(story by the amazing @MIr from Woulda Coulda Shoulda.com)
A few years back, my mother gave me my baby book. Inside I found twelve years of school pictures, and with them I could make a virtual flip book to page through my formative years. I could watch my hair go from short to long and back again. I could watch my wide, happy smile go from baby teeth to a jumbled mixture of permanent and temporary teeth and then… my smile disappeared for a while. It returns—post-orthodontia—at the end of high school. But even then, it's different.
It's not just that my teeth are straight in the later photos, either. You can see that I don't smile as widely or easily as I used to. The unselfconscious glee from my early days is just gone.
There's an argument to be made that very few of us retain our happy-go-lucky "oh yay, a camera! LOOK AT ME!" joy past kindergarten. Age and maturity mellow and dilute our enthusiasm, of course. But for me it wasn't just a getting-older thing. It was a growing awareness of my teeth and how prominent they were.
"Don't smile so wide," my mother would say, arranging me and my brother for a picture. "I'm seeing too much gum! Close your mouth!" She wasn't trying to make me feel bad, of course. I would sometimes stand in front of the mirror and practice smiling, to see if I could control the amount of teeth and gum that showed through my grin.
Maybe if that's all I'd heard, it wouldn't have bothered me. But at the same time, kids at school called me Bucktooth. If I said something and another kid wanted to mock me, they'd repeat my words while sucking in their lower lip to exaggerate their top teeth. I did have a pretty severe overbite, but I wouldn't have thought about it on my own. Had I not been teased, I'm not sure I would've thought about it at all.
By the time I started with retainers and headgear and my parents were, assumedly, making the orthodontist's boat payments, I'd learned to just keep my mouth closed for pictures. Or better yet—avoid being caught on film entirely. That was just easier. "I'm just not very photogenic," I would say, by way of apology.
Orthodontia concluded, and my teeth were finally straight. I still avoided pictures as much as possible. And I still believe—to this day!—that I'm not very photogenic. I'd always rather the camera be pointed somewhere else. For years I hid behind the lens, taking pictures of my kids. And then… I married a photographer. Whoops! Many a "disagreement" in our household stems from him begging, "Please? Let me take your picture. You look beautiful." I tell him he's legally obligated to say that, but he doesn't understand. My teeth! They're huge! My smile is all gummy! He rolls his eyes and says, "Whatever, Mir."
A couple of years ago, I joined one of those online picture-a-day memes in an effort to kind of get over myself. Every day my husband would take my picture, and as he talked to me from behind the camera, I would smile. Then I posted the pictures online, complete with commentary on what I was wearing (it was a clothing thing). More than comments on my outfits, I got comments on my smile. "You have such a great smile!" and "Your smile just lights up the whole room!" and "Wow, I can't even focus on what you're wearing when you're smiling like that." No one said my teeth were too big or that my smile was too wide.
I still catch myself dodging the camera, or looking at pictures my husband took and saying, "Ack, I look awful, don't you dare show anyone that one!" But I'm trying to change. When I think of the time I've wasted and the captured memories I ducked out of because I felt like my smile wasn't "good enough," that makes me sad. I don't look at other people's pictures and judge them, so why am I so hard on myself?
Of course, whenever it's time to take pictures of my kids, my daughter wants to hide. "My braces look stupid," she's grumped, on more than one occasion.
"No they don't," I've told her. "But even if they did? They don't change the fact that you are beautiful. And I want a picture of you." I hope she's hearing me. I'm trying to remember to listen to myself, too.
Is there one physical feature you struggle with accepting on yourself? What are you doing to make peace with it?
(Read more Mir here. You'll be glad you did.)
My proportions. When I was 12 my BFF told me I had short legs and a long torso. I don’t think she meant to scar me for life, but I swear I haven’t gotten dressed since then without thinking about what she said – or pulling my pants or skirt up to my nipples to make my legs look longer.
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Okay, so does admitting that change how you feel? Because waistline-at-the-nipples probably isn’t a good look.
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not looking to make peace with myself. I’m looking to change. One plus is that I’ve moved away from wishing and moved closer to doing. Still, pictures make me sad. I could be giddy about how much fun I had at a party and then a picture will completely ruin the memory for me. Completely.
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Change is cool, too, if it’s about setting healthy goals you can work towards and feel good about. But looking at a picture shouldn’t ruin a memory! I’m sure you’re your own worst critic (aren’t we all?).
