(I stole this post title from a Jim Croce album title–I hope he doesn’t mind)
I had a particularly rough time with the kids this past weekend–they all just seemed to be in horrible moods no matter what I did. So, needless to say, at times like this, I start taking stock of myself as a father–a role that I take extremely seriously and work really hard at. And I’m wondering if I’m really as good a father as I think I am and strive to be. Is my children’s behavior an accurate reflection of my efforts, or am I expecting too much of myself and reading too much into their behavior after a trying weekend?
When I got to work this morning, I logged on to Facebook to check for updates, and I saw that one of my Facebook friends had changed his profile pic to one of him with his young son, and they’re both smiling and laughing for the camera. So I began looking around my office at my own framed snapshots with my children’s beaming faces and even my own smiling back at me. And I got to thinking about photographs and their significance in our lives.
There’s a line from the movie One Hour Photo, where Robin Williams’s character (Sy Parrish) makes the following observation (from IMDb):
“Most people don’t take snapshots of the little things. The used Band-Aid, the guy at the gas station, the wasp on the Jell-O. But these are the things that make up the true picture of our lives. People don’t take pictures of these things.”
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been experiencing too few of the “photographable” moments in my life lately. Perhaps this is normal and should be acceptable–but it doesn’t feel acceptable to me.
Is it unreasonable for me to want and expect more of these “photographable” moments with my family? Do I need to be taking measures to create an environment that fosters more of these memorable moments? How do I do that when every time I suggest a family outing to the park or some other venue, it usually winds up being complicated by varying degrees of protest and cooperation. Shouldn’t these “Kodak moments” just happen naturally as a part of our daily lives, or do I need to be even more active in creating an environment or staging situations for these moments to happen?
Worse yet, am I going to regret it someday that I didn’t devote more effort to documenting my family’s life through photographs and video? Or am I better off just savoring the moments for what they are without the added task of documenting them?
I don’t know…