What did you look like at my age, Mum?

What did you look like at my age, Mum?

My daughter asked me something this week that took me by surprise. It wasn’t anything that I was uncomfortable with, or anything that made me scramble for an answer, it was simple and kind of hit a chord with me. She asked me if I had any photo albums laying around that contained photos of me. When I asked what sort of photos did she mean, she said that she would love to see photos of me at her age, or any age for that matter. Her simple request got me thinking about the importance of having photographs of ourselves. I know most of us would have a stash of glossy 6×4 prints taken casually throughout our teenage years, but not necessarily anything special such as the photos that we’d have taken during a photo shoot with a professional photographer.

It dawned on me that not only did she want to see what I looked like in my younger years, but it highlighted the importance and value that she placed on the possession of these photographs.

They are memories, they are stories shared, they show that we did have a life before becoming a wife, a mother, a cook, a netball mum, a taxi-driver. Yes, we were teenagers, we were rebellious, we made mistakes, but most of all we lived our lives not all that much different to our teens today, well, except for the false eyelashes, social media and living life a little more publicly these days.

I’m going to dig out my old photo albums, and sit down with my daughter sharing a few laughs as she sees how much more innocent and less “Kardashian” we were in the 90s, but more importantly, I will share some stories of my youth and let her know that I was like her not all that long ago (well, not in my mind anyway!!).