Not empowering the idiots

Matt Pearl

My wife and I were faced with the classic ‘name brand shoes’ dilemma a few days ago. In preparation for sending kids back to school, it’s a common problem among thirty-somethings.

Our kids don’t ask for certain brands of clothing: we have yet to teach them the difference between various items of attire. While they are at the age where they are just as likely (or more so) to outgrow an article of clothing before they wear it out, it seems insane for us to dress them to the nines.

But then you see that pair of major brand athletic shoes and think, ‘Wow! Those are sharp. Maybe we could look at those for school this year.’ It can be pretty easy to project one’s own brand quality delusions upon one’s children, you see.

It was the price tag that stopped me in my tracks. After I recovered from the sticker shock, we moved on and bought a store brand shoe at another less pricey venue.

We all learned growing up that you are what you eat. In a more general, but equally true sense of the phrase, you and I can also become anything that we consume. You choose in great part what type of life you will live when you select what items you are going to buy.

If we shop with the pretentious plan to make others respect our style and prosperity, we may achieve our goal; but take a minute to think of the best people you have ever known, the salt of the earth types. Did those folks ever care what you were wearing?

I think about the people who love my children and think, ‘Would name-brand shoes make them love my kids more?’

I am fully aware that a person could take this idea to ridiculous extremes. Through overuse of such logic, I could dress my kids in burlap sacks and dare the rest of the world to treat them badly. Where’s the line?

When you are looking at a pair of shoes in a size 2 and they cost as much as the adult shoe of the same style that is a size 12. I’m not paying that. I don’t care how many stripes and swooshes you put on your overpriced product.

(On a side note: Did you ever say something, and immediately realize you sound just like your father sounded 30 years ago?)

I have found myself refusing even to enter stores that I know sell things that I have grown too cheap to buy. If I don’t intend to make a purchase, I don’t walk in the door There was a younger version of myself who got some level of enjoyment from dreaming about all the expensive things he might be able to afford someday; the 39-year-old edition would rather be home enjoying the more important portion of life––the people I love.

And if someone has the gall to walk up to my six-year-old and give him grief about not having expensive shoes to wear day-to-day, I have to pity that person for concerning himself with something that shouldn’t matter to anyone.

In my experience, the type of person who makes the effort to laugh about another’s clothing––well, that’s typically a person who is about as personally insecure as they come.

But when folks cave in, when they buy their kids the expensive shoes to keep themselves from being ostracized, I hope they keep something in mind: when they do so, they empower the idiots who make issues out of brand name clothing and other expensive things.

Now, I can just assure you that at some point, the shoes will get more expensive, and kids may get a name-brand short or two at Christmas time. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things, giving or receiving them. Enslaving ourselves to them––that’s a problem.

Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany, and Grant City.