The Too Cute Family, Part Two

From the comments I've received, several readers have a problem with what I posted regarding the Too Cute Family. That my comments could be hurtful. Or, what if I should one day come down with a chronic illness, who would listen to me moan and groan about it? (I'm paraphrasing but the original comments are in the post below).

So, my looking at photos of children is my payment to others so that they'll listen to me moan and groan? Number one, I do have a chronic illness. I have it, but it doesn't have me. Number two, I don't moan and groan about it or bore people with details. Most people don't even know.

What inspired my original post was receiving the link to a family website that had 23 pages. Correction: 23 pages of thumbnails...each photo, about a dozen per page, had to be individually clicked on to view it. One reader said that it is easy to ignore websites (again, I'm paraphrasing the original comment). Not so in this age of stat counters that show where traffic comes from, ISP used, browser, etc. If you try to fake it "That one of Timmy going down the slide backwards was so cute," and that was the only photo you looked at, they come back with "Didja see the one of Susie with the clown, and the one of Timmy eating the snow cone, and the one..."

Most of the parents that I know, especially those with young children, seem to be making this photo thing a hobby. Scrapbooks, websites, email attachments, photos by the dozens when you meet them at the grocery store. I truly don't get it. And I am truly bored by it. I love hearing what my friends are up to, but it seems that all many of them are up to is photographing their children's every move. I asked a woman that I know "So, what have you been up to?" "I'm exhausted! All I do is take the kids to karate, soccer, swimming, art classes, gymnastics, drama, Kindermusic," etc., etc., etc. Sad that so many parents give up having a life once they have children. One can still have interests besides having children, without neglecting them. What a concept!

One website showed a little girl wearing not less than 15 outfits, mainly dresses. I remarked to the mother "Susie sure has a lot of dresses!" The mom then confides that Susie may only have one or two dresses...she "buys" clothing, hides the tags, has her daughter photographed in the clothing, and then returns the items to the store. Incredible. Seeing my shocked expression, she says "Oh, all the moms do it!" Not all the moms. It never occurred to me.

My beef is with the constant barage of photos, and videos. Being invited to the homes of some people for a meal ends up being pizza on our laps while watching videos of the Too Cute Family, and having to "oooh" and "aaah" over the videos. Then there are the video links to youtube they want us to watch. Don't these folks have a life? What are they going to do when these children grow up and don't want to be dressed up and photographed anymore? What are the parents going to do when the kids leave home? Kids do grow up, and too fast. I think that those are likely the parents who will suffer big time from the empty nest syndrome. And may be the meddling in-laws, destined to become out-laws.

The "too cute" family

From time to time, I receive emails from friends and family with photos of their children, or links to family websites. They are not interesting in the least, except maybe to immediate family. Why do these "Kodak moments" have to be shared on websites with anyone other than the immediate family? If they were interesting photos...The Louvre, for instance. Or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or the Grand Canyon, maybe. But no. Here's Mommy and Junior taking a nap. Here's Mommy and Sissy taking a nap. Here's Daddy and Junior taking a nap. Here's Daddy and Sissy taking a nap. What, no Mommy and Daddy taking a nap?

Why do parents, mothers, think the whole world is interested in seeing their napping pictures? "Look how cute we are!" is what they seem to be saying, but why? It never occured to me to take family nap photos, let alone think of sharing such photos with the world if we had taken such photos.

Here's Sissy in the sand. Here's Junior in the sand. Here's Daddy and Junior in the sand...Ooooh. The Cute Family at the beach. Quick, someone write a book with a Movie of the Week deal.

Then there's The Cute Family and birthday parties. They aren't interesting in real life, why would we care about photos of the parties? Dear Parent, most of us aren't interested.

Then there are the scrapbooks that the Mommy's of The Too Cute Family put together. Dear Parent, when you've seen one photo of your kid, we've seen them all. Twenty shots of the same kid standing on the same steps is a tad repetitive. I'm sure that you are aware of all of the nuances of your children's expressions, but they all look the same to us. Whole scrapbooks are tedious to sit through. We don't care where you got the special blue paper (unless we ask), or the little miniature sports stickers and doo dads. When I see the scrapbooks coming out, I quickly remember a dental appointment.

Not only are photos of other peoples kids boring, but I wonder about the "why" of the whole thing...why does the Too Cute Family (can't blame the kids for what the parents do) want the whole world to see them in the intimate moments of napping? Why do they want us to see the birthday parties, the gifts, every move they make? All kids have a First Day of Kindergarten/Preschool, why are we interested in yours? The only thing that I can think of to say is "That's too cute!"

I'm sure that you take that as a comppliment, Dear Parent. But think for a moment before sending out photos of the family that should stay in the family. What is it that you are saying by sending the photos out to the world? "Look how cute we are"? I take it as a form of showing off. Not an admirable quality. And those of us who do not engage in such showing off wonder what happened to your brain once you became a parent!