As I mindlessly scrolled through my newsfeed on a Sunday afternoon, instead of doing any number of other things. I started to notice something. There are very few, if any, pictures of mothers. There are lots of pictures of children, taken by mothers. There pictures of dad’s with children, presumably also taken by mothers. But none of mothers.
Well that ticked me off, so I decided that I would rebel against social norms and post a picture of myself with one of my kids. Here’s the thing, after trying for five minutes to take a picture of myself, that I liked, I know why mothers don’t post pictures of themselves. It’s because we can’t seem to find a way to take pictures we are happy with our hair, weight, skin, smile, teeth and so on. For example in this picture, my hair is not “done” because I had to help the kids get dress this morning and didn’t have time to do it. My eyes have bags underneath them because my baby is cutting teeth and I’m up at night. (Actually if you look close my bags have bags) I still have about 30 pounds of “baby weight” to lose, I have wrinkles, a zit, and overall look kinda old.
So I decided not to post anything and just go clean my kitchen, walking to the kitchen it hit me. Yes, I am bummed out that I don’t look 22 anymore BUT I’m not 22 anymore!
My kids don’t care what my hair looks like, they still love me. My husband loves the way I care for our family, including getting up in the night resulting in bags under my eyes. My dad still calls me everyday to talk, the fact that I’ve got extra pounds doesn’t change that. The wrinkles are mostly from years of smiling and I don’t really look old, just older than I did in college.
True, I don’t look 22 but that doesn’t change me, doesn’t change how I am loved, doesn’t make me any less important and really I don’t think I’d change it for anything. So here ya go a picture of me in all my 35 year old glory and my beautiful baby boy.
I still love that picture and think those words are ever so true!