As a mom and a professional children’s photographer, it’s really easy to forgot to actually be in some photos with my son. All too often we hear new moms (and experienced moms) say “oh no, I don’t look good today”, “no thanks, maybe next time”, or “maybe after I lose the baby weight”. Life is uncertain. There are no promises of tomorrow. When I look back at photos of my mom and me when I was little, I’m not critiquing the photo thinking “why isn’t she wearing something different”, or “she doesn’t have makeup on in this photo”. I’m thankful that those sweet moments of childhood were captured and could care less what she was wearing or how their hair looked (don’t worry mom, you always looked great). Remember the importance of mom being in the photo.
Alison Tate said it perfectly in her 2012 Huffington Post article, “The Mom Stays in the Picture“.

I’m everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won’t be here — and I don’t know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now — but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.

I’m tearing up as I write this. We’ve all been guilty of choosing not to be in the photo. Let’s change that. Let’s grab our camera, hand it over to the nearest person and pose with our children … for no reason other than to do it … at least once a week. I want Miles to remember me, the real me. The Lululemon-wearing, frazzled hair, bags-under-eyes mama that loves him more than anything else in this world.
(selfies count too, right?)