In addition to “Appa“, I’ve been working on another photo series that chronicles the life of my family. This time, I shined the spotlight on my two boys, Parker and Logan, but these aren’t the typical photos you’ll find on Facebook. Rather, I wanted to show the realities of parenthood, the other side if you will.
Here’s what I mean:
As parents we’re eager to share photos of our happy, smiling babies on Instagram or Facebook. But what’s the other side of parenthood like? For my husband and I, a large part of our time is spent consoling our children or reprimanding them. There’s that time Logan had a throat infection that was so bad, he screamed and cried when he had to take a sip of water and swallow a piece of food. Or when Logan wailed at the top of his lungs and bit and scratched Sam for a full 30 minutes while on the Wild Animal Park tram ride because he hated being in a confined space. (Sam still has the scars.) Or how can I forget the time Parker threw a toy truck at his brother and left him sobbing with a huge scar ripped across his face?
The meltdowns, the sicknesses, the time-outs, they’re the side of parenthood we just don’t talk about. These are the moments that take me to levels of frustration or sadness that I never knew existed. Just looking at these pictures reminds me of just how complicated parenthood is, how the love you have for your children is so deep that watching them cry in pain makes you wish you could trade places with them. These pictures also remind me of what a huge responsibility we have as parents, to raise our children with a sense of right and wrong, even when scolding them may cause them to break down and cry.
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