Mother of three Cyndy Gatewood is a professional photographer. “It was always just given that I would take the pictures,” the North Carolina resident tells Us Weekly. “Our entire beach trip last summer I was in a total of three shots and had taken more than 50 of the kids with my husband. But Christmases and birthdays are the worst as far as me missing from pictures. This is something I really regret.”
But that’s all changing. In June, Gatewood penned a Facebook post urging dads to take more photos of their partners with the children. “One night when she’s laying in bed reading a story to your daughter, whip out your phone and take a picture. Without warning. Without posing. Just take the picture,” she wrote. “When she’s in the kitchen talking to your son about his day, take the picture. If she’s rolling around on the floor with the kids or helping one with their homework, take the picture.”
She continued: “One day she’ll be gone and all the kids have left of her are memories. Take the picture. Take the pictures to show them the love she had for them. Take the pictures so they can always remember how silly she was. Take the pictures so they can see how beautiful she was. It doesn’t matter if she’s in her pajamas and on day 4 of dry shampoo, please, take the picture.”
Gatewood went on to reveal that she was 20 years old when her mother passed away. “All I have are pictures. I stare at pictures of her holding me in her lap laughing at something cute I must have said. I zoom in on pictures of her hands to see if I have the same ones as I’ve gotten older,” she wrote. “You can’t capture things like that in a selfie.”
The Christian blogger’s post went viral with 18,000 likes after it was shared on the Love What Matters Facebook page.
Gatewood tells Us she used to shy away from the camera because she has a social media mentality. “I know for me and many of my friends, when we think of our picture being taken, we immediately think they’ll be shared online,” she says. “We are now now in a generation where only ‘perfect’ pictures are being saved. But what we have to remember is it’s the life, the love, the laughter, the real raw emotion that we need to be capturing. Not just posed perfection. Our kids want to look back and see the us.”
