To have bought this child school shoes?

[southwing]

I will try to be comprehensive and hopefully not drip feed later.

DD’s best friend (let’s call her Sophie) come to playdates and sleep overs very often. They are both in Y1 but different schools.

Sophie’s mum is pregnant and have a toddler and dad work very long hours. I’m good friends with them.

One day I picked up Sophie from her school on a Friday and noticed that her old shoes finally gave in, the soles were open and her socks completely wet.

I then took Sophie and DD to Clarks and bought Sophie a new pair, very similar to the one she had before.

Later that night when her dad came to pick her up, she was wearing the new shoes with DD’s socks and I handed dad the box with the old shoes and the wet socks inside. He asked me how much he owned me and I said it was a gift since Sophie’s birthday was on Sunday. He was very thankful.

We went to Sophie’s birthday on Sunday and brought another little gift we had already bought well in advance. Nothing was said about the shoes.

Roll on to the following week, Sophie’s mum asks me to meet after school on the nearby playground. There she hands me DD’s socks back and says absolutely nothing about the shoes. At all. And she seems crossed for some reason, definetely acting weird.

Now I was not expecting a song and dance nor even another thank you but I find the lack of acknowledgement from her a bit weird. Now she is acting different.

Did I cross a line or is it in my head?

The reasons I gifited the shoe is because

• it was my idea that I acted upon before consulting them so not fair to ask for money back
• I know how much they are struggling with CoL, they are very open about it. They are living in a mouldy 1 bedroom flat and fighting against the LL who is talking about eviction
• I’m in a better position financially and the cost of the shoes will not affect me in any way

I remember when DD was a toddler and I had to buy her shoes from shoezone. My dream was being able to afford a little pair of clarks for her. I used to raid the charity shops but never found the right size. The day I was able to buy DD her very 1st pair of clark shoes was for her 2 year birthday and brought me do much joy!
Doing it for Sophie brought me the same kind of joy. I was genuinely happy to have the opportunity to do it for her.

Should I have done anything differently? I’m thinking maybe texting Sophie’s mum before buying the shoes?

They're probably annoyed or embarrassed. But you ABU to expect recognition, she's either ashamed or angry, or both. Next time just nip to ASDA for a pair of plimsolls for the playdate.
Odd that you're such good friends but can't have a conversation about shoes...

I think you crossed a line. I would have been mortified if I was that parent and also would have felt you were flashing your wealth at me.

If you wanted to do it I would at least have pretended I had them at home already and unused / unwanted and would she like them.

I also think to buy another birthday present on top when they possibly can’t even afford school shoes is also just flashing what you have in front of them.

She did not expect gratitude. There’s a difference between op being acknowledged and the shoes being mentioned. Would you not feel the mum was annoyed if she had returned the socks but not said ‘thanks again for the shoes?’ Or ‘sophie likes her new shoes, thanks’.

To your second point, my point is that i think there would be a risk of sophie’s parents not buying her new shoes otherwise. It’s unlikely they both broke that day, so either the parents couldn’t afford it or didn’t notice or didn’t care. So that’s why i mentioned the prospect of sophie going back to school with the same shoes.

So she just wanted more thanks, but not gratitude? Sorry, I think you are speaking a different language to me so I can’t explain any further.

As a political statement, I completely agree with you. It's shameful. But the priority in individual cases needs to be fixing it. Here, a child needed shoes and was bought shoes. The child comes first, the parents' feelings second.

The child has dry feet. That's the main thing.

I would have been mortified if someone bought my child school shoes but I can afford them. If I was in a position where I genuinely couldn’t afford them then maybe it would be different.

another item of clothing I think is fine as a birthday present and I would be alright/happy with it but school shoes feels different.

I think the best thing is to ignore it now unless they bring it up.

Yes, maybe it could have been done more tactfully but this is the most important thing.

Sorry i think the issue here is that you’ve misread the op. She literally said she didn’t expect thanks.

If you had bought something for your friend’s child, and they didn’t mention it next time they saw you, would you not think it was a bit odd? Especially as they were exchanging the socks. That is why op thinks sophie’s mum is annoyed with her. Because anyone else would actually say thanks, it’s not an issue of op wanting to be showered in medals.

If the shoes were really bad and you know the parents couldn’t replace them then I don’t think you were necessarily in wrong for buying new one but you need to under that the mum is probably embarrassed by the situation so may not acknowledge it.

could you have instead say that you made a mistake taking the children out in the rain and it ruined her shoes and you felt so bad and it was your fault so replaced them. I think that’s easier to accept than I bought your daughter school shoes for her birthday

You shouldn’t have done it. A cheap pair of slip ons from a supermarket as an emergency, fair enough, but not replacing her school shoes. You will have embarrassed her.

Having been skint as a child and struggled with my own family finances at times...I would say that a brand new paid for pair of shoes as a gift would have been very helpful but caused some upset.

