The Invisible Mom

A couple of weeks ago I read a story on the Huffington Post that really struck a nerve. It was "The Mom Stays in the Picture," by Allison Tate. I shared the post on Facebook and I immediately started getting "likes" from friends and honest open comments about how they felt about the topic. It was interesting to read their feedback. In fact Katie Couric even picked up the story on her show because there are so many invisible moms out there who are not documenting their existence.

Me, age 35, and my kiddos in 2005, when they were 1 and 4.

I love this picture of me and the kids. I'm so glad my then husband took it of us. It captures the moment of my motherhood so perfectly. My son in his 1 year old cuteness and my daughter in her 4 year old adorable self.  Even though I love this picture, when I look at it I see how fat I am. I see my double chin and the fatness of my arm. Isn't that sad?

What's even more sad is when I realize that we never took a professional family picture when their dad and I were married. I will never have those years or that opportunity back again. When I look back through pictures I see that there are a lot of gaps when I'm not in the pictures with my kids.

I read some of the comments after Allison's essay and one was so sad. This one woman said she only had one child and that she never took pictures with her because it was just a reminder of how ugly she was. Poor woman, but the saddest part is that many of us feel the same way.

On my Facebook post one of my best friends who lost her mom to cancer when she was 19 said that when they go back and look at pictures they have very few of their mom. Another friend admitted that she stays out of pictures too. We all agreed that this article was a reminder that we shouldn't be doing that.

The truth is that when we are old or gone and our kids are adults they won't care what we looked like when they were little. They won't care if we were too fat or too skinny. All they will care is that they have a picture of their mom, a memory of what we looked like when they were children. We are their mom, we're beautiful in THEIR eyes and really that's all that matters.