{"id":112,"date":"2009-07-31T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T09:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that.html"},"modified":"2009-07-31T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T09:35:00","slug":"little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that.html","title":{"rendered":"Little Girls In High Heels — What’s With That?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Ok, now. Twice in the past
\nweek I’ve encountered girls under the age of ten wearing high heeled sandals. <\/span>The first time, I was entering the
\nsubway and I saw (from behind) a person under four feet tall wearing perhaps a
\ntwo-inch acrylic-heeled sandal. <\/span>It
\nstartled me, but after a moment of staring at the incongruous sight, I assumed
\nshe must be a little person. However, when I passed her, I saw that, no, it wasn’t an adult of any stature, it was
\na girl no older than perhaps nine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, this afternoon, it
\nhappened again. A child no older than seven this time, walking with a lady who
\nlooked to be her grandmother. Again, wearing sandals with a low but noticeable
\nacrylic heel of over an inch in height.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"Toddler<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

And I felt just so, so sad.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We women have a lot of
\nreasons for wearing heels. We do it to make our legs look sexy, to get a height
\nadvantage, and, because, well, in a lot of careers, it’s de rigueur<\/i>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the one hand, I get where
\nlittle girls like to play dress-up. I loved to play dress-up myself when I was
\na kid (back then I wished<\/i> my mom
\nowned heels to swan around in, but she was too practical to own shoes that hurt
\nher feet). Yet dress-up is different from daily wear. And these kids weren’t
\nwearing their tutus and tiaras. No, they were sporting heels like they were a
\npart of daily life.<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt, somewhere deep, deep
\nin my soul, that there was something vastly wrong with this. Not only does it
\nseem to sexualize little girls (<\/span>JonBen\u00e9t<\/span> Ramsey and that whole heinous pageant circle comes
\nto mind), it asks them to stop running free. It hobbles them, literally. If I
\nwere a mom (and I’m nobody’s mom, so perhaps it’s unethical of me to throw
\nstones) I would not want to see my daughter wearing high heels until she was at
\nleast in junior high — more probably college. Or possibly never.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you think I’m nuts, or is there something creepy
\nabout little ladies in tall shoes? Is it wrong for moms to let their daughters
\nwear them before, say, puberty? Take our poll and then share your thoughts in
\nthe comments field below!<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
poll by twiigs.c<\/a>om<\/a><\/div>\n
Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or follow us on Twitter<\/a>!<\/strong><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, now. Twice in the past week I’ve encountered girls under the age of ten wearing high heeled sandals. The first time, I was entering the subway and I saw (from behind) a person under four feet tall wearing perhaps a two-inch acrylic-heeled sandal. It startled me, but after a moment of staring at the incongruous sight,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting-responsibility"],"yoast_head":"\nLittle Girls In High Heels - What's With That?! - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Little Girls In High Heels - What's With That?! - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ok, now. Twice in the past week I’ve encountered girls under the age of ten wearing high heeled sandals. The first time, I was entering the subway and I saw (from behind) a person under four feet tall wearing perhaps a two-inch acrylic-heeled sandal. It startled me, but after a moment of staring at the incongruous sight,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-31T09:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Little Girls In High Heels - What's With That?! - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/little-girls-in-high-heels-whats-with-that.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Little Girls In High Heels - What's With That?! - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"Ok, now. 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She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}