Here's why

• if we are living hand to mouth as a collective, we have a spirit of 'in it together' and one child receiving something like that could easily tip the balance and create a problem dynamic. Eg. If we save our pennies for the charity shop and would usually spend £3-4 on school shoes, being gifted a £30 pair is an amount that is absolutely beyond our personal budget for buying clothes/shoes and would be impossible to do for the others.
• perhaps we were getting every last wear out of the shoes and waiting until Easter before throwing them out, maybe trying to repair them every night as a way of demonstrating how hard we make our things last
• I might have appreciated coming along if you were wanting to do that for my child and having a say in their design (ie will they be practical to wear with other outfits)
• I would have appreciated the opportunity to thank you without feeling indebted to you or like I might now need to match your gifting generosity
• I might feel wounded that spending £30 is so easy for you that you can nip off and spend that without a thought, but for me, I'm counting every single penny, every single moment of the day and maybe I'd love the chance to chat that through with someone. Not too have people offer me charity, just human connection and compassion that things are blooming hard.

You have done a lovely thing for a friend. They obviously knew the shoes were on the way out, because shoes don't just split severely at the sole like that. They probably didn't see the point of buying new shoes with only 3.5 months left of school. But now feel embarrassed that you saw what a state they were, and that they allowed it to happen.Those expensive new shoes will probably not fit in September, so they may see it as a waste of money. Its happened to me a few times. I've just bought cheap supermarket shoes, and another time put them in black trainers with a note to school. They should have bought very cheap shoes for now, instead of letting it get to that state. They only have themselves to blame for feeling embarrassed. You made that little girl feel happy. All kids deserve comfortable shoes.

To all the people saying she should have pretended she had a spare pair of Clark’s shoes hanging around instead, the OP is right - Sophie would have told her parents that they went to the shops and she tried them on!! Duh.

OP I do think a lot of this is a cultural difference. You are from a different country whereas this forum is made up mainly of Brits, who do have a massive awkwardness about things like this. I’m sure in many countries this would be an absolutely fine thing to do .

YABU to buy shoes for another child without asking first.

I would have been livid- taking your little girl to the shoe shop and helping them choose was one of life's pleasures for me and I still look back on those times with DD with nostalgia and miss them. We always made a day of it! Shoe shop followed by lunch and a look round the toy shop next door and then home to prance round the house in the new shoes and show them to dad. Happy days.

How do you know the mum hadn't planned to take her at the weekend?

I would be embarrassed if someone did this for my child. It may be that they cannot afford it. I would have asked the parents first. I think you crossed a line. Mum may not have realised the shoes had totally broken. I think most dhs wouldn’t relay the whole story.

To all the people saying she should have pretended she had a spare pair of Clark’s shoes hanging around instead, the OP is right - Sophie would have told her parents that they went to the shops and she tried them on!! Duh.

There are ways around this, very obvious ones. The point is that OP could have modified her behaviour slightly and avoided this issue, if there is one.

I think its possible the mother felt robbed of choosing her daughter’s shoes and the joy of providing them for her. It was a kind intentioned gesture but one where you gained the joy and deprived the mother of it. She may have been planning the shoe buying for her birthday weekend. So perhaps if you’d said to the mum you were going you Clark’s to buy shoes for your daughter, could you buy some for her daughters birthday while you were there, that it would have landed very differently.

I think too, she may have felt embarrassed that you felt the need to do this for her daughter and that she hadn’t (poss due to money) been able to. If she’s a mum who values on providing for her daughter in all ways, I think this would have been very upsetting, like you had to step in and this of it for her. Yet I’m sure she saw the shoes and wished so much she could do something about it.

I also think when money is hard, it can sometimes feel so isolating and shameful. I think it may have heightened those feelings for her.

I think Sophie was probably mortified too!

There has been absolutely no indication from either of Sophie's parents that they couldn't buy her school shoes. For all we know they could have a new pair already waiting for the old ones to fall apart. Lots of parent do that.

I'm also not sure how PP are expecting Mum to acknowledge a gift without saying a thank you. 'You bought Sophie shoes' sounds a bit of an odd statement quite frankly. There was clearly a thank you expected at the meet up on the playground.

You do not know how the Mum felt about this. Uncomfortable as a minimum. She is entitled to do that. Maybe she feels called out for her child not having suitable shoes.
It's one thing handing on, for example, coats/clothes/trainers that have been "outgrown" but I think a brand new pair of Clarks is quite different.

There’s a difference between expecting an acknowledgement as that is what you do as a friend. If your friend buys your kid a gift, it’s natural that you say thank you. It’s not the same as expecting lots of gratitude. By ‘expecting’ an acknowledgement, i mean as in you would naturally anticipate it in conversation.

If they already had a new pair waiting at home, then the parents have done a poor job of checking sophie’s shoes. I doubt both soles became detached on the same day.

I think it was a really odd thing to do. Fair enough, taking your child and their friend shopping and buying them both a little toy or something but school shoes? I’d only see this as okay if Id been messaged about it first and asked. Plus I would be giving the parents the money for them afterwards. In this situation I’d return the shoes to op and go and buy some myself.

Did you miss the fact the child's shoes had fallen apart to the point where her socks were wet? A toy wouldn't have helped her there.

When OP says acknowledgement, I don’t think she means gratitude. Sophie’s mum was clearly pissed off, and instead of acknowledging, and having a conversation about what upset her she chose to be passive aggressive. If they are friends, it’s not unreasonable for OP to expect an open conversation.