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There’s a great lyric (great in that it’s so true) from a band called Of Montreal…”If I treated someone else the way I treat myself, I’d be in jail.”
Let’s not do that.
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I am always the photographer – rarely the subject. Not comfortable with any of it.
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Oh, ya, this one hits home. I hate, hate, hate myself in pictures. Without fail, my eyes are totally squinting and my cheeks are beet red. Fortunately, I usually am the one behind the lens.
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Oh, and… you are SO right! Why is it that EVERY OTHER HUMAN BEING looks perfectly FINE in photos, except me?!?!?!
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Because we’re totally comfortable being harsh on ourselves. I’m thinking that needs to change….
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I actually had massive trauma with my teeth early on as well! I started first grade with a retainer cemented in my mouth. The boys would tease me because the plastic made it look like I had dark spaces all over my teeth. They said I had a mouthful of cavities. Add in the headgear I wore when I went to bed, and my smile and I just weren’t friends.
These days, I still don’t smile with my mouth open. While I had an under-bite growing up, they managed to correct to the extent that my teeth actually meet. Problem being that they don’t meet in a straight line. There is a noticeable gap near the front that I can totally slip my tongue through.
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I bet no one notices that but you, though. Just like I notice that my bottom teeth are all crooked again (despite the orthodontia, my lower jaw is crowded and the teeth shifted again), but no one else does.
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My parents couldn’t afford braces, so I didn’t get them until I was 42. As a dental phobic, it was truly a something to endure for nearly four years – I’m always ready to flash a smile at a camera when asked!
However, I am very self-conscious about my thighs, they are there and VERY present, no matter my size! I can be a two or an eight and those ladies just won’t quit…I insist on photos from the waist up…or try to find a small child to hide behind.
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Sounds like your dazzling smile would be all anyone else would notice.
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Mine is my size which goes up and down and up and up and up. I really hate pictures of myself but finding so many pictures of my kids when they were small and, apparently, orphaned, also makes me sad. I can’t get those babies back to take a picture with their mama. My saving grace lately is that my kids are getting big enough to stand in front of me so I fell less awful about being in the picture. But only a little.
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I’m finding the whole “my kids may want a picture of us together” thing to be powerful motivation to get over myself.
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A friend of ours died really suddenly about 4 years ago. He had 4 kids, one of whom was only 2 or 3 at the time. Ever since then, we’ve made it a point to make sure we’ve got pictures with the kids…for them, and despite us, just in case something happens.
I know, it’s a bummer of a reference…but we’re always glad for the reminder to take and be in the pictures. you never know when an ice cream truck has your name on it.
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Oh man. You hit on two of my lasting childhood scars in one post, Mir. When I was a baby, I got sick and the doctor prescribed some sort of medication that weakened the enamel on my yet-to-grow-in permanent teeth. My teeth have thus always been susceptible to cavities, and they also, over time, got a little stained. In middle school, some kids started calling me Old Yeller because of my “yellow” teeth, and it’s stuck with me ever since. I’ve had them bleached, and people these days, when I mention it, seem completely shocked, “You have AMAZING teeth! What were they talking about?!” I’m mostly over it, but there’s still that little voice…
…and my SMILE! I have a pudgy face (family trait), and when I smile widely, my eyes completely disappear. Add to that a smile that’s a wee bit crooked, and I swear I’ve spent half my adult life trying to figure out how to smile in such a way that I look genuinely happy but also not crooked & eye-less! Several years ago, I decided that having photographic evidence of being HAPPY was more important than whether my face looked perfect, and I gave up trying so hard. Part of what cured me was taking wedding photos–I was SO HAPPY at my wedding, and I didn’t think once about how to smile–I was smiling from the inside out, and in the pictures I look so radiant. When I look at them, that’s all I see–not a crooked smile, not pudgy cheeks, and definitely not “yellow” teeth.
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Love, love, love hearing you talk about your wedding photos. That’s awesome!
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Did you really ask if there’s “one” physical feature? Sheesh! For me, there really are only two things I’d like to fix/change. My teeth and my -32AAAAAAAA breasts. I’m too afraid of dying during enhancement surgery or dying from silicone leakage, so at 37 I’ve pretty much learned to deal with the breast nonexistence (add in my 10 yr old who has more than me and we get into a whole other set of issues).
