Michael Jordan has never been my favorite–not because he’s not a great basketball player, but because he made buying tennis shoes a battle in our house.  Granted I’m sure that his shoes are great, but I never felt that you had to spend over $100 to get good tennis shoes.  If paying more meant that my children’s feet would grow slower and thus save money on buying muliple pairs a year, then I probably would have bought Mr. Jordan’s shoes.  Whether I paid a lot or a little, their feet still grew fast, and they outgrew them quickly.

My children are grown, so why is this a big deal now?  One…many of my friends face the same dilemma and thankfully I am not the only mother who set a limit on the price of shoes.  My children were welcome to have Mr. Jordan’s shoes if they were willing to pay the difference— they never chose that option.  It appears that this is a universal battle especially for the mother’s of boys.  Secondly… this has recently become a topic of conversation with Josh.  He told everyone in our villa in Zambia that he only got one new pair of shoes a year—I wish I hadn’t spent that money on all those other pairs he got then since he doesn’t remember them. There is not a mother any where that would believe I could get away with only buying one pair of shoes, unless I cut the toes out and just let him keep wearing them–that may happen in Zambia, but not at our house.

I will accept responsibility for the fact that as young boys I would only let them wear white tennis shoes.  Every child that acted bad that we knew wore black tennis shoes, therefore, mine were going to wear white so they acted nice—I can’t say that it always worked, but for the most part they were very well behaved—whether it was because of the tennis shoes I don’t know.  I also thought that white tennis shoes just looked nicer—I still do!

Wes was just home to visit and we went shoe shopping—he chose a pair of high top canvas shoes that only cost $20 (sorry Michael Jordan).  They weren’t white, but hopefully he’s still acting nice.  I guess now that they are grown, the battle is over.  They can all afford to buy whatever tennis shoes they want, and none of them have shown up with Jordan’s on.