The problem with boys and socks is not just missing socks. It’s missing socks and DESTROYED socks. When running around at home, boys don’t want shoes and certainly have no idea where they left their shoes, so this does not bode well for socks. In fact, it means socks are doomed, because boys have absolutely no interest in removing them. Rain, mud, sleet, snow, gravel, asphalt… It doesn’t matter. They’re goin’ out in their socks.
While wearing nothing on their feet but socks, boys will ride scooters and bikes, play entire games of basketball, chase their sisters in the rain, and spend an hour climbing trees in the neighbor’s yard. And when they’re done with them (or when you yell something smart like “Where are your shoes??? YOU ARE RUINING THOSE SOCKS!!), boys just peel ’em off and toss ’em in a brown wad in the garage. If you let them dry they’re hard as ceramic tile. With embedded chunks of mulch and pebbles.
The problem reaches epidemic levels if you acquire a trampoline like we did, because shoes are not allowed. You’re doing good if you can keep jagged metal objects like razor scooters and lawn sprinklers off the thing. So as long as boys are not shredding the trampoline surface with forks and stuff, you are happy to deal with fossilized rock-blobs of socks all over the yard.
If you get the trampoline, you’d better establish an entire budget addendum to manage sock expenses. We took out a home equity loan. Trampoline = total sock destruction.
Stuff Boys Do 
Do your boys manage to keep both socks on? My older one has been removing one sock, usually the left one, and displacing it. Can’t they make boys shoes with built-in socks?
THAT is a million-dollar idea. And usually, both socks are tossed in the same general vicinity. Your boys may be purposefully taunting you with the one sock thing. 🙂
I’m glad this isn’t just my son! I don’t know how many times I’ve said, “Shoes – OK; barefeet – OK; but NO running around the yard in SOCKS!”
Oh, nothing worse than those petrified sock piles! Yikes!
Socks are the IN thing in our home now too. The 2 girls want to wear socks inside the house so they can slide-slide on the tiled floor. It is not as exciting as RUNNING THOSE SOCKS though, admittedly.
I constantly tell mine: “You have two choices: shoes on or socks off!” I don’t care which!!
“Two choices” — I use this line all the time. Must be the standard line of brilliant parents. lol “You have two choices: go to your room and go to bed, or sit up and eat the food your mother made you without complaining.” Life is so simple when you are a kid, right? 🙂
Oooh – this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! In our house we have “sock season”…. and I *severly dislike* “sock season”. Depending on where we’re living at the time dictates the length; the south being my favorite because it’s only about 2-3 months long. Right now we’re in the NW, so it’s *9* months long – OY! This means you only get your socks during this specified time and then they go away. But all through the season, mom finds random socks lying around the house – usually only one, in the hallway, under the dinner table, in the kitchen? x|
LOVE this one – it’s just so perfectly boy!
These comments are book-worthy as well. Shoes with build in socks. Love it.
Always a pleasure to drop by and see what’s new on the blog, Tony.
Great entertainment.
I just read this blog while sitting in Starbucks with my eleven year old son. I started to laugh and he wanted to know why. I told him your blog is about boys destroying socks. His response was simple and quick: “we just run around in them because we don’t know where our shoes are”. At least our boys are consistent. Thanks for expressing the frustration of dads everywhere.
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My 11 and 9 year olds are the same ! They spend most of the day in their socks and even play football or bike just wearing socks. As soon as we arrive anywhere (a restaurant, cinema, on the train, etc.) shoes come off When they come home from school, they change their uniform into casual clothes, however they usually keep on wearing their grey school regular socks, so they go through almost ten pairs a month. I’m fed up trying them to put on shoes and I gave up when I realised some other parents struggle also with it but the last straw came when we went to the shopping centre: after a while I realised the older one had been sliding happily throughout the shop floors in his socks, of course I yelled at him but as everyone says: boys will be boys !
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Some time ago I noticed that my 10 year old boy ‘s socks started to disappear in an exaggerated way. At the beginning of last school year I bought him eight pairs: four blue and four grey for his uniform, but after let’s say a month, he only had three full pairs. At first I thought this was due to his irresponsibility for not putting his socks in the laundry basket and that they could be under his bed or tucked in his shoes, and at any given moment he would find them. I did not pay too much attention to the fact and to get out of the trouble I bought again extra four pairs of socks for school and I left them in the drawer of his wardrobe, but again after three weeks there were only two or three pairs, then I started to worry because that would mean the boy had been wearing the same pair for two or three days. What I later confirmed. The mystery was solved when I decided to clarify directly with the child if he knew where his newly released socks were. When he confronted him, he told me in a very unconvincing way that he did not know, so with the little patience I had left, I made a recount with him and told him that after looking everywhere, there were only three pairs left: two clean pairs in his comfortable and the socks that the child was wearing at that time. I tried to make him see that it was not possible that at least six pairs were lost and I demanded him to find them, and take them immediately to the laundry room. After looking at me with surprise, he finally admitted his fault and replied with some fear that he had taken some to his friend’s house where they were used to make cotton stuffed dolls to see if they can sell them after school …. I incredulously asked him how had come up with such idea, and the boy confessed to me that in a video on the internet they had seen that it is very easy to make stuffed animals or so without spending more materials than socks, so they decided to use the ones they had on hand to earn money and save what they needed to buy a video game that I had previously denied him … After hearing that I was shocked, and when I recovered I asked him to explain what he was going to do when he ran out of socks because I was not willing to replace them , to which he just told me that he did not see any problem, because in his closet new pairs always arrived, and also for his birthday he would ask for more socks to be given to him. After such a statement, I had no choice but to express with resignation my frustration.
Finally and with great resignation I told him that those socks were new and at least he should sell them at least double what they cost. Up to now he and his friend have made nine dolls with their socks and still have them unsold ….