Our houses tend to be adorned with the very best family photos, showing happy, shiny people with pearly-white smiles and unstained clothing. As I sit here and gaze around my family room I see my daughter’s pre-school photo.
Her hair is in perfect pigtails, her hands clasped neatly in her lap, her smile wide. There’s one of my sisters and I at my little brother’s birthday, looking off camera, arms flung around each other, joy apparent on our faces. A photo from Grandparent’s Day at my children’s school takes pride of place on the mantel showing my mum, dad and mother-in-law standing behind my oldest child Philip who is beaming. Our wedding photo is next to it showing my husband and I as well as his two boys.
There’s no sign of my daughter’s annoyance at having to line up at wait “ages” for her turn at a portrait photo.
The photo from my brother’s birthday shows no hint of how out of place my sister’s and I felt amongst my brother’s much younger friends.
Grandparent’s Day, a photo showing beaming smiles and no sign of their struggle to walk from classroom to classroom in time to visit six grandchildren.
That wedding photo looks perfect and gives no indication of the massive wardrobe malfunction I was suffering involving forgotten strapless bra and a suddenly loose wedding dress.
Then there are those photos that communicate exactly how awkward, how messy, how crazy family life can be. They are the photos I’m most interested in seeing. The ones tucked away in secret drawers never to be seen from or heard from again.
Until now.
The Mamamia Women’s Network are a group of fabulous over-sharers and proud of it. That’s why they are thrilled to be given the opportunity to dust of some of their worst awkward family photos for the world to see.
You’ve gotta love them.
Like this one, where two of my children remembered to put on pants.
Must resist temptation to Photoshop pants onto him…
What you’re about to see is a realistic glimpse into family life with everything on display and nothing hidden. It’s the way photos should always be.
Briony- “Mum loved a matching outfit.”
Lauren- “This was taken at a chocolate factory in Belgium. Apparently my brothers and I are posing in chocolate beans but later on were realised they look a little, well, suspect.”
Alexis- “We might have been a little young…”
Alex- “You can tell we really get on.”
Kath- “We thought we were super cool, finding a store that had our last name on it! Little did we know it was a $1 reject shop.”
Dimity- “It’s awkward because I’m not in it. Always the forgotten fourth child.”
Alys- “William is THRILLED to be allowed to watch telly so early in the morning. Claire and I couldn’t give a stuff.”
Ally- “Proof that I am the female embodiment of Benjamin Button and that the only reason parents enjoy multiples is to play next level dress up.”
Ruby- “Has anyone ever been this bitter?”
Lauren- “This family Christmas involved all the kids wearing matching onesies which, thanks to Facebook, we’ll never live down.”
What’s your most awkward family photo?