When Mom Has a ‘Selfie’ Problem

SELFIES are maligned as shallow expressions of attention-seeking millennials. So why was my New Year’s resolution to take more of them?

In a viral piece on the Huffington Post called “The mom stays in the picture,” writer and mother of four Allison Tate wrote about the self-loathing that many women feel about the way they look, especially after having children, and how they avoid having their photograph taken because of it.

She wrote that women avoid pictures because they have “mama bodies and we’re not as young as we used to be.” She pledged to “stay in the picture” and overcome her hangups for her kids.

Sometime last year, I realized that — though Tate’s piece is about four years old — I had a related issue. I might not always love the way I look, but I never shy away from taking pictures, especially with my kids.

And nights out with my husband can certainly include some selfies.

But in all of 2015, a year in which I took several thousand pictures of my children, I had a total of five pictures of just of me alone.

Why do I need pictures of myself? Well, why do we need pictures at all? It’s nice to look back and feel nostalgia and reminisce about a time worth photographing. And why does every picture of me have to include other people? It isn’t narcissism; it’s individualism. I’m a mother and a wife, sure, but I’m someone without them, too.

I love looking back at photographs from years ago. There I am at age 5 on my first day of school. Or at 16 all dressed up, ready to go out with friends.

There’s that picture of me under my Jim Morrison poster in the horrible basement apartment I lived in my sophomore year of college. Or the one of me in on the Scottish border the first time I traveled alone.

There were other people there, and I have pictures I treasure with them too, but the ones of me by myself really tell my story.

So last year, my New Year’s resolution was to take more pictures of myself and to continue telling that story. Some people make resolutions to eat better or work out; mine was to have some memories of myself as a person without kids attached to my head.

Six months in, the results are mixed. I have seven pictures of myself so far this year, a little over one a month. The reason is that it’s awkward, of course, to be in your late 30s and snapping selfies of yourself, or worse — handing your phone to someone else and saying “take a picture of me by myself.” But compared to five over a whole year, I’m heading in the right direction.

I wasn’t looking to become one of those girls on Instagram with dozens of pictures of themselves each week, often posed in front of walls with a hand on their hip. I just wanted some photographic evidence that I exist apart from other people.

Despite the fact that I’d had a baby, my third, in November, I didn’t care that I wasn’t looking my best. It’s just as important to record the not-so-great times as the ones where you’ve been going to the gym and getting lots of sleep.

My favorite selfie this year is one of me at the hair salon, getting ready to go out for the first time after having the baby. We were go- ing on a double-date with friends, and it was so nice to get my hair done, to feel human after months of being spit up on.

My other favorite picture this year is from when my husband convinced me to meet him in Vegas for a weekend when he was working on the West Coast. We shipped the kids to my in-laws, and the feeling of being all alone in an Uber on the way to the airport was so foreign I wanted to document it.

I didn’t look amazing in these pictures, but that didn’t matter. One of my favorite things about photographs is actually part of Tate’s complaint. You’re never as young as you are in pictures.

There’s still half a year left, and I hope to increase my selfie count. Whether in the car when I’m particularly liking my makeup or asking people to take my picture when I want to capture the setting, the mom stays in the picture.

And sometimes, everyone else stays out.

It’ s just as important to record the not-so-great times ’ as the ones where you’ ve been going to the gym.