In May 2018 a mother named Kelsey Carder shared a candid photo her husband had taken without her knowing: Carder straightening her hair in the bathroom while her toddler son, Kane, stood behind her copying every move with her small travel straightener. Her message, published by the parenting site Love What Matters, was simple. Dads, and anyone else holding a phone, should take more pictures of the parent who is usually behind the camera, especially in ordinary, unposed moments.
The post spread widely because it put words to something many families notice only years later, when they scroll back through their albums and find one parent almost missing. Here is what Carder said, why the problem is so common, and some easy ways to fix it in your own family.
The photo and what Carder wrote
The picture is nothing special in the usual sense. It is slightly blurry, taken down a hallway, with a child's potty seat on the floor and a dark-coated pet wandering past. Carder, in a T-shirt, is mid-routine at the mirror. Kane, in a blue top, stands at her feet, arm raised, mimicking her.
Carder admitted the image was not flattering, but said she loved it anyway. She described her son as her constant shadow, a little boy who imitates whatever she does, and she realised that this was exactly the kind of moment that would vanish from memory if nobody recorded it. Polished selfies, she argued, are not the photos children treasure as adults. The ones that matter show real daily life.
She then addressed fathers directly. Her point was that mothers are so often the family photographer, busy making every occasion look right, that they rarely appear in the record themselves. In her words, the moments worth capturing are "unplanned, but perfectly imperfect": a parent on the floor playing, cooking in a messy kitchen, or soaked from bath time.
Photo: Kelsey Carder, via Love What Matters
Why one parent disappears from family photos
Carder was not the first to raise this. In late 2012 writer Allison Slater Tate published an essay in The Huffington Post called "The Mom Stays in the Picture", about avoiding the camera because she disliked how she looked, and about how her children would one day want photos of her anyway. According to her university's alumni magazine, it became the site's most popular piece, was read by millions in its first week and was shared hundreds of thousands of times. Many readers pledged to stay "in the picture".
The pattern behind both posts is easy to see once you look for it. In many households one person, often but not always the mother, takes most of the pictures. That person ends up documenting everyone else's childhood memories while appearing in very few. Add a common reluctance to be photographed without makeup, in old clothes or during a hard week, and whole years can pass with almost no images of them with their children.
Nothing here is unique to mothers. Single parents, grandparents who babysit and fathers who are the family's keen photographers can all vanish from the archive in the same way. The useful question for any family is simply: who is missing from our pictures?
Why candid photos often matter more than posed ones
Posed photos record events: birthdays, holidays, first days of school. Candid ones record relationships, the small routines that make up most of family life. A child imitating a parent's hair routine says something about how that child learned and who they watched, which is why Carder's picture struck such a chord.
They also tend to age well. Clothes, haircuts and furniture that look ordinary today become fascinating details in twenty years. The cluttered background people try to crop out is often the part relatives later linger over, because it shows the home as it really was.
There is an emotional side, too. Many people who have lost a parent say the photos they value most are not formal portraits but the casual ones that show how that person moved, laughed and spent their days. Being in the picture is a gift to the people who will one day look back for you.
How to take more everyday photos of the whole family
A few habits make a big difference without turning family life into a photo shoot:
- Swap the camera. Agree that whoever usually takes the photos hands the phone over at least once during every outing or busy afternoon.
- Shoot the routine, not just the event. Breakfast, bath time, school runs, homework at the kitchen table and bedtime stories are the scenes that disappear fastest.
- Use a timer or a small tripod. A cheap phone stand lets the regular photographer join the frame without relying on anyone else.
- Let children take pictures. Kids photograph their parents far more naturally than adults do, and the slightly odd angles are part of the charm.
- Resist deleting the "bad" ones straight away. Give an unflattering candid a week or two before you judge it; many become favourites later.
- Try short videos. A ten-second clip of a laugh or a voice can mean even more than a still image years from now.
Asking first and keeping photos safe
Carder loved the surprise picture, but not everyone feels the same. Some people genuinely dislike candid shots, especially on difficult days, and that preference deserves respect. A gentle compromise is to keep candid photos private by default and ask before sharing them anywhere public.
Children deserve the same thought. Photos posted online can be copied, saved and resurfaced long after a child has grown up and might prefer they were gone. Keeping most everyday family pictures in private albums, and avoiding details such as school names or home locations in public posts, protects them while still preserving the memories.
Finally, make sure the photos survive. Phones break and accounts get locked. A simple routine helps: back up the camera roll automatically, keep a second copy on another service or drive, and print a small selection each year. Write names and dates on the back or in the file name, because the people who will treasure these images most may not be able to ask you who is in them.
The point of Carder's post
Stripped down, Carder's message is about balance. A family archive should include everyone who made the family what it was, including the person who spent years holding the camera. Her own example shows that the best photo does not have to be planned or pretty; it only has to be taken. As she put it, the everyday shots are the ones "she will cherish forever".
Sources: Love What Matters, 3 May 2018: To all the dads out there reading this… take more pictures (story and photo by Kelsey Carder); Princeton Alumni Weekly: Tiger of the Week, Allison Slater Tate '96.
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