My parents and my in-laws bronzed the shoes of all their kids.
My wife and I thought it was kind of a weird, archaic tradition and didn’t do it.
Did you?
I don’t know of anyone it my generation (born 1951) who did it. I only knew one family who did it for one of the kids in their family, and he was probably born in 1947-8. I always thought it was weird and a waste of bronze.
No. Mine were (1973) but I don’t think we even have our kid’s original shoes.
My husband was born in 1953, his brother sometime in the forties. Their shoes were bronzed and made into bookends which I currently use to hold my library books. We also sometimes hide things inside them.
Yeah, I think it’s weird.
I was born in 1946 and my brother in 1948 and we both had bronze shoes. I don’t know if any of the younger ones did. I have no idea where mine are although I know I have them somewhere.
Now I’m better off and dammit, I can’t find anyone to gold pate the grandkid’s Nikes.
Your kids had shoes?
I think my mother has mine, she definitely has her own. My kids were born in the 00s, definitely not.
I don’t think it was a tradition in either mine or my wife’s families. My wife did get all of her baby teeth a few years ago.
Parents have a hard time thinking about the future.
(the baby teeth went right in the trash, in case anyone was wondering)
Back when, baby shoes were structural objects with stiff soles, the idea being that infant feet needed to be ‘formed’. This stupid idea had long left the building by the time I had my daughter (probably left arm in arm with bronzing). She wore soft shapeless shoes when she wore shoes at all, which was only when she couldn’t prevent it. They would have been bronze blobs.
I remember a high Sierra backpacking trip we did when she was eight, which she hiked barefoot, raising eyebrows.
I did keep her baby teeth, which I gifted to her much later. I imagine she immediately lost track of them.
I think what this thread needs is an explanation of what in the holy heckfire you are all talking about.
Do shoes literally get dipped in bronze? What is it in aid of, just some memory of them being a child once? How old are they supposed to be? What kind of shoes, would flip flops count? Also WTF?
The answer to all is YES.
It used to be a thing to bronze your childs first shoes. Make them into book ends or a picture frame. I was born in 1960, my wife '59. Our and our siblings shoes were all bronzed.
Then folks would have this on display somewhere in their home, almost like a memorial as if the kid was dead! Like I said, weird and archaic.
Anyway, both our parents gave us shit for not doing this with our 3 kids shoes.
But the idea for the thread was I saw a picture frame with bronzed shoes in a second hand shop and was reminded of this creepy tradition.
I’ve only ever seen this in TV shows or movies or something.
When I was a baby I had a book that was provided by the local childcare, which in NZ in those days was called Plunket or Karitane Nurses, that had birth weight and a few ‘firsts’ and a print of my foot, that sort of thing. I lost all that in a house fire, sadly.
It was not treated as some kind of sacred tradition, it was just a cute novelty.
Electroplating.
As I posted earlier, my mother had this done with my shoes. They weren’t a “memorial” or displayed with any particular reverence (they weren’t mounted either), more of a tchotchke on the sofa table among the other stuff. Why did she do it? Dunno, I assume some mixture of tradition and wanting a keepsake.
Not anything my wife & I were interested in as new parents but doesn’t strike me as any more wacky than, for instance, my sister’s massive scrapbook about her kid’s first year which was all the rage at that time instead. People like keepsakes and fashions & traditions change.
No, it makes it too hard too walk in them.
Same for me, I’m about the same age as you.
Mine are currently sitting on the top of my main bookshelf.
Now I want to dig out a pair of old shoes and cover them with spray-tan bronzer.
To expand, the shoes – or other objects – are brushed with or dipped into a conductive lacquer and then suspended in an electroplating tank where a layer of copper (not actual bronze) is applied.
At least that’s how it’s supposed be done. As this bronzing company complains, a lot of people just apply the copper-colored lacquer and call it done.
I think the part that always struck me as wacky was that unlike the other keepsakes . the shoes were relatively expensive and could still be used. I can tell you right now why there are no bronzed baby shoes of mine - because they had to go through as many of the later kids as possible.