The Beauty in Flawed Back-to-School Pictures: Why Perfection Isn’t Everything
Embracing the chaos. Show me how it looks behind the scenes.
Back when I thought parenting went according to some plan, I bought a lovely frame to organize all my first day of school pictures. I imagined them all gathered together in an orderly display of cuteness and accomplishment.
I see you – you great moms, who have that. I’m especially in awe of the moms who get a picture of their kids on the first day of college, some even labeled “!3th Grade.” I see your mad mom skills, and the way you make this tradition work.
Count me among the other moms – I have a spotty collection of pictures. Some were taken after school on the first day, which turned out to be an easier time to do it. No problem. Some were on the second day, when the anxiety had gone down. One year, I got a picture of the kid dashing down the steps, everything a blur. Eventually, depression convinced her to stop going to school, so two whole years are missing.
Count me among the families following a less typical path. The families with special needs, where kids are still getting on the school bus while their peers are in grad school. The families where pictures are way down on the list, after medication, and meltdowns. The families trying to home school because the school building is too overwhelming, or too full of bullies. The families where there’s one parent, who leaves for work early and comes home late, trying to make the money stretch. The family reeling from a death or a divorce, where pictures are brutal a reminder of the life they once had. The families mourning a kid or an adult lost to our insane addiction to guns.
I wanted those pictures as a sign that I was doing this parenting thing correctly. A signal that I read the invisible book and understood the impossible instructions. A lucky charm against life’s chaos.
Instead, the chaos came, and we’re…mostly…still here.
I finally took that photo frame to the thrift store and left it for some other, more organized family to find and get excited about.
On the other side of the chaos, here’s what I celebrate: I love seeing all of your photos, typical or not. Show me the blurry kid, late for school. Tell me about the kid who finally got the right medication, or the one who found a home in the library, or the chess club. Let’s see the cake that fell over, or the rumpled bed you can’t seem to get out of. Show me the places where the rule book failed you, and you had to make your own path. Let’s celebrate that we’re all…mostly…still here.
First day of kindergarten, used with permission. Image at the top from Pexels.
My childhood school photos never found a frame within the stale cigarette and 24 hours ago vodka smells that permeated our living room walls each morning when I grabbed a fudge cycle out of the freezer for breakfast on my way out the door. Juvenile hall at 14, kicked out of school at fifteen, married at sixteen, motherhood at seventeen, abandoned by eighteen, mental hospital, gang rape, drugs, abuse, serious mental illness, divorce, single motherhood, broken neck, brain tumor surgeries...and now, recovering from radiation therapy as the tumor has returned...but! In the midst of all of that...college at fifty, private practice as a psychotherapist by fifty-nine, artist, grandmother, great-grandmother, loving, wonderful adult children, a thirty year marriage to a husband who adores me, and as I sit here, contemplating when I'll feel well enough again to get back to it....looking forward to my classes in art, pattern design, business, Pilates, cooking, nature, and especially love. Life is tough, painful, fragile, and beautiful. Let's do this thing!
Here's to the messiness of life. I've been luxuriating in the photos in my social media feeds from friends with school aged children. The first day of school is so far away for our family but I still feel the excitement that I had as a child. At the same time, I'm astonished by parents that have a printed out sign with updated information each year as a reference point - how old, what grade, what school, etc.
On a Sunday morning show, I was even more astounded by a father that interviewed his daughter each year on what she hoped to do for work and then created a compilation of excerpts through the years from nursery school to college. So entertaining to watch the evolution but in our house we often could not find or remember our video recorder so our archive is much much more spotty. Yet, it is still treasured.