Ryan got his first pair of shoes the other day. My sister Jenny bought him the first pair. It's Carters, white, made of cloth and is totally comfortable and stunning on him. He looks so cute and handsome with his shoes on. We bought it at a 20% discount and it still cost her close to RM20. Anyway, we reckon that he will be able to wear the shoe probably for another 3 months before he will outgrow them. I guess I would have to `persuade' Jenny to replace it with a larger one then. The funny thing is, we are totally ignorant of all the taboos or `pantang larang' that the older folks have when it comes to children and believe me, for Chinese, they are lots of it. We were a little surprised when we brought Ryan out recently for a function, nicely with his shoes on and showing off when someone asked us whether we got the approval from my mum. Emmmmm....stupid as it sounds, we were like ...errr...."WHY??""
Apparently, according to the Chinese taboo, babies should not be wearing any shoes until they have celebrated their one year old birthday. Ryan is exactly 4 months old today. Don't ask me why because I have no idea or glue whatsoever that prohibits babies wearing shoes. Anyway, since we were ignorant of the taboo, we have not asked and went ahead. Luckily, my mum didn't say much about the shoe wearing issue when we brought Ryan home to visit her during the last weekend, except, for a brief moment, when she was queried by another `auntie'. She brushed if off saying something like "modern couple nowadays". I didn't want to ask her for the reason in order not to aggravate the incident or create an issue.
If you have a story to tell about why a baby should not be wearing shoe before their one year old birthday, we will be happy to hear about it. There are lots of other taboos. For instance, we are not supposed to comment in front of the baby that he is a good boy or he has grown well. In fact, come to think of it, we not supposed to say anything positive in front of him. The reason is that the baby might just react negatively to such comments and behave negatively. How on earth can we start implanting positive thoughts in our babies if we can't tell them that they are OK?? And there are also a load of superstition and taboos for an expecting mother. Probably more of that in my next post. But if you any to share, it will be interesting.