If you’re a mom, there’s a good chance you don’t have many photos of you with the family. Most of that is because you’re probably the one taking the photo. I know I’m always the one that wants to capture the memory.
I can’t tell you how many times I tell my daughter to not move until I can grab the camera. But every once in awhile I actually want to be in the photo.
Problem is, the majority of these already rare moments ever get seen by anyone.
I’ve been working on finding contentment with my body for years. The truth is I’m at the highest weight I’ve ever been in my entire life.
After having baby number one, I was in complete shock for a while. I had no idea how much my body would change. I knew some of the more common things talked about like stretch marks but there were plenty that came as an unwelcome surprise.
I never lost all of the weight I gained. From not recovering well from my c-section to my baby not nursing and the busyness that parenthood brings, I wasn’t really set up for success in that field.
And then I decided to do something crazy – have another baby!
That meant more weight gain, another c-section and adding even more busyness to the equation. So, while I’ve definitely found ways to give my body grace, I have an unfamiliar postpartum body to grow to appreciate.
The keyword here is grow. It’s only been two months and I’m not there yet.
For the most part I’ve been hiding from photos or only taking beauty shots where just the neck up is featured.
You guys, I even told our photographer the day we took family photos featuring our newborn that he could Photoshop me to look more flattering in the photos. {I’ll never know whether he did or not but I look really good in them so he may have.}
But here’s the problem with all of my self-conscious thoughts: they don’t benefit my kids. One day they will be looking through photos of their childhoods and they’ll notice something – that mom’s always missing.
It’s really not fair for them to not get to have photos of all of us sharing in the memory because of the simple fact that I had body conscious issues that day. How crazy for me to let my vanity stand in the way of preserving precious moments that we’ll never get back.
So now, I’m going to keep those photos, even if they are not flattering for my kids to have one day. I’m going to take the photo in my yoga pants, messy hair and lack of makeup proudly.
Why?
Because that’s the way my kids see me. They don’t care how I look, they’re just glad I’m there, living in the present with them.
In a world of convenience where we can take and delete photos on our phones in a flash, it’s easy to forget that some things deserve to have a long lifetime. So even if you’re not feeling pretty or confident that day, I encourage you to snap the photo, mama.
Your kids will thank you for it one day.
