We Shall Be Photoless

After homeschooling for a few years, I was under the delusion that we had to take full advantage of all that school had to offer once we enrolled the kids. I read every single word on every single paper that came home. I joined the PTA and attended meetings. I went to all the Meet The Teacher nights, even if I’d already met that teacher in that grade with another child. I bought school picture packages like they were the only photographic evidence that my kids existed that year. There was little that I didn’t do.

I have wizened up over the years and realized that I don’t have to do everything to be considered a good parent. Or maybe I got lazier, but we’ll go with the first. It just sounds better. I know the PTA is very important, but also realized that it was more of an exclusive club of disorganized friends who weren’t all that open to outside ideas. I kindly bowed out after the first year. I decided that if I’ve already met that teacher, it’s kinda redundant to meet that teacher again. I already know that I can contact the teachers at any time via the internet, because they gave me that information the first time I met them. And this year is the year that I didn’t buy any school pictures. At all.

This one took a while to learn, because I love pictures. I take them all the time. I have albums and photo books full of recorded history, and a chest full of pictures in the living room, waiting for something to happen to them. But last year, I had the kids on a personal holiday when school pictures were taken, and while 2 boys were there for the make-up day, the third boy had just recently broken some arms and was home, high on pain killers. And last year was Becky’s first full year of cyber school so she didn’t get any school photos at all. And no. I do not stage my kids in front of a blue wall with their head cocked to the side and a fake smile declaring how uncomfortably they’re posed. Last year, I have school photos of half my gang, and there’s nothing I can do to undo that.

So this year, I figured it was safe to not buy school photos. At all. I am sure the schools now thinks I’m the worst of uncaring parents. I mean, who doesn’t buy school pictures to proudly display on walls and exchange like trading cards? Me, that’s who.

But it isn’t like I don’t have photos of the kids. At every stage of their life. Several times over. I’ve earned the name Mamarazzi honestly. In a day’s outing with the kids, I’ll come home with several hundred pictures to wade through. And the walls bear evidence of this. It was pointed out to me recently that all I have displayed on the walls are photos. I don’t have purchased art, or fine paintings, or even crafty type knick knack kind of things. I have photos. Photos on canvas, photos in frames, photos hanging from ribbons by clips. Photos. Dozens of them. And I just don’t feel as though a hastily snapped shot from an assembly line at school is going to be anything better than what I already have.