Max and I have been listening to the 1st Wave Channel on Sirius (which is excellent for music without the swears and therefore without guilt), and let me tell you once again Facebook has my thoughts spinning right ‘round, baby, because it’s the beginning of the school and once again I find myself in a conundrum about what it means to take or not take a picture of my son on this day versus any other.
I’ll spare you the suspense: I did not take a picture. This is usually the last thing I’m thinking of when we’re getting out the door. And when he gets home, he sprints off the bus, kicks his shoes off and runs directly upstairs to YouTube. I won’t see him until dinner and sometimes even that’s a gamble.
Max doesn’t like his picture taken, which is unfortunate, because I think he’s the cutest and the world needs to know. But he’s got a very indigenous attitude toward the camera and seems to think it will steal his soul if it captures his image so taking a picture is a sneak attack, and I’m too giggly to sneak. I don’t have enough data to know whether this is an autism thing, but I recently found out that one of my cousin’s set of twins is autistic, and I immediately knew which, because he’s never in any pictures.
So, any picture would have been an ordeal, let alone one with a poster board and stats: “I’m going into 6th grade, my teacher is Miss P., my favorite color is Shit Mom Brown.” (what kind of mom doesn’t know her kid’s favorite color)? But here is where I get spun like a record because on one hand, these are super cute. My eyes are bad and I can’t read them usually but I appreciate the effort, but on the other hand Facebook also says maybe you shouldn’t do them because hackers will guess your password and also child predators will show up in your driveway with candy and puppies. And to be frank, depending on the kind of candy and puppies, I might be game, so that’s doubly dangerous. What’s a mom to do?
I get wanting to capture the moment for far away relatives. I live with my mother-in-law though, and I’m pretty sure she looked at Max this morning. And she probably uses Facebook to dissociate from all the extra mess in her house, so she doesn’t need all that up in her face during leisure time.
I ran into another cousin of mine on the 2nd day of school once, and she asked me about first day of school pictures. I told her I had an existential crisis and didn’t take any and that I was a shitty mom and she didn’t disagree? (like, at least murmur a noise of disagreement). Thing is, I had just come back from vacation, literally, the day before school started. I had a bunch of vacation pictures of Max. From the DAY BEFORE. Was a first day of school picture from the DAY AFTER necessary?
As a Gen X-er, I’m not sure if any first day pictures of me exist, but as an only child I have to admit there might be one or two. I know that first days of school must have been just as important, but perhaps they weren’t worth the hassle of taking the film to the film developing kiosk and waiting weeks for pictures? And then waiting for people to accost with pictures of your children?
Or maybe our parents really didn’t care about us as much back then. It’s a tossup.
Kindergarteners are cute and I’m sure that picture of me would have been delightful. But then…it was the ‘80s and early ‘90s and I made some seriously questionable sartorial choices. I had glasses and I picked out the biggest pair of red frames you ever wanted to see simply because I wanted, WANTED, to look like Sally Jesse Raphael. Who might have been applauded for her hard-hitting talk show but probably not for her style choices. Not to mention she was like 50 and I thought, yes, this is the look I’ll take with me into 5th grade. Also, for a very long time I permed JUST MY BANGS and curled them every morning while leaving the rest of my hair straight. My saving grace with Catholic school and uniforms. If that much was wrong above my collar, I shudder to think what would have happen if I picked my own clothes.
The evidence exists only in a photo album in a closet. Of my Boomer parents who don’t have Facebook and are rightly suspicious of social media. I’m glad those pictures are in the dark where they belong and the Red Glasses of Regret don’t pop up in my Facebook memories to make me question my life choices. I do that well enough on my own.
I’m sure I’ll spin myself ‘round every first day of school until Max graduates and likely won’t come any closer to taking any first day pictures. I love to look at yours though, as inspiration from moms who have it together. And because I’d rather my feed be filled with that than Every Historical Evil Person was a Republican/Democrat.
You might consider keeping the awkward pictures for yourself though. You never know when you’ll need blackmail.
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