A Defense of Family Photographs

After each major holiday on the American calendar, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram become filled with photographs of happy families enjoying the day. Then, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, come the denunciations of these platforms as phony, guilty of painting false narratives of American life and, worst of all, the sin of being…boring. I wish to offer a defense.

Long before the internet got invented by Al Gore, if you wanted to see family photographs you had to break out the moldy old picture album. This thing weighed ten pounds and had loose pictures falling out of it all over the place. You would sit on the sofa with ten other people all leaning in to catch a glimpse of old black and white shots of your glum looking grandparents dressed in wool suits in the middle of July. With each turn of the page the pictures looked less bedraggled and just a bit more clear, but still very few frivolous moments. Back then taking pictures looked to be deadly serious business, no time for tomfoolery. But then, somewhere around 1960, the photographs began to show signs of life. There were more shots of kids, dressed in more comfortable clothing doing more normal things. Less posing, more smiles. With each turn of the page and each subsequent decade the pictures became more entertaining. Then suddenly…color. All bets were now off. It became a free for all of goofiness. Thats when the ten people on the sofa began to laugh and point and say, “remember when?”

But nowhere in even the oldest family photo album will you find somber shots of your Aunt Ruth trudging across the courthouse parking lot, leaving her divorce hearing. Nobody ever took a candid picture of your Mom and Dad in a knock down drag out fight over the family finances. There aren’t any photographs of your sister sobbing in her bedroom after her boyfriend broke up with her. No one ever thought to bring a camera along when the family dog got hit by a car and had to be removed and buried in the back yard. There are several good reasons for these omissions from the official record. First, its none of anyone else’s business. For another thing, why on earth would any family wish to immortalize their dirty laundry for perpetuity on the public record?

So, families have been careful what images they allow outsiders to see long before Zuckerberg came along, and I for one am eternally grateful for this discretion. Nobody cares or desires to hear or see other people’s dysfunction for the simple reason that we have plenty of our own to work through. When I see thousands of photographs of happy people sitting around Thanksgiving tables, I smile and am glad to see them all together. At the same time, I am grateful that they weren’t stupid enough to publish the screaming, alcohol-fueled political debate between Uncle Ben and Aunt Betty.

When I often hear the phrase, keeping it real, my eyebrows raise a bit. Really? Do we really want people on social media to keep it real? A quick google search of social pathologies plaguing the American family will disabuse you of any desire to keep it real. I’ll take the pictures of three generations of Smith’s sitting on the front steps of the house any day of the week and twice on Sundays compared to some somber testimonial to despair.

So, keep those beautiful family shots coming people! I love them all.