by Lynne Griffin

Created on: May 12, 2009

Let Them Wear Flip Flops

For the first time in her life, my 15 year old daughter Rosie is allowed to wear flip flops to school.

I'm not sure who is more excited about it-her or me. Granted, we have very different reasons for rejoicing. But the effect is the same. Several times every morning during our 25 minute commute to Central High, we both glance at her size 9 feet and smile a little.

Raised in Catholic schools most of her life, my daughter always bristled under the strict uniform guidelines. So many rules....so many battles....so many detention points. She was like a square peg in a round hole.

The first battle occurred when she was 9 years old. You see, Catholics are very serious about the tucking in of shirts. It's one of the Four Commandments of Catholic School. An easy rule you think? Think again. For some reason, Rosie made doing this (or actually not doing this) her personal crusade. If she could've convinced enough prepubescent rebels to form a picket line she would've happily done so. Instead, she gathered enough detention points to be barred from her school volleyball team. Jaw firmly set, she went to every game (with her shirt untucked naturally) to sit in the bleachers and cheer them on.

The Second Commandment concerned socks. In Catholic culture, it is considered practically pagan to wear socks below one's ankles. Every morning, we power struggled over this topic, with Rosie finally relenting and pulling up the damn things. What I didn't know until a phone call from the principal was that she immediately pulled them below her ankles once inside the school. After a boatload more detention points, she thought of a solution. She cut holes in her socks where her ankles were. Now no one could accuse her of not pulling up her socks.

As my daughter entered her teenage years, she discovered dangly earrings. This wouldn't have been a big deal except that this brings us to Commandment #3. As in There Will Be No Dangly Earrings At School In Any Shape Or Form. Rosie brazenly defied this rule in the name of......fashion, I believe she said. At the end of the year, the principal had enough dangly earrings confiscated from my daughter to set up a booth at the local Flea Market.

The last Commandment proved to be the most difficult of all. That is the Commandment that states only plain white shoes may be worn to school. This particular rule went against every artistic grain my daughter had. To have boring

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