The Work in Progress Mommy

Saturday was supposed to be a simple day out.

Planetarium visit ✅.
Gift shopping ✅.
Coffee break with a toddler ✅ (okay, that’s never simple).

My husband went to pay for some books we were buying and get our coffees. While we – my daughter and I – were sitting outside the store. She decided to slide off one of her sandals. I put it back on like any mother would, whispering my standard line, “Let’s not remove our shoes when we’re out, okay?”

She gave me her angelic sure-mumma smile. We drank our coffees, made a pit-stop at the candy store, bought her some candy and walked to the elevator. And somewhere between that cafe and the elevator, one of her sandals vanished again. Just… disappeared into thin air. One moment we had a fully-shod child. Next moment – barefoot princess.

My husband went off on a heroic search mission while I stood holding her, clutching my latte, scanning people’s expressions and thinking:

• Oh God, what will people think?
• Why can’t she keep her shoes on like other kids?
• Why are we always that family with the missing shoe, rolling eyes, and flustered mother look?

My husband came back after what felt like an eternity. No luck. I was ready to go home. After all, my daughter was barefoot in an upscale mall. (Can you hear my middle-class conditioning scream?)

But my husband, ever the calm wise oak, said: “Let’s go to the information desk. Maybe someone gave it to lost and found.”

So off we went, with me grumbling about optics and upbringing and dignity. While we waited, my husband promptly removed my daughter’s other sandal and handed it over to me and then decided to make the best of it. He took her aside, and the two of them played with a balloon. She hopped, jumped, giggled, and twirled, completely unfazed that her feet were bare.

I watched them – my husband, playful and proud, and my daughter, all sunshine curls and bare feet – and realised something profound.

She didn’t care that she was barefoot in a mall. She wasn’t thinking about what people would say. She was living. And my husband? He wasn’t worried about dignity or optics either. He just wanted her to have fun.

I wish I could be that way. I wish I could see the beauty in her mischief, instead of trying to discipline the sparkle out of her day.

Someone wise once said, “Children are like blank pages. They have no social conditioning, no cares about optics, or what people will think. It is we, the adults in their lives, who fill their pages with our anxieties instead of leaving room for creativity and freedom.”

Lesson learned from my barefoot princess:

Sometimes it’s okay to hop through life with one shoe on. Because the only optics that matter are the giggles you create on the way.