Husbands, *this* is why we need you to take more pictures of us

Dear Husbands, this is why we need you to take more pictures of us.

The other day, I was on a walk with my husband and I was showing him some of my favorite photos of him and our son together. I had hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of off-guard moments between the two of them, candid snapshots that showed him in a natural realm of being a father.

After showing him a handful of favorites, I asked him how many photos he had of me and our son, already knowing that it would most likely be few compared to my many. When he opened up his phone gallery and scrolled through photos, he found one. Just one. One unposed, genuine moment of me carrying our son in my arms. 

Related: Dear husband, thank you for taking the picture

Out of 14 months of being a mother, countless days and hours and minutes and seconds spent in the depths of motherhood—he had only one photo to show for it.

I can’t lie, I kind of felt a little discouraged at that moment—all of which I expressed to my husband. Because while I had beautiful selfies and posed images of my son and I on my phone, none of them captured the raw and vulnerable moments of being a mother. 

None of them captured those 3 a.m. feedings or my child waking me up with a kiss on the cheek.

Related: The rawness of motherhood cracks your heart wide open

None of them made me question why in the world my husband thought the moment was beautiful enough to capture me in the same clothes I had worn for the past two days—dried milk stains and spit up all over.

None of them weren’t an attempt of me trying to catch the “perfect” photo to encapsulate the memories of motherhood.

Even the photos of me with no makeup on and my hair all over the place were still angled a certain way to capture my “good side.”

All of them were tried. Planned. Full of effort.

Not natural, candid and off-guard. 

We want more photos of us with our babies. Unstaged. Unsolicited. Unexpected.

It was in that moment that I realized those were the photos I was missing—and so desperately yearning for. And I know that I am not alone. Because mothers everywhere share this plea.

We want more photos of us with our babies. Unstaged. Unsolicited. Unexpected.

Related: As a mom, I’m ‘Chief Memory-Maker’

Dads, we don’t need the staged photos that you’re reluctant to even take sometimes. We don’t want to always have to pay a family photographer to capture our moments together. And as jarring as this may sound, we don’t always want you in the photo with us. Sometimes, we just want pictures of us—a mama bear and her cubs. 

We need you to take more pictures of us so that we can see motherhood from a different angle.

We need you to take more pictures that are unasked for, that allows us to see what being a mother looks like through someone else’s eyes.

This is why we need you to take more pictures of us. This being that we want pictures that aren’t just selfies—and there are so many that we’re unable to take ourselves. 

Related: This mama perfectly explains how time changes when you become a mother

So dear dads, take the picture. Please. Give us these memories to live from—and reminisce on when we need a reminder of why motherhood is one of the best things.

We want the memories of imperfect moments, of overcoming obstacles and celebrating small victories. We want you to randomly send us a photo of our toddler jumping on us, or our teenager wrapping us up in the biggest bear hug. Because these are the moments that we will truly admire. The moments that we didn’t know were captured—but are so thankful that they were.

So dads, take the picture. If no one else has told you—these are just a few of the reasons why.