You don’t need a link just because it is common sense that people would want to wear shoes in the house and, in my experience, most people do. It sucks to take soes on and off especially if they are tied, boots, or footware that takes effort to put on. Plus, not everyone has fully carpeted, always pristine floors. I have small children that drop small toys all around. Do you have any idea how much some of that hurts. Plus, my house is 250 years old with all kinds of small features that can potentially hurt you look slight even pine woof floors.
My shoes don’t hurt me and I don’t have a constant desire to get them off. That indicates a very different problem to me.
Oh, jeez. That was a bloody disaster, wasn’t it?(the aspect-ratio threads) Well, there is no belief so benign that people won’t go to war over it, and we prove that daily on the Dope!
Can we please, please, please have a link to the shoes indoors thread, for those of us who missed it first time 'round?
I’m baffled by several of the opinions that have been cited about shoes in this thread.
</minor hijack>
And I never knew that indoor\ outdoor cats could be such a debate. Until today, I always thought you just made a decision depending on what your neighbourhood was like. I never realized there were principles at stake.
ETA: Thanks, gigi. A link to a full blown standup, knock down, drag out shoes thread would still be welcome.
Both cat debates. I had two indoor declawed cats, and never knew I was considered cruel by anyone.
Also on the flip-side; off-leash dogs. I walk my dogs everyday; one on a leash, one off. The off-leash dog is very obedient and walks at a heal, but about once a month someone will tell me to put him on a leash. In fact, one day I was weeding my garden and he was laying under a tree, and a man actually stopped when he was driving by, to tell me to put him on a leash. It’s weird. I have no idea why.
I missed that memo, and it sounds like I missed the thread too. I think removing your shoes is more of a “rules of the house” thing than any Canadian cutural norm. In snowy, slushy weather, sure, it’s the polite things to do. But removing one’s shoes automatically in spite of the weather seems to be more prevalent in Alberta than Ontario. Still even here in Alberta, my wife and I (and we’re not unusual in this, if the homes we’ve been invited to are any indication) don’t ask guests to remove shoes in dry weather.
On to the OP. I’m another who is surprised at the debate over cat declawing. I’ve always known it could be done, but I never knew people who actually did it. Here on the SDMB, I was surprised to find that some people do it as a matter of course: “Checklist for getting new cat–neutered, check…declawed, check…”
Also–and I’m surprised we’ve made it this far without mentioning it–tipping. 'Nuff said on that here, just in case.
The indoor/outdoor cat debate, but in a different way. I thought I was the only one who held the opinion cats should all be indoor cats. On the Dope I found the others.
Sheos on/off are definitely cultural/regional. I would never dream of going to an Indian person’s house with the expectation I would leave my shoes on. What, and track mud and dirt all over their floor? They usually brought you in through the basement where there was a place to remove shoes. And even when you wear shoes, you never wear shoes into the kitchen.
My big surprise was the debate on ordering milk in a bar. WTF?
Kids. Whenever there’s mentioning of a kid misbehaving in some way, the two camps are: “NO-one touches MY kid” versus “Adults should be able to correct kids if the parents aren’t around to do it.”
It also involves the carrying of the child (almost) all the time with you, generally in a sling or snugabye and co-sleeping. At least according to the people I’ve talked to/read comments from online. From the rabid ones I get the impression that the child is never more than arms reach away at any point (until they go to school) and the parents respond to every sigh or murmur good and bad.
It’s one of the verboten topics on the parenting message boards (as is circumcision, abortion, and vaccinations) as it usually gets to the point that one side screaming that you’re smothering the children while the other shrieks that you don’t care enough (because you let them cry it out/sleep alone/go to daycare/ whathaveyou) and ends with the owners of the board closing it, deleting any and all related threads, banning several people (sometimes impartially, sometimes playing favourites) and adding it to the banned list of topics.
I never had any idea that etiquette in general was so contentious. Not only the shoes vs. no shoes in the home thread, but there have also been threads about wedding etiquette, wearing shoes in the office, putting feet on others’ seats, how to react when there’s a vegetarian coming to dinner, whether it’s necessary to be polite to people you don’t know, and many others that have sparked really incredibly harsh debates. It never occurred to me to get mad at someone holding a door open for me. A lot of those debates made me think that people were trying hard to find some reason to get mad at others.
Also, I can’t believe how mean people get about parenting, as Flutterby noted. One thing that struck me as especially stupid was how contentious pacifiers are. I mean, for god’s sake! It’s a pacifier. On one message board someone got really mad at me for being middle of the road on the subject (my kid didn’t need one, but I hear they’re really helpful for some people). Apparently, live and let live just isn’t an acceptable stance.
I know. It always amazes me what can become a big blowout on the parenting boards… and then sometimes it surprises me how I react to things, though more often than not I will type up a post, then go read other stuff, come back to it and decide I don’t want to post it. Some things I don’t even discuss with my own friends who are parents (one good friend is extremely against vaccinations, and I have to bite my tongue and carefully correct misconceptions she has about them. It doesn’t bother me that she doesn’t vaccinate her daughter, just the hugely wrong ideas about them she has, which is why she doesn’t. I should start a thread, I was wondering where she could get some of those ideas from).
Pacifiers. That’s another contentious one. It also seems to break down by breast feeders vs bottle (yet another hot topic) because of nipple confusion problems, and yet my son was happy with his pacifier… for all of three-four months when he decided he wasn’t going to use it anymore. (It was very handy when he was in the hospital and afterwards though, because you could slip medicine into his mouth, then the pacifier and he’d swallow the medicine… a trick the nurses showed me).
Holy hell…I think you’re only supposed to let people know you’re having a wedding and list a number so that your best best girlfriend or parents can clue every bloody guest on to every single thing.
Breastfeeding vs. Formula
Staying at Home vs. Working Parents
Attachment Parenting vs. Babywise
Indoor vs. Outdoor Cats
Circumcision vs. Uncut
and my personal favourite…
“Southern vs. Bostonian accents and colloquialiasms…which one sounds more uneducated?”
My stepfather, for example. His leg was severely wounded in Korea and he wears a plastic brace that curves around his calf and attaches securely to his footwear. When he’s up, he’s wearing shoes. I have no idea what would happen if he were a guest in a “no shoes” household - would he be really expected to take off his shoes and brace?
The thing that’s so funny is that these are such polarizing debates - you’re either completely on one side or the other, even if it’s something that you never thought about before.
I can’t imagine taking my shoes off when entering someone else’s house; what’s next, changing into pajamas and lounging around on pillows? This isn’t an opium den!
I keep my cat completely indoors because she’s a pet. End of story. People don’t let their dogs, birds, or fish randomly roam the neighborhood.
The one that I ran into recently was this whole “free parking” thing in Monopoly, which I had never even heard of, whereas everyone else playing looked at me like I was from another planet for wanting to play the game by its written rules.
/hijack