Socks with Sandals

My kids watch this show on Disney Channel called So Random.  It's sort of like Saturday Night Live but for kids.  They just do a bunch of skits and this one skit they've done just really made me laugh.  It was like a digital short and it was these two kids rapping to a song called, "Bringin Back Socks with Sandals."  I laughed my butt off to which my husband thought I was strange because I was getting a kick out of my children's tv shows.  I said to him "Don't even act like you don't remember Saved By The Bell."  Have you seen those reruns?  Wow, and we thought that was super good acting, however I still enjoying watching an episode now and then.  So these kids are wearing their baseball caps sideways, wife beaters, unzipped sweatshirts, chains, cargo shorts and socks with sandals.  It's hilarious.  My four year old totally wears socks with sandals.  He also wears clothes that don't match, he's always tucking in his shirt, he wears sweatbands on his wrists, he wears cowboy boots with shorts and he just doesn't care.  So then I thought why do we care.  If socks with sandals are comfortable then why shouldn't a person wear them?  Who cares as long as you are comfortable, right?  I mean as adults who are we trying to impress, we should be able to be ourselves.  I suppose in cities people really don't care but when you live in a small town and everyone knows you I think people tend to shy away from being themselves sometimes. 

Society likes to tell us things like 'normal people don't wear mullets' or 'upstanding citizens don't get tatoos' or 'only a crazy person would get an 80's perm'.  We should feel okay about expressing ourselves however we want.  I saw a five year old kid at the pool yesterday wearing two fake tatoos and I thought, Oh, I really want another tatoo.  Then I started thinking, am I too old for a tatoo, what will people think, will my kid's friend's parents think I'm a terrible role model?  Then I thought, who cares, I'm an adult and I should be able to get a tatoo without anyone's permission if I want.  I mean does a tatoo make me less of a person? 

I saw a woman at the mall a few weeks ago and she had dreads pulled up into a bun, she had those big holes in her ears, tatoos up one arm, a tatoo on her neck, a nose ring and she was there with her daughter and a mother's group that was put on by her church and she was the nicest lady.  Appearances can be decieving when we are bred to judge by them. It's really hard because I don't want my kids to be too trusting of strangers yet I don't want them to miss out on the opportunities to meet great people either.

"Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances." Wayne Dyer