For All the Mamas Who Hide Behind their Cameras
This always seemed like the safest place to hide:
Behind the camera…
But then, I made a sad, sad discovery a while back. I had only a handful of photographs of me with my daughters. I vowed to change that.
I said it like a pledge, and sometimes I have to repeat: I am lovely and brave and crooked and banged-up and beautiful, and, yes, rounder than I used to be. I am wrinkly and stray-grayed and goofy-smiley and courageous and scarred and gutsy enough to make babies.
I began to learn to let myself be photographed, and I’m telling that story over at Emily Wierenga’s blog today. I hope you’ll join me there by clicking here.
Emily will soon release a book called, Mom in the Mirror.
ABOUT MOM IN THE MIRROR: After years of battling poor body image and low self-esteem, mothers and writers Dr. Dena Cabrera and Emily T. Wierenga have written a book to liberate women. To wake up the feminine soul, to mend the broken heart, and to breathe new life into a tired generation.
Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy is the long-awaited answer to the cry of today’s women:
Who Am I? Do I have Worth? And how do I love on my children when I don’t love myself?
I can SO relate to this one, Jennifer. I loved your author photos on the link! You are beautiful – inside and out.
Hi Jennifer…Another great blog from you! You are just too, too funny! How I wish I could hang out with you for a day!
On the serious side though, I completely relate. I have always hidden from the camera…any camera pointed my way. Always “too fat”, “no makeup”, “bad hair day”, “just plain ugly”, yadda, yadda, yadda! I’ve had the very same revelation and have ‘tried’ to remedy it as best I can. So few photos of me with my children as they were growing up AND with my husband as WE were growing up. When people want a photo, I’m still sending the one from 3 years ago on our daughter’s wedding day…’cuz I looked pretty darn good that day if I do say so myself. But I have no others worth passing along since that day.It is so sad to me that we know Who we belong to. We know how He sees us. We know He made us and fashioned us to be who we are, and yet we continue to struggle in accepting it for ourselves. I love your pledge which you repeat to yourself. I need me one of those, for I am bent and broken… and too fat. But I am who I am, and the older I get, the more I am forced to face it. It is what it is. I keep working on change, and what I cannot change, I must accept, amen?
I’m so glad there’s a ‘sisterhood’ out there!