If there’s anything about parenting I truly detest it’s the constant guilt traps.
Yes, I’ve come to accept that guilt is MY choice and nobody can actually make me feel like that.
But – I often marvel at the skill in which marketing companies (and kids) wield the guilt axe just waiting for the unsuspecting parent to collide with it and lose his/her head.
One such purveyor of guilt is school photos.
I DETEST the way school pics make me feel. And that’s just what the company anticipates.
Each time the form comes home I think – oh great, another uninspired record of my beloved child with stucco coloured background, contemptuous pose and crumpled uniform (I haven’t started ironing yet and it’s not going to start for a school pic).
I look into my child’s eyes and of course read;
“mum, I’m most certainly going to spend my life in a psychotherapist’s office if you don’t order these pictures”
I find myself thinking FAR TOO HARD about the choice and I carry it with me usually until the day after the payment deadline. And then I pay. For some reason I could justify that through primary school.
But not this year.
This year I say NO to my son’s pic. I say NO because it’s overpriced. I say NO because that’s not a real record of who my boy is at this age and I say NO because I despise the sewn up contracts and would love to see this as a social enterprise – yes – a fundraiser for the school, a local small business. ANYTHING but this glob.
So how about you – are you ordering your pics this year? Or, like me are you going to tie your child to a serene outdoor scene, sticky tape on a smile and snap away on your chosen digital devise.