I am due to get braces (again) in September. Each time I’ve had them I’ve gotten pregnant early in and pregnancy gingivitis caused the gum tissue to swell over the brackets. Since I’m done w/the whole baby making (as is my decision THIS WEEK ONLY) I’m hoping three’s the charm.
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Ooh, this subject hits home. I’m usually the photographer, which has the lovely benefit of me never having to be in the pictures.
For me, it’s my weight. When I was at the impressionable age of 10, I was in a bathing suit and a relative commented that I had cellulite on my thighs in the back. I’ve never felt thin since, even when I have been. Even in pictures of just my face I see double chins (that may or may not really be there).
The lightbulb really went on for me a couple of months ago. My mom and my grandmother both died when I was in my early 20′s. Recently I went hunting to see how many pictures there are of the three of us. You want to know how many? 2. That’s it, and they are both from when I was very little. There both hated being in front of the camera, too, so pictures are rare, even of just me and my mom or me and my grandmother.
That hurts a lot, to not have that tangible record of me with them. I’ve resolved to let myself be in more pictures, and smile, so some day when I’m gone my kids aren’t sitting there wishing there were more pictures of me to show their kids.
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Get in the frame, Meghann! That’s a hard way to learn that lesson, though. I’m sorry.
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Sheer willpower and effort will not fix crossed eyes and straight, fine but cowlicky hair. Learning to somewhat tame the hair was hard enough, but even surgery was unsuccessful at completely fixing the eyes. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to even look at that. At least I know that the ones who can really like me for ME.
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Teeth ceased to be a problem for me once I figured out that I was expected to wear my retainer FOREVER after “serving my time” through the torture of braces. Offended at the deception and sure that I wasn’t looking for any public speaking or modeling careers, I stopped wearing the retainer. I was at peace with the “natural” position my teeth fell back into (which was still not as bad as pre-orthodontia).
The only body part that I have specific insecurity about is my thighs. (And my butt. There was a traumatic incident during third grade indoor recess, but that’s another story.) Big thighs run in the family, and unfortunately I chose the perfect two sports to exasperate that condition: Irish dance and horseback riding. Ugh. I don’t think I even own a pair of shorts.
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Ok, so you’ve got big thighs. Why’s that seem like a bad thing to you, Katy? It’s still summer, we say rock some shorts.
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I’ve noticed the lack of pictures of me and my kids lately, too, and I hate that. Whatever flaws I ‘think’ I have are miniscule compared to the joy of having pictures with friends and family. Thanks for the kick in the pants.
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Sounds like a lot of us have been hiding behind the camera!
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I’m getting married in 39 days (who’s counting?) for the 2nd time (EVERYONE’s counting) but am dreading having my picture taken. I’m very self-concious of my “bucky beaver” teeth, less-than-pert nose and eyes that almost disappear when I truly smile. Yes, most of it stems from childhood but you’d think at 36 5/6 I’d be more confident about those things. I’m not and scared of looking at photos from the wedding and the honeymoon and only seeing the things that I don’t like.
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Congratulations on your impending wedding! I have to tell you, I love most of the pics from my second wedding, just because I look so relaxed and happy in all of them. You will, too. It’s not about what you look like that day, it’s about how you’re feeling—which will hopefully be very joyful.
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I have one of those ‘miles o’ gums’ smiles, too. And if I really grin, my eyes disappear and I look totally loony. Have been meaning to work on developing a smile that’s photographable but that would require looking at myself in the mirror…
I have to say, Mir, when I look at photos of you, I just see a lovely, warm human being who looks like someone I would be proud to call my friend. Even with my own gum issues, I have never thought to notice whether yours are visible or not.
Like everyone else here, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my face. I’m no model, but I don’t scare children and small dogs in the street and that will just have to do.
Why are we all so hard on ourselves? We’re pretty!
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You’re extra pretty, in fact.
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Oh, Mir.
I had the comments, too, about my teeth. It’s a family thing, my teeth are actually subdued compared to some in the family. I have not had braces, my parents “couldn’t afford them” all the while buying things I didn’t think they needed. (As an adult, now, I understand you have to make choices.)
I also hid my smile, for probably twenty years. I am practicing a GREAT smile now, because my husband makes me feel loved and beautiful enough to not care anymore.
