“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston

I don’t know about you, but for me, this year has been a tough one.  My little family has been through several upheavals, both personally and professionally, and so when the weekend for our yearly family photos rolled around, I was…not really feeling the brightest and most rosy-cheeked.  (The lingering headache and sniffles didn’t help either.)  Frankly, the thought of smiling for the camera felt like a hurdle; I was going to be lucky if I didn’t grimace, I was feeling so blue and green (see: headache, sniffles).

I wish I could say I had a bunch of tips and tricks for getting through it, but the truth of the matter is, I grin and bore it, and I’m secretly dreading seeing the final results because I felt like I got run over by a train that weekend, and I’m still recovering.  Honestly, by the end of the year rolls around and those holiday cards go out with whatever photo is deemed best of the bunch, I might still not have recovered from the wallops of the year.

For a moment, thinking about my own struggles and the holly jolly holidays coming up soon, I felt a pang of fear: would I ruin the holidays with my own particular sorrows and struggles this year?  Would my daughter look back on this holiday as a sad Christmas, as one where we were unsure of so many things, her mother fretting and chewing her fingernails down to the nubs with this worry and that worry, this uncertainty and that one?

I don’t think so.

And even if that were the case, would I have an obligation to hide my sadness from my child, bottle it all up?  For sure, my daughter isn’t equipped to really help me *deal* with any of the struggles of the past year (she’s not exactly a seasoned pro ready to pass down professional advice after all).  But I also don’t think I have a responsibility to be the holliest-jolliest version of myself if that’s not the truth of the matter.

I think it’s okay for my sadness to peek through sometimes.  To be human.  To acknowledge that sometimes, mama is tired, sometimes, mama is sad, sometimes, mama isn’t in the mood to sing along to Moana.  And then there are times when I’ll put on my makeup and straighten my cardigan and smile for the camera and make the best of things.  But most of all, I’m trying to allow myself to be my authentic self in front of my daughter, even when it means she sees me be sad or anxious, because who I am as her mother is a piece of the larger picture of who I am as a full person.

So if it’s your family photo weekend and you’re just not feeling it, or you’re having a rough day, and this year is a year that’s asking more questions of you than it’s answering, or you’re just bone-tired, what I want to say to you is simply this: it’s okay to feel all those things in front of your children.  Family portraits might capture a moment that’s not the most authentic, but we don’t have to extend the cozy autumn-lit family photo smile to the rest of our lives with our kids.  There’s this immense pressure to have that mood extend to all of motherhood — that hazy, comforting air of easy-breezy feelings evoked by those photos enveloping your family like a blanket at all times, and that’s just not realistic.

It’s okay to be your more authentic, human, full self in front of your kids.  I think I’d be more full of regret if my daughter went through life thinking that the self reflected in our family photos was the real me, instead of the more complete person I am the rest of the time.