ro be PISSED OFF with this shoe shop behaviour

[PitysSake]

ok so shop hEAVING.
mum comes in with a huge rucksack and then gets out every shoe her two kids own. battered old trainers, school shoes, even brings sprots socks for kids to try
then get the kids to try on every shit pair of shoes to get the assistant to say if they need new ones

this is NOT degree level science lady, you feel the toes and work it out. These people are not higher beings they are shoes shop assistants.

Meanwheil the rest of us were waiting and wiating.

THEN some annoying muj let her 2 year old walk SLOWLY down the stairs holding up one mum who was calling for a kid she htought had done a runner and me and another guy who wanted to get downstairs AT SOME POINT

[SpawnChorus]

As the mother of a houdini-child, it's your last ranty bit that strikes a chord with me. The number of times DD has nipped through the legs of a bunch of women chatting right in the school doorway and headed towards the busy road while they gas on oblivious to my polite but slightly frantic "excuse me"s....GAH! They force me to screech at DD and lose my facade of serenity.

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

I went last week with 2 of my 3 kids and had 4 pairs of shoes checked between them and bought 5 new pairs. Going back today to pick up DS2's plimsols. DS1 didn't need any.

I go to a fabulous independant shop where we get all the time we need, are offered to go before they open or after they have shut so we can do it in peace and I get all sorts of extra discounts and freebies on top.

Mine are tricky to fit and I wouldn't go anywhere else.

[Rollergirl1]

Personally I can't see a problem with taking your time over your childs shoes.

PitysSake: "as on threads passim hte English obsession wiht mlaformed feet and kids is hilarious
you dont get this abroad"

Ummm, what?! I can't understand a single word you write.

[LuluMaman]

go to nice independent local shoe shop. get to know the owners. makes shoe shopping much more pleasant. not sure their stance on cheroot smoking,but i get a nice discount !

[bentneckwine1]

I used to fit school shoes many years ago.

In our department we kept a bottle of baby talc which we wouls sprinkle lightly inside the shoe. Get the child to walk around the shop for a moment...foot makes an imprint in the talc. Remove shoe and look at imprint...should be thumbwidth of growing space between imprint of big toe and the top of the shoe.

Check ankle bone not impeded by the shoe.
Check no slippage at the heel when walking.
Squeeze the front of the shoe with both thumbs...the leather should move but not be wide enough to crack when walking.

Done!!
Oh and get children to break in the shoes over the last few weeks of holidays because stiff leather after weeks of sandals hurts...so many kids were brought back at 3.30pm on the first day because their feet hurt in the new shoes. You need to wear them in a little around the house before wearing them all day with hot feet in school.

HTH

[TheChilliMooseisOmnipotent]

I'm still chuckling at the local foot perv getting someone to walk up and down in the shoes. I bet he would have paid you good money to do that too
As for used shoes on Ebay, well it's a great money-maker

[roneef]

PitysSake - what the fuck are you on about?

Slow down with the old typing/ consider using preview message option.

[pjmama]

We're all completely wasting our time anyway!

My poor parents spent years in Clarks trying to ensure I grew up with lovely perfect feet.

As soon as I was old enough to spell "stiletto", I crammed them into wholly inappropriate, pointy, narrow, teetering-on-the-edge-of-disaster shoes and gave myself bunions.

[Fimbo]

Roneef - you will be new to Mn then non?

[lljkk]

OOh, I wanted to do that, bring all the shoes DC own and get them each individually checked. For all each of my 4 DC. I am hopeless at feeling the ends of toes, when I used to try to fit DC shoes myself I often got it quite wrong, and different makes of supposedly same size can fit very differently on same child.

Thankfully for fellow shoppers, I am not even organised enough to haul lots of pairs of shoes with us .

[Bettymum]

bentneck I am intrigued by the talc thing. Can you really see the imprint in closed-toe shoes? Not sure I have any talc in the house but if I do I have a new game for DD to play tonight

[slug]

ROFL at this. I remember having an argument with a Clarks shoe fitter and her cat's bum mouth who practically accused me of child abuse because i didn't put my crawling child into fitted shoes. According the her, proper support is vital to growing feet. Yeah right, because man evolved in the Savannah with a branch of Clarks handy didn't they? Tis just an attempt to shame us into parting with our hard won cash.

[southeastastra]

only read op (sorry)

what weird behaviour, maybe there is a business opportunity for checking kids shoes are the right size.

[oldraver]

FIMBO.. That reminded me when I was buying a pair od shoes for a male friend. He was a 7 and me a 6, so I he would discreetly say which ones he liked and I would try them on. Obviuosly they were too big and the assistant had a puzzled look as to why I was trying on too big shoes

[nickelbabe]

i had a schoolfriend whose mum would march them into Jessop's (a branch of the JL partnership) every year and demand that the manager serve her to get the shoes fitted! i bet they loved her!

my favourite memories are of going to our local independent shoe shop "Bee jays" for our shoes.
the lady in there was brilliant and the shop always smelled of fresh leather (as you do). the shoes were always piled high up the walls and everywhere : imagine the wand shop in the Harry Potter film: it was like that but with shoes not wands.

no kid should have to be subjected to chain shoe shops and snobbish clarks assistants.

[bentneckwine1]

Bettymum...absolute truth...helps if the inner of the shoe is a darker colour but should work for any shoe just a bit harder to see on a white/light background.

We used it because some of the older boy's styles were quite hard around the toe area and it was difficult to judge by pressing on the outside of the shoe.

Hope your daughter has fun!!

[pjmama]

oldraver - exactly what kind of shoes did your male friend have you buying for him?!

[PixiNanny]

I've got to take my two charges shoe shopping next week, last day of the holidays O_O Should I panic? This sounds atrocious lol

[katiestar]

YABU
Is there a limit to how many pairs of shoes one customer can buy ? If you don't like it you should get up a bit earlier and be first in the queue

[simplesusan]

I can sympathise about the woman with the kid blocking the stairs as someone is desperate to race down them to find their missing toddler. I have been in this situation, some people are stupid.
I feel your pain about the shoe fitting issue, why not just get your kids feet measured agin and see what their size is?

[TheChilliMooseisOmnipotent]

It's crazy to take your old shoes in to ask someone if they fit. Surely the shop assistant's job is to sell shoes and it would be in her interest to say none of the old ones fit.
And I certainly would not want to be handling manky old shoes either.

[sayithowitis]

I spent most of my teenage years having to wear disgusting shoes from the local hospital after my feet were badly affected by not wearing properly fitted shoes as a child. Children's feet bones are still quite soft until a fairly advanced age and so can be pushed into unnatural shapes by badly fitting shoes.

When the DCs were small, we used to go to a wonderful local independant shop where their shoes were fitted by a very experienced lady. Both DCs had exceptionally wide feet and their shoes always had to be sent to Start Rite to be made wider. Free of charge! As to fitting them myself, due to health issues with the feeling in my habds and fingers, I actually cannot feel where the toes come to etc.

Maybe you need to find a shoe shop that only sells from the shelf, rather than by fitting the shoes properly. Or like somebody else said, get there earlier!

[lljkk]

A good shop will give you an honest answers that makes sense, ChilliMoose, about whether your DC's current shoes are okay fit. Then you will trust that shop and want to come back to them again because you reckon you can rely on them. Don't dismiss the value of good customer service.

[oldraver]

pjmama they were high heels about 3" strappy satin things. I still have them upstairs

[HerBeatitude]

Did anyone hear Woman's Hour this morning? Discussing this v. issue.

Rucksack woman sounds like an idiot, blocking stairs woman sounds like a self-obsessed twat.