Also, my MIL commented on her teeth, something I’ve never, ever noticed, personally. And when my oldest girl got her top teeth, they were understandably HUGE. That’s the nature of getting adult teeth in a child sized mouth, right? She was worried about her teeth, but when I quizzed her on her closest friends’ mouths, she didn’t have a clue. I hope I proved to her that nobody is looking at her, we’re all thinking about ourselves.
The other comments are giving me courage to try braces at 31, anyway. I have an open bite and pretty severe TMJ, so the vanity bit is just a minor part of it.
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If you can afford to do braces now, I say go for it. Everyone I know who did it as an adult has had no regrets. (Not that you need to, of course. But if there’s medical stuff involved, two birds with one stone, right?)
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Yup, teeth. Despite years of braces, my front teeth are drifting further and further apart, a la David Letterman. I apparently press on them with my tongue in my sleep. Dentist can’t do anything simple- I’d totally wear a retainer again- so I probably won’t ever fix it. Then there are the increasing number of lines on my face which will only get worse. No, I never like photos of myself either.
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Is that what’s causing it for me? I never had braces (I have a slight overbite but didn’t care enough to ask for braces, and I don’t think we could have afforded them anyway). As I get older, my front few teeth are all drifting apart and have gaps in between them (except the one to the left that is drifting OVER another tooth for some reason). Dentists keep telling me I’m imagining, but I have photographic proof that my teeth used to have no gaps and now they do have gaps. Maybe I’m doing the same thing. Weird.
I hate photos of myself for many reasons: overweight, double chin, glasses, gappy teeth, crooked smile (thanks, Mom), surprised-eyes issues (thanks again, Mom), goofy expressions, crappy skin (thanks, medical issues), and so on.
I think Mir is right about our being more harsh to ourselves than other people are. I look at pictures of others and think they look normal, like themselves. I look at a picture of myself and hate every out-of-place hair.
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For my 50th birthday I bought myself orthodontia. I am missing both top eyeteeth because of genetics!! My older sister got braces in 8th grade (plus headgear, plus glasses – it was a traumatic year for her) & I was jealous that she was going to have nice teeth. I still have the braces & they’ve stopped telling me how much longer it’s gonna be.
I’ve avoided pictures all my life, except in 2nd grade, when I went for my school photo again on the day when only those who missed the official day were supposed to go. I really, really wanted someone to see my photos and tell me I was pretty. I only got in trouble.
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It’s so funny (sad) that our childhood traumas follow our kids. I unexpectedly got very curly hair at 10. And my mom had no idea how to handle it. She brushed it dry, she blow dried it with no product. She tried very hard and it resulted in my having Q-Tip Hair for YEARS. Now that I have my own curly haired girl, I’m hyper vigilant to the frizz. Naturally she already hates her hair (though good god, it’s gorgeous) and wants to straighten it whenever she can. Sigh.
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I have done SO MUCH WORK on loving my body. Despite being a healthy weight and maintaining good anthropometric numbers too (waist/hip ratio, waist circumference) I have wide hips and a substantial butt. It’s been that way since I was 12. After breastfeeding 2 babies, I don’t have the boobs to balance it out. And I live near Boulder, home to thousands of marathon running vegan moms who look like blond, tanned, spandex clad sticks of beef jerky driving hybrid SUVs with 2.5 organically fed children. Me? Not so much. Me as me, though? There’s nobody else I want to be and nobody else who will be Mama in pictures with my kids. That is a hard-earned truth.
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Hard-earned – and well deserved! Good on you, Carmie.
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I can sympathize on the teeth thing – my parents couldn’t afford proper dental care when I was a kid, and I had a “complicated mouth” anyway, as one dentist later said. My baby teeth never fell out on their own, and my adult teeth grew in anyway… kids at school said I had a shark’s mouth, because they were layered.
When I was in my teens, my parents finally saved enough for a dentist to pull all of my baby teeth, four each visit. These appointments were horrible; having four teeth pulled at a time meant a bleeding, swollen mouth and the inability to chew properly for days.
At the time, I volunteered to help conduct a children’s choir at my church and one of my little singers’ parents happened to be a dentist. She and her husband (also a dentist) took pity on me after seeing my mouth swollen one night in rehearsal and took over.
She ended up getting an orthodontist friend to give me braces at no cost – and I can’t say how thankful I am to both of those lovely, lovely women. I may have had braces until just before college graduation, but I have a decent smile now.
I can’t emphasize the increase in confidence that came with getting those braces off. I hope to one day be in a financial position to sponsor a good kid from a poor family in the same way.
