When I was in elementary school, “Jellies” were all the rage. If you didn’t own this ugly, clear plastic shoe, you couldn’t be in the popular girl group. You couldn’t walk with that cool confidence, the look of feet covered in department store greatness.
My mom wasn’t concerned with that, though. She found a near-knockoff pair at our local discount store, and I initially thought they were cute, too. The “Payless Shoe Source” version she bought was soft plastic, but it wasn’t clear; it was matte white with cut-out holes in a distinctive polka-dot pattern—so distinctive that it wasn’t found at the big department store at the mall.
Distinctiveness is good, unless you’re in fifth grade. My Payless polka-dot shoes invited scrutiny and suspicion from the mean-girl fashion squad. Circled together, each with one leg angled out in fashion court, they eyed my new shoes. Where did you get those? Ashamed of my plastic impersonators, I always played dumb; my standard, stubborn response was, “I don’t know; my mom got them for me.”
Mom surely meant well. In her eyes, it was simple; if both brands were plastic, why pay more for the overpriced pair? Much of our wardrobe reflected that rationale; my brothers once received shirts with fox logos on them, a nod to the far more expensive alligator on Izod Lacoste shirts. “The Fox” didn’t fool my preppy brother, though; Vulpes never showed its face in the daylight.
Even back in the ancient 1980’s, kids knew that brands mattered. Unicorn purses, jelly shoes, Swatch watches— they all spoke of your fashion IQ, as well as your wealth, popularity, and future prospects. Then, as now, Christmas was the chance to catch up on social credits you normally couldn’t afford.
Moms catch a lot of flack buying or not buying such things, allowing or not allowing things, or saying or not saying things. Until kids can drive or pick their own clothes, moms are the spokeswomen, chauffeurs and stylists panned by the popular power brokers of grade school and middle school politics. Moms get blamed for the collateral social damage.
But most importantly, moms are f
