The Myth of the Perfectly Happy Family | NJ Family Photographer Pamira Bezmen
"The Myth of the Perfectly Happy Family" by New Jersey's award-winning family photographer Pamira Bezmen
Those photos that make you smile on Facebook. The ones that give you an envious twirl in your stomach. The curiosity, the questions that kill...
"Is she always that gorgeous?"
"Look at the way he's holding her hand, with such tenderness... I wish my husband held my hand like that."
"See that perfectly poised little girl. Wish mine would sit still for a minute, and not have crusty crumbs around his nose all the time."
"Ugh, seriously, how can she have all that time to go out that much to all those places?"
Oh how pretty the smiles, warm the hugs, sweet the love, tight the bond...
Of THOSE people. Those impossible people who have come up with the secret to a perfectly happy family. And here are the photos to prove it.
But how???
Maybe if I had a nanny, or a husband who would just hold my hand a little bit every day. If we went out more often to spark things up. If we had sex more often. If our kid went to sleep at 7pm every night and picked up her toys, never flooded the kitchen with water at 11pm playing dinosaurs and mermaids. Or maybe if our families lived closer, or if we had more friends, better friends...
Maybe we made all the wrong choices. Wrong partner, wrong city, wrong life...
Sigh...
As loving and non-jealous a person as I am, I still hear voices like these in my head sometimes. I don't invite them, but they come.
Then I pay attention to our own family portraits, what WE post on Facebook, and what our friends say about them.
I realize, WE ARE those impossible people who have the perfect happy family - at least to the outside world.
They generously write loving and kind comments under our photos like:
"Gorgeous family"
"May your happiness last forever"
"What a happy perfect family, looking at you makes me smile"
"You are a ball of warm fuzzy love. Super!"
...Embroidered with countless little smileys and red hearts...
Reading these comments warms my heart. It also reminds me that this is part of what I do.
I am in the business of "Creating the Myth of the Perfectly Happy Family" for each of my clients.
Because we all need to know that we belong in a web of perfect, unshakable love - one where we all look gorgeous to one another, and our love is strong. Nothing in the world can harm us as long as we are in one another's embrace. All crazy things aside, we are one face and one body when we stand together. We are a family.
I am in the business of creating the Myth of the Perfectly Happy Family.
For ourselves and for our children.
They need to grow up KNOWING for darn sure how their parents adore them, and how when we laugh together, the whole world stops turning. That we are all gorgeous when we are loved and happy.
Is there a perfect family? Don't we all have issues, arguments, character flaws, and weaknesses? Don't we all at some point wonder off to alternate dimensions in our imagination where we are in someone else's perfect, happy family photo? Don't we each wish things were a little like this and a little like that? At least sometimes in life?
I believe we do. And I think it's a part of being human. We all seek happiness and protection. We are not jealous, but we look up to images of stories that look "complete" with whatever we think we may be missing. For some of us they may be few, for some others they may be many.
Yes, of course, in the end, happiness comes from within, and no one ends up in anyone else's portrait. Because if we can't make happiness in our own portrait, we sure can't make it happen in someone else's. Also there is no such thing as switching places, but that's an obvious limitation of the three-dimensional human existence, at least for the time being.
The truth is that we all have the perfect family. Perfect happiness is in each kitchen, playroom, bath time, and bed-time story. It runs in the woods, plays in muddy puddles, and eats chestnuts snuggling on the couch.
It refuses to brush teeth and cries over the color of socks. It throws a tantrum for being late to work and then demands tacos for dinner. It spends too much money on something no one else cares for. It wants to be thinner, taller, blonder, tanner. It drinks wine and cries over The Sound of Music and it complains that everything is out of control. It fantasizes over superheroes and ex-lovers then falls in love with a hand-made heart made of play dough.
The perfect family is a messy one. It comes with under-eye circles from lack of sleep, arguments, crayon drawings on the walls, and tears.
We are human, and it is all in one.
However, what we seek to confirm, remind, and remember forever is the perfection - and the perfection lies in the HAPPINESS - of the family.
I know you all have plenty of photos on your iPhones of your messy walls, chocolate covered mouths, and breakfasts in sweat pants. The lovely mess that we can't be without.
I am in the business of creating and helping perpetuate the myth of the perfectly happy family.
I am so glad I am able to do it for my own little imperfect, messy family. Because there is so much love in here that it has to be documented, glorified, polished, framed, and hung on our Facebook walls and at home.
This myth will give my daughter the self confidence to go out to the world, knowing that she has everything she needs to do whatever her big heart desires. I got this torch of unconditional love from my own parents, with a rock solid belief that I grew up in the most perfect, happy family. I intend to pass it on to my own little one, so she can enjoy the treasure I enjoyed.
I am in the business of helping you write and tell your own myth. To your children and grandchildren.
The myth of the perfectly happy family.
Only it's not a myth. It is merely what we all have. Just not 100% of the time.
Love,
- Pamira