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What an awesome story, love it!
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I seem to be in the minority, I love getting my picture taken. I think I have a great smile despite having an open bite big enough to put my tongue through when my teeth are closed but that’s not the thing I would change if I could. I’m rather self conscious about being 37 and still having acne and would totally love to have clear skin. I decided a long time ago not to let it stop me though so bring on the camera!
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I went through a major period of avoiding photos in my teens because I thought I was fat and ugly (oh, teenage self…) and now I just realize that I miss having the photos of myself, the proof I was there, the memory refresher … and I’ve learned how to “pose” in a more flattering way, like putting my shoulders at a bit of an angle, and holding my head up straight, and framing the photo from slightly above me, if I can! (Though I admit, I also hide behind the camera, from time to time!)
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My teeth, after two round of braces in high school (the second because I didn’t wear my retainer like I was supposed to), I still hate my teeth. After the 2nd round, I wore my retainer religiously until I lost it and couldn’t afford to get another. Well, now my teeth are just a bit crooked and my front teeth (to me) look huge and I hate them.
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We’re just kind of wishing we could get a big group picture of all of you. Smiling of course. Thanks to Mir (as always) and all of you for sharing.
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Glasses! In grade 10, my parents bought me contacts and I was over the moon. My confidence blossomed with that small change. I was already a geek, so I guess the glasses didn’t help that image
Over the years, I have become more comfortable letting people see me with my glasses. Course it helps that I can buy myself a new pair every 2-3 years so they are not horribly outdated (I think I had two pairs over my entire childhood!).
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Oh wow Mir, talk about hitting a nerve. I had braces three times growing up. In spite of that, and the fact that I now have a bonded retainer behind my upper teeth, I am really self-conscious about smiling. I have a huge smile, lots of teeth, and they’re really big. My front teeth are bigger than the teeth next to them, so although everyone (dentist included) tells me that’s normal, I seriously feel like a rabbit on crack every time I look at pictures of myself smiling. I’ve practiced smiling “smaller” in the mirror, but I can’t seem to pull that off without looking like a really sad, repressed rabbit, which is no good either. So yeah, I know I gotta learn to love myself and my smile the way it is, yadda yadda yadda, but dang, would I be really crazy for getting braces a fourth time?
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Just ONE thing?
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“My front teeth are bigger than the teeth next to them, so although everyone (dentist included) tells me that’s normal, . . .”
You know that’s supposed to be a feature, not a bug. Supposedly some folks get their front two teeth capped because it looks better (and younger). Younger ’cause the teeth wear down with age, and kids have bigger teeth.
My daughter has been told her teeth are too small (both by the orthodontist & by a friend like the one who tells a friend that their legs are too short). Apparently you can get your gums abraded to make your teeth bigger (a decision I’m definitely going to leave up to my daughter, along with the nose job).
I’ve always been happy with my teeth, and it’s been a long time when my body has disturbed me. But, I’m also always behind the camera. I think that for me, it’s really ’cause I look a lot better in my imagination than in the harsh light of pixels. I have learned not to complain about my picture being taken, and just let people take the picture. Since I’m the photographer (and, I’m good enough that I’ve managed to drive out the photo taking by most others in my social circle), though, I get a lot of control of the pictures.
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I spent 7th through 12th grades without wearing a dress because of a “toothpick legs” comment. Got sent to the principal’s office in 11th grade because my math teacher didn’t believe all 4’9″ of flat-chested me could be a junior. And the teeth… My parents couldn’t afford braces, either. Now I’m a 50 yr-old 5’4″ 36D, my 501s are 29×36′ and thanks to 2 broken front teeth (and $6,000) I have really nice top teeth (that still don’t line up with the bottom ones). And I make damn sure that I tell my kids how cute they are every day. The pictures, though, still don’t make me me happy, but deep down inside I know I look pretty good for 50 and, gosh darn it, people like me! Thanks for letting me think of how thankful and lucky I really am.
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Mine is my weight. I’m naturally tiny, and hover at around 100 lbs. It’s the only thing people compliment me on, though, and now I’ve become paranoid about gaining weight. When my dad took me to the doctor and saw that I had gained 2 lbs, he teased me and told me I was getting fat.
Extra weight does not look good on me. It hangs in odd places. My biggest fear is that I’ll one day lose the only thing I like about the way i look.
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