JW if my DD wants to have a Brazilian - bearing in mind she'll need to go through puberty first and at 10 there's not much sign of it being imminent - phew! - I shall tell her it'll look like she's got syphillis. And she'll say, God, Mum, you're like soooo off-message. And then I'll rifle around in my air-hangar-sizes bag for a tissue in which to weep tears of maternal sorrow in the knowledge that my baby has grown up and is showing people her fanny.
Poor Tee, it's rotten that you don't like your job, but as others have said, take a deep breath and do what you have to and then rethink after mat leave. Less than 5 months to go!
mrsb the shoe thing is more symbolic, about sexuality and growing up. You'll find it in fairy tales a lot, Grimm and even pre-Grimm - like the 12 princesses who get up at night to 'dance' with young men and are discovered (by their v angry father, who locks them up to protect them from 'harm') by the terrible state of their worn-out 'shoes'; the dancing shoes which take control and lead their wearer to perform a wild tarantella and eventually to exhaustion (a warning against female libido); Cinderalla's teeny tiny virginal glass slipper which the prince covets, even Dorothy's ruby slippers which are part of her discovering the powers that lie within herself. When a girl in a folk tale left home to seek her fortune/save her family, she often packed up her few belongings in a red-spotted handkerchief, another sort of 'bag' which is a symbol of reaching womanhood ie. the spots represented menstrual blood).
Subtext, dontcha just love it?