Look at ME

I ran across a link to this blog, (which I’ve never read before and know nothing about) and a discussion of how funny these pictures were. Of course I had to click to see what they were talking about. I viewed the pics in shock and disgust and couldn’t stop laughing at some of them. Click here to view--You simply cannot miss these!

These images were all pulled from awkwardfamilyphotos.com. I then visited that site for the first time, and the girls and I proceeded to laugh our asses off while we looked at the pics. It’s worth a visit!

While some of the poses and configurations are clearly “WTF are these people thinking pictures!”, I have to admit that the whole trend of pregnant belly photos confounds and repulses me, quite frankly. I know many who agree completely with my opinion, but the fact that many people have such photo sessions makes it clear that there are many who do not agree. I was tempted to assume it was a generationally based difference, but then my daughters and some of Dej’s friends expressed the same thoughts as I have on this issue. First, “EWwww!”; Then, “Why?”

It strikes me as flat-out narcissism, which seems to be running rampant in my daughters’ generations. Dej used to show me many of her friends’ FB photos. Many of these girls had hundreds(!) of photos of themselves in different poses with different facial expressions—the most commonly seen being the strangely popular puckered-lip duckface pose. I saw that L had taken two photos of herself with our dogs with that exact expression. Her little blogger friends have profile pics where they are making this face, so she decided to try it for herself. I’m not happy about that, but not sure it’s worth making an issue of as it’s harmless overall (unless she shows other symptoms of being self-obsessed). The pregnancy photos strike me as the grown-up version of the stupid duckface.

My theory is that the exact same type of woman who takes the trying-to-be-artsy-but-gross pregnancy portraits are the exact same personality-type as the duckface gallery girls.

I understand the narcissism from the teen/very young adult population. Most of them will outgrow it. My concern is with these pregnant adults. Who are these pictures for? Who wants to look at your stretched-out giant belly. Jesus! I didn’t even like to look at my own when I was pregnant. It’s disgusting, and I didn’t have stretch marks. It’s giant, pasty, and looks like it’s about to pop, the navel—too disgusting for words. There is nothing beautiful about an overloaded abdomen. The reason for the stretched out disgusting belly may be beautiful, but this is not a picture of the baby.

I can’t (and don’t want to) imagine a world where adults are sitting around saying things like, “Oh, if only I had a picture of my mother’s bare belly when she was pregnant with me, I would be complete.” I have heard and understand adult women wondering things like how their mother carried them, how big she was, etc.—all things that can be observed from a tasteful, clothed picture.

My children would really rather think that they were miraculously dropped, clean and clothed, by a stork than think that they lived inside my body and arrived via a vagina. Neither of them express any sadness that there are no portraits of my pregnant belly or sculptures of it around the house. Do these people have any idea how horrified, embarrassed, and repulsed their future child will be by photos like this?

What is the intent then? These people paid photographers and purchased photos for what? Do they really display the photo of naked mom, with breasts being held/covered by naked dad on their mantle? Do they think that their relatives will hang them up with the rest of the family photos?

Nobody wants to see these, with the possibility of yourself and your partner. If you feel the need to take them, don’t make others look. I can’t help but wonder what kind of parents these people will be. Such narcissism and insensitivity to others (especially the future children) doesn’t make for a very good parent! It’s hard to see your child and their needs if you can’t look away from yourself.

I'm waiting for the next logical step in the vain public documenting of private events...the conception portraits (though some of these pregnancy photos wander dangerously close to this already). "...and this is the position we started in (look at the camera, honey)" *CLICK* "...then daddy needed a little more traction so he slipped his boots on and we bent over like so ..." *CLICK*