed and kitted out for school and shake my head sadly.

Shoes are expensive. And wellies are often very useful but not practical as a main footwear .

DS2's school don't require school shoes thankfully. He has dark coloured trainers and wears them at home as well. Cheap trainers for PE and some crocs in summer. That's it for essentials. Usually I choose to buy him walking shoes for Cubs but that could be cut. We don't get enough use from wellies to make it worth getting them. DS3 has to have school shoes but I have a steady supply of hand me downs from a friend. Same with trousers and coats. It must be awful to be unable to obtain these things (I only had a baby when I lived in dire poverty, barely a step up from homelessness and he needed very little clothing) and I always try to make sure any that we're done with go to people who really need them.

YANBU. You are simply shocked and saddened but it is commendable that you are helping this charity. There are people (I know some) who do not know, and do not want to know, about the poverty and deprivation in this country.

It’s incredibly sad, many parents really struggle with the cost of shoes.

By the way our local state primary (which prides itself on its work with disadvantaged kids) makes it a requirement of uniform policy that at all times the children have trainers, plimsolls, and welloes in school and these mist be left in school all week. So for each shor soze they expect the parent to buy

• school shoes
• school trainers
• school plimsolls
• school wellies
• home wellies (may need these after school and not allowed to take the ones to be left at school)
• home trainers if doing after school sport elsewhere

It’s mad

older MNers may remember when the mums rose up and marched into school kitchens to oust the hated turkey twizzler etc.
maybe now is the time for a similar uprising to demand rational school clothing in state schools. it can be done. unity is strength.

That's very true about the spare pairs of everything that need to left at school and never come home. I have passed all of the kids weelies down. The pair that the youngest is just about to grow out of stat at school. I doubt I will ever see them again si schools must accumulate lots of spares?

I've always found eBay and Facebook market place quite good I've always got good leather shoes or trainers that are in very good condition. My Ultimate bargain was I bought an addias bundle for £6 size 1s, for black addias school trainers and two other leather addias pairs and a pair of flip flops. I'm not even sure their child wore them they were so in excellent condition. I have never bought my kids Clarks shoes from the shop. I just couldn't afford £30/40 on a pair of shoes unless that was their only pair each time. My children always have more than enough for whatever weather and I say I spend no more that £40-60 each on their shoes each year on average (wellies I do find harder to get as seconds so I get them new they last usually about a year) . Coats I've had a few seconds but mostly I buy new, the supermarket ones I like I tend to buy winter coats as the are going out of season in the sale but get the next size up for the next winter.
I'm lucky my kids have average width, slow and steady growing feet I've never had them suddenly growing out shoes. I also keep my older child's things for the younger one (as long as it looks decent enough). Sugru mouldable glue is really good for mending wellies and shoe soles to make things last along with super glue!

My daughter has lots of shoes and coats waiting for her for when her feet get bigger/grows taller. I buy them off eBay or Marketplace or friends give them their second hand ones for free. I buy them for a couple of pounds each and sell them on for the same. I’m low income so this is the only way to do it. I’m currently selling 3 pairs for £1 each all in good used condition.

Kids shoes and clothes aren't any more expensive now than they were 30 years ago or 40 years ago - cheaper in ratio to wages. We got extra shoes like trainers for pe football boots even wellies for xmas and bityhdays. There weren't supermarket shoes to buy. I remember regularly crying in August trying to get the money together for new shoes.or half killing DS1 for ng his shoes after a coiple of weeks or losing his coat .
It's a good recycling service you are offerring but it is not a new thing. One would have just hoped there would be more equality now and poverty should not be so rife especially in work poverty.

With 4DC I can definitely understand how some families can’t afford shoes. School shoes alone cost around £200 for 4DC. When they were little I used to go to the sales in clarks and start rite and buy half a size- a size bigger that they could grow in to as one pair wouldn’t last the year. 3 of my DC are teenagers now and their feet have stopped growing so usually only need one pair of school shoes per year. It’s still a hefty cost! Eye watering when you factor in trainers and school uniform!

@Luddite26

Kids shoes and clothes aren't any more expensive now than they were 30 years ago or 40 years ago - cheaper in ratio to wages. We got extra shoes like trainers for pe football boots even wellies for xmas and bityhdays. There weren't supermarket shoes to buy. I remember regularly crying in August trying to get the money together for new shoes.or half killing DS1 for ng his shoes after a coiple of weeks or losing his coat . It's a good recycling service you are offerring but it is not a new thing. One would have just hoped there would be more equality now and poverty should not be so rife especially in work poverty.

I think one difference now is that there are some parents buying new every year rather than buying with room for growth. When I was a child, clothes were taken up and let down again and shoes lasted the year. I have a average sized teen and by the time he has outgrown one size then the next is a perfect fit so I buy the size up. DS went to primary school overseas and except for a size 5, uniform was only available in even numbered sizes, there was not the culture of new for a new school year like there seems to be here now.

Yes Kowari. The promotion of cheaply made clothes feeds the buying cycle today.
My kids in 90s,00s, up to 2015 at school outgrew there clothes ridiculously they never lasted a full school year.