These viral photos show why moms aren’t in more pictures (and it’s so true)

Most moms have a camera roll full of sweet photos of their kids and partner, but what’s often harder to find is a photo of mama and the kids (at least one that’s actually good).

It’s not just that our partners don’t take pictures of us, it’s that when they do…well they’re not exactly portraits. More like portraits of chaos as Bethany Rose, the Instagram mama behind the blog Waves and Lilacs recently pointed out.

She posted side-by-side photos that she and her husband took of each other, adding this description: “When I take a picture of my husband that he didn’t ask for…When my husband takes a picture of me that I asked for.”

Commenters were quick to point out that Rose isn’t the only mama who had a camera roll full of not-so-great pictures snapped by their partner.

Comic artist Victoria Bolduc also summed this up in a drawing that social media users related to.

“Pictures that exist of my husband with the baby vs pictures that exist of me with the baby,” she captioned her drawing of a beautiful paternal portrait contrasted against a pretty normal (but certainly not photogenic) experience of early motherhood.

“I noticed there’s a MARKED DIFFERENCE IN THE PICTURES I TAKE OF MY HUSBAND AND THE PICTURES HE TAKES OF ME,” she captioned the same image on her Instagram account.

When Bolduc posted the photo to her art page on Facebook fellow moms came to the comments to note that “this is spot on.”
When the photo was later shared on Reddit the unanimous consensus was a hard agree.

“I’m constantly getting these amazing, meaningful shots of my husband with our kids. Then you look at the dozen or so photos my husband has taken of me with them, and I always have three chins and the kids are mid-blink,” one mom wrote.

Related: As a mom, I’m ‘Chief Memory Maker’—a job that is equal parts wonderful and hard

Another Reddit mom chimed in to add that she tries really hard to get great shots of her partner with their kids, but that he doesn’t do the same for her and she’s worried that “someday [their children will] look at photos and say ‘I’m so glad we had Daddy; Mom was never around.'”

Another mom chimed in with her story, explaining that her partner used to get frustrated when she would take photographs and tell her to enjoy the moment instead.

“Fast forward a few months and he realizes that we have a TON of pictures of him and our son and have NO pictures of me with our son that aren’t selfies and he says, ‘We really need to take more pictures of you two together.’ NO, babe. YOU need to take more pictures of us together!!!” she wrote.

Bolduc’s comic hit a nerve with these moms because it’s just so true—even for a superstar like Pink! In January 2018 the singer Instagrammed a video she’d taken of her husband, Carey Hart, with their son, Jameson.

“I hope one of [Carey’s] resolutions is to photograph his wife more. Just so people know I exist. Carry on…” she wrote.

We’ve said it before here at Motherly: Please take some (nice) pictures of mama and the baby.

As one Reddit user commented on Bolduc’s comic, it’s nice to have photos where mama isn’t breastfeeding with “straight nightmare face and hair is crazy. I mean thank you, but where do I hang this pic up?”

A version of this post was originally published March 5, 2019. It has been updated.