Lasers

To all my fellow children of the late 80's/early 90's, I'm sure most of you remember the totally rad laser backgrounds for school pictures. Everyone wanted them and the kids whose parents said no not only felt bad for themselves, were pitied by others or were made fun of. My mom wouldn't let my brother and I order the laser background one year and we were devastated.

She recognized the complete and utter tackiness but she couldn't ignore our absolute sadness (mostly from my brother) about getting the damned laser background. I'm pretty sure we have no idea where those pictures went (my mom probably buried them somewhere.) The fad quickly faded and so I began to cry over a lavender background. My brother no longer cared.

Now that my baby is growing up so quickly I can't even take it, she suddenly cares about the background of her school pictures. I instantly said no when she asked for a color background. I love candid shots. While her school ones will definitely go into her keepsake box, that's most likely where they will stay. There's a good chance I won't frame it. We order the lowest possible package. We simply do not care about the shots from picture day but now that she's older, she does. The look on her face when I said no was simply pathetic. I still didn't give in.  

Then I reminded her dad about picture day and he said he's going to buy the background for her and at first I thought, "Here he goes again, getting her whatever she wants." But then he went on to remind me of how important it was to all of us when we were kids. His reasoning didn't have as much to go with giving our daughter whatever she wants (definitely was part of it though) It was about her feelings and how important it must be to her, just like it was us.

So I was reminded of two things. One is that my ex-husband can occasionally be right. (Don't tell him I wrote that.) Second is that while our old school photos are hilarious and often embarrassing with those lasers, the upset over them back then was real. Just because my daughter is almost ten (holy crap) doesn't mean she doesn't have what we would consider valid stress. I laugh about the subject now but at the time those ugly laser backgrounds meant a lot. 

Just because these things seem so petty to us now, those childhood crushes, silly fights with friends or school picture backgrounds could create the type of reactions so similar to our own negative emotions but we adults don't see it that way. I'm not saying you must say yes to everything they want, but if it's something that won't break the bank and is super, super important to them, I say do it. When she gets older she will almost never remember these things but when she does she's going to say, "My dad let me get the teal background even though my bitch mom said no at first." And it will make for a better memory. 

Melissa Sue Vieira

Co-Founder of Storytellers:  The Collective

Melissa wears many hats.  
Some are super colorful and some are dark, just like her stories.  

She is a mother, friend, writer, survivor, warrior, yogi, listener, talker 
and a lover of all things art.