Ghost Mom

Ghost Moms are real, believe me! Like many moms, we try our hardest to hide behind the lens. I just read this article, “The Mom Who Wasn’t There: The Ghost in Our Family” from ScaryMommy and it resonated with me. We all have many reasons. It could be the fact that we are Capturing A Moment and no one else can do it quite like us moms (or Dads, not trying to offend anyone here). Maybe we suffer from the inevitable insecurities of our appearance, maybe our grey hair, heck in my case, in order to be blonde, a color my clearly Italian, Mexican, Russian, Polish heritage did not intend for me, I bleached my hair myself until it literally fell off and I’m left with a cute blonde pixie and black roots. Yup, that actually happened. Maybe it’s that extra 20 pounds that never left after baby number however many. Maybe we suffer from fear of fat shaming or skinny shaming. Or maybe we just don’t want to be in any pictures because for some reason we truly just hate what we look like in pictures. We ALL have our reasons. Period.

We’d rather be behind the lens, Capturing every Moment, thank you very much. Believe me, as a photographer, I get it. My plight is only made worse by the fact that no one else knows how to operate this large weight attached to my body, strapped on like a mom carrying her infant. Literally. Strapped. On. Let’s face it, my camera is my fifth child, after my husband (I love you honey). So what do I have left, a LOT of pictures without ME. I’m ghost mom extrodinaire. Here’s a beautiful example of Ghost Mom in action, except, well, you can’t see me. This is a picture of my middle child’s most recent birthday. I made the cake, I painstakingly made my own frosting for that cake, which I had to share the beaters of frosting because as all mom’s know, I don’t need another ounce of frosting sticking to these Ghost hips. I gathered all of them together, after having made them all his favorite birthday dinner. I lit the candles, I coaxed them to smile. Can you say “cheese”? No?! “Farts” it is… This photo graciously taken by me and my trusty, handy, dandy iPhone (in desperate need of replacing, might I add) and who isn’t in the picture? Ghost mom. ME.

We mom’s, or maybe dads, I’m by no means trying to exclude anyone here, don’t even realize we are doing it. We are so busy making life for our families that for whatever the reason, we aren’t seen. We are SO good at being alive but Ghostly that no one notices. Not one single child or adult or spouse. Ghost mom here, reporting for duty! What other moments can I capture and treasure for a lifetime? Except, when my kids look back on photos, I’m not there. THEIR memories will include the fun AND what I looked like holding my fifth baby that so expertly Captured that Moment or my iPhone because I didn’t want to carry my fifth baby at the zoo. And while we are talking moments, can we all just admit, some memory cards get deleted because, well, that zoo trip and all those “memories” weren’t what anyone wanted to remember? Pretty sure a do-over is in order. If we are being honest here. It happens, we aren’t always our beautiful social media perfection even WE want to believe.

I have talked about this before. I may have even “live” fed this sentiment to you with my bleached hair BEFORE it fell off. (It’s ok, I can joke about it now. Most days at least). YOU, Ghost Mom (or parent, to be fair) MUST start being in your memories. Find. A. Way. It may not be important to you today or maybe never. Maybe you are good not being the 5th member of that birthday photo because you hate what you see. Ok. But what about children 1, 2, and 3? When they get older and quite possibly give you grand babies to spoil and send home, don’t you think they are going to want to see what you looked like that year your bleached hair fell off and once cut, you looked like a very tan tinkerbell?

One of the ways I have tried desperately to be less of a Ghost mom is to take “two minute” pictures at the end of many days.  My daughter started it well over a year ago in an attempt to drag out when she went to bed. Each night I pull out my handy dandy iPhone and take a series of pictures with mostly my daughter and POOF, there I am, in pictures.  Sometimes my hair is a mess.  Sometimes I have no make-up on.  Sometimes I look like I haven’t slept in days.  But guess what, SHE loves them.  She makes me make stupid faces.  My boys climb into bed and join in the “two minute” pictures with mom.  Sometimes my “two minute” pictures also include images from the day.  It has been a great way to be a part of pictures that my children literally stand at the computer and stare at since I have those images loaded into my computer and they are my screen saver.

What I don’t have is many actual professional photographs of me with my husband and children.  Cell pictures are great, don’t get me wrong.  They capture the every day moments we don’t want to forget.  But they aren’t going to hang on my wall.  It’s the professional photographs that are missing from my walls.  I know, a professional photographer with very few professional photographs, sad.  I do have them, don’t get me wrong.  They are from gifts that I have given my parents and in-laws and part of the gift was a picture of my family as well.

We started this business because we (Jen and I) both had the unfortunate experience of taking our young children to big box professional studios that ran an hour or more late.  We were left trying to keep our dressed up young children quiet and calm while we waited and then when it was our turn, we were greeted with a photographer that wasn’t fully engaged and after that experience, we had to then pick our images right then and there.  It was terrible.  We left frustrated, sweaty, upset and having spent either way too much money or none at all because we lost all patience with the whole process.  Jen and I have created an experience where our goal is to be on time, to make the process as painless as possible and to provide an online viewing gallery so that you can look at your images after your kids have gone to bed and you have time to look.  What does that mean?  That means that you, Ghost mom, can now come to a session, dressed your best with your family and have your picture taken.  You can come to our studio or we can meet you at a park where you then make time to play on the playground with your kids afterwards because you aren’t stressed but rather relaxed and happy that you were in pictures with your family and it wasn’t this horrendous experience but rather a relaxed one, one you will cherish forever.

So I implore you, Ghost Mom, come out from behind the shadow of your camera, call me at 586-646-8189 or go online to our scheduler and schedule a session WITH your family.  You will be thankful, your children will be thankful and we can put the Ghost Mom behind us.