T is for Trouser Socks and it's also for Thank You

The best part about inspiration is that it can happen at anytime.

Though this story begins at DSW it’s not about shoes. It’s also not about why I despise shopping for shoes. It’s about trouser socks and more specifically the little things that matter most in life.

All I needed was a good pair of flats. I went into DSW thinking this wouldn’t take more than an hour. I found myself going up and down each aisle on the hunt for a great pair of flats. As I stopped to look for my size in a style I actually liked and found to be work appropriate I overheard a mother and daughter chatting behind me. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the conversation at first but as they walked closer to me it was hard not to listen to them. The mother found a pair of shoes for her daughter and asked her to try them on. The daughter put the shoes on and walked halfway down the aisle and turned towards her mom:

Mother (standing directly behind me): How do they feel?

Daughter: They fit, I think?

Mother: Well are they too tight, too big?

Daughter: No, they just feel weird and I don’t know what kind of socks I could wear with them?

Mother: You need to wear trouser socks with shoes like that, you can’t go barefoot or you’ll get blisters.

Daughter: Trouser socks? What are trouser socks?

With those four little words I was suddenly thinking of my own mom. My mom taught me about trouser socks. Actually, my mom taught me a lot about fashion, and make-up and all of the many details that go into being a girl. When it comes to teaching girls about life-details there are a lot of chapters to cover. I’m fortunate that my mom laid good groundwork for me and my sisters helped me hone my skills along the way.

What I loved most about witnessing this conversation between the mother and daughter and hearing the mom explain the definition of trouser socks was that it was a real conversation. It was a mom and a daughter speaking to each other directly, no phones, no iPads, no one but just the two of them. Though I’m not a parent, I can imagine the difficulties in trying to have a conversation with your teenage child, even when it’s about a topic as silly as trouser socks. It seems like we live in an age now where kids Google everything to find the answers. When I was growing up there was no Google. If you didn’t know the answer to something you know what you did? You asked your mom. If she didn’t know the answer she would tell you to go ask your father. And if he didn’t know you asked the closest sibling. That’s how research was performed when I was a kid and as you can imagine, it sure was a lot slower than Google. What Google makes up for in speed it certainly can’t make up for in personalization and learning from your parents and siblings.

My mind wandered from trouser socks to the days of elementary, (pronounced elemen-terry because I’m from Upstate NY), school when my mom selected my outfit every day of the week. I remember wearing lots of dresses, lots of stockings and lots of dress shoes. I don’t think I even wore jeans to school until I was in middle school. My mom made sure I was always dressed up and looking decent to be in public. I didn’t always like wearing dresses, especially when I was really young. I wanted to wear pants and sneakers. Now that I’m older I appreciate the effort my mom put into teaching me how to dress and how to dress appropriately for an activity or an event. I learned that you don’t wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day, you don’t wear velvet in the summer, horizontal stripes make you look wider, and you don’t wear black underwear under white pants. I still apply the rules I was taught as a kid but now I actually prefer to “dress up” when it comes to work. Dresses and skirts are more of the norm and even on Fridays jeans just don’t feel right.

I imagine what life would be like if I didn’t have a mom or sisters to assist me with these challenges, or even worse and much scarier of a thought……………if my dad had to dress me. Being an avid hunter, my dad is a big fan of LL Bean and Land’s End. I envision my closet would have seen a lot more denim, a lot more flannel shirts and I doubt I would own any trouser socks.

There are plenty of times my mom was probably wondering if I was listening to her when she was teaching me about clothes or other life lessons. I’m sure there were times that she was convinced that I wasn’t listening at all. The truth is I was listening. I was listening every time she told me that I couldn’t wear a t-shirt to school because it was too casual, or when she refused to let me walk out of the house with a wrinkled skirt and would iron something at the last minute for me and I certainly noted every act of tailoring she ever did to bring up a hem, mend a hole or sew a button on to a coat. I noticed all of them.

Some may say that these things don’t matter at all and that our clothes are just material items. But it’s not about the clothes it’s about the way you felt wearing the clothes. Clothing is one of the first ways we learn to express our personality and exercise our creativity. When you’re wearing a completed outfit you feel complete. (By complete I mean tailored, ironed, age appropriate, activity appropriate, comfortable and well-fitted.) A great outfit can make you feel great and when you feel great you’re confident. I think young girls need as many confidence boosters as possible and that boost can come from a great outfit, a great pair of shoes or just a simple pair of great trouser socks.

Moms wear a lot of hats. You can call them caregiver, nurse, teacher, coach, driver, chef, seamstress, advisor and so much more. But to me, I think the best word is gambler. (Yes, a gambler and your mom is a gambler, too.) In order for anyone to enter into a lifetime commitment, with no instruction manual and no guaranteed return on investment you have to be willing to gamble (and quite possibly a bit crazy). It takes a lot of risk to be willing to invest in another person with all of the knowledge in your mind, the experiences of your life and the love in your heart. It takes patience, it takes strength and it takes an extraordinary amount of faith.

Saying thank you to your mom on Mother’s Day may seem a little ubiquitous but it is probably the best two words you could say to the person who has gambled so much on you. Besides, shouldn’t the person who taught us to say “thank you” be the person who hears them the most?

Dedicated to my mother, Dorothy on Mother’s Day 2014.