Our guest blogger Ani Sarkisian continues to have us in fits of laughter this week with her hilarious take on mamahood.
I seem to have outgrown shoes; all shoes. I can’t try them on without grimacing. My loyal favorites, carefully selected and lovingly cared for, have all betrayed me. My hefty paws have toted me all over the Earth, but I just can’t seem to thank them in a shoe.
I used to be a size US 10.5, translating to a UK/Irish size 9, the largest they typically make women’s shoes. Now I’m lucky if I fit into a US 11, and when I had my foot measured most recently, it was a US 11.5. What happened? I had a child, of course, does anything else so thoroughly zap the dreams, ambitions, and bodies of women around the world? Not to mention ruin their shoes.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother, and when I was pregnant I diligently did my research. During pregnancy, progesterone relaxes your joints and ligaments, allowing the fetus to expand your uterus and eventually push aside everything in its path. Progesterone also helps open your cervix if you deliver vaginally. But if you’re extra lucky, it drops your arches and lengthens your feet, a neat little trick nature specifically plays on first-time mothers (should you have more children, the damage has already been done); scientists haven’t concluded whether it’s the extra weight a woman carries during pregnancy, or simply that hormones make all those tiny joints and ligaments in our feet spread, but whatever the reason, the change is permanent.
Learning this, I called my mom and shrieked, “But my feet are already as big as shoes get, do they make plus-size shoes?”
She breezily chirped the same thing she’s been saying since I was a teenager, “But honey, Audrey had size 10 feet!” That’s Audrey Hepburn, we’re on a first-name basis with Audrey in our house, and that was all well and good for her; she had designers falling over themselves to design her shoes. But I’m not Audrey, and her feet weren’t 11s.
If you have little pixie feet, this might be good news, “I just keep telling my partner I have to buy new shoes because I can’t fit into my old ones, isn’t it the best HAHAHA.” Hahaha, BULLY for you. Meanwhile, I’m desperate to find one, just ONE, pair of cute sandals. The same way it’s hard to find a delicate bra when you have big boobs, you cannot find a fetching strappy sandal to save your LIFE when your foot is my size. Everything looks architectural; functional; medical; load-bearing. They do not pair with the free-and-breezy-young-mama look.
Apparently, around 60 per cent of mothers will see an increase in their foot-size.
Maybe, like me, you’ll also have pain in your feet and knees. When your arches fall, there’s extra strain on the other ligaments in the sole of your foot; it changes the way you walk and balance, directly affecting your knees, hips, and back. It could explain why women have more arthritis in these areas.
If that weren’t bad enough, I was born flat-footed to begin with! So where are my arches now, have they actually inverted? I’ve chanted, “I need something with a wide instep and a narrow heel,” my entire life, do they make anything for a convex sole? My mother’s family is even known for their crazy feet. No sassy heels for us, thank you, we’ll take the sturdy loafer that looks like a Ford Focus, and who do you think YOU are, anyway?
Salespeople in Dublin have openly laughed at me. “We don’t carry that size,” they sniff, “there’s simply not enough demand for someone in your…situation.” Lady, you don’t have to tell me! I follow all the rules, I only shop in the afternoon, I wear the shoes around the store, I imagine my outfit and I swear that they’ll still feel good after a crosstown commute or an evening wedding, but over the years my closet has become cluttered with my shame: the H&M golden stilettos that I knew were horribly made but looked SO cute with those pants, the ballet flats that I eventually had to remove in the middle of an evening out, not one but TWO pairs of cowboy boots.
Other than researching where Caitlyn Jenner gets her shoes (I did, I tried), I’m trying to lean into it. One sunny morning last June I’d had it, and tied on the greatest investment I ever made: a pair of hiking boots I bought 15 years ago for $100; somehow they’re still the most comfortable things I have ever worn, either growing with me or forgiving me my sexy, sexy foot spread. Paired them with cut-offs, a straw hat, and one of my partner’s old white dress-shirts, popped the baby in the carrier and headed out.
Stopped by my partner’s job to say hi and bring him a coffee. He laughed and said I looked like I was on my way to a music festival.
Guess I pulled off the young-breezy-mama thing after all.
Ani is a writer currently based in Dublin. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @AniMSarkisian, or at TheSaltyCookie.org. 
