Why Good Photos Make Us Feel Bad
May 4, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Hello, love bugs and welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
You got your sexy voice on right now, honey.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you. Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, oh. okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Now that I know how to talk dirty from our episodes-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, Lord.
Glennon Doyle:
… which I am still recovering from.
Amanda Doyle:
Please see prior episode with Vanessa.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, what you don’t know is when that episode went live, I was a horrible person in my home that morning. I was so vulnerability hungovered.
Do you remember that, babe?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I was oh.
Glennon Doyle:
You do this podcast and it’s a cone of safety and love. You feel as if you’re in this room with the pod squad, and so you can talk about anything and do anything.
Glennon Doyle:
And then Abby and I go out into the world. What I want the pod squad to imagine is going to your kid’s school event that night feeling normal because you’ve forgotten what your job is.
Amanda Doyle:
And the PTA president is like, “It feels good when you go slow.”
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Or they’re giggling at you, just giggling.
Glennon Doyle:
Or people will say, “You’re so brave.” Nothing scares me more than when someone says you’re so brave because that just means you’ve done something that you shouldn’t do.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, foolish. You’ve done something foolish.
Glennon Doyle:
That other people who are wise would never do.
Glennon Doyle:
Or it’s like… Okay, for example, talking about my mental health or the anorexia stuff. It’s one thing you’re talking about sex and everyone’s giggling and like, “Oh, my God.”
Glennon Doyle:
But then also when we air something that’s deep and personal, people will come up to me with this look of just sadness, and I’ve forgotten what’s going on. I’m just out in the world. People are handing me a flower. Are you okay? Anyway.
Amanda Doyle:
And you’re like, “What episode are you on,” so I know how to answer that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly.
I’m doing well this morning while, as Abby knows because that’s where I was for the last 15 minutes, I just finished my day 18 of a 21-day meditation challenge.
Abby Wambach:
What happens on day 22?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I don’t know. I probably won’t get there for six more months because I started… You guys, I just checked, when I started this 21-day meditation challenge was on December 4th, 2022. It’s been six months, and I’m on day 18.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it doesn’t need to be consecutive. You don’t want to overdo it. You don’t want to rush things.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, I think it is supposed to be consecutive.
Glennon Doyle:
It doesn’t say that.
Abby Wambach:
I know, but I think that it’s implied.
Glennon Doyle:
It doesn’t say it. 17 days in six months is better than no days.
Abby Wambach:
It’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Abby Wambach:
It’s true. That’s really good.
Glennon Doyle:
How are you two doing, Sister? How was your vacation? You were just on vacation.
Amanda Doyle:
We just had a trip for spring break.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God.
Glennon Doyle:
Not a vacation.
Abby Wambach:
It’s not a vacation-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a a trip.
Abby Wambach:
… unless you’re alone.
Amanda Doyle:
And luckily our flight canceled, so we spent two solid days trying to figure out another flight. We were actually considering getting in the car and driving to meet our connection flight and on hold with the airlines for seven hours.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, there’s a problem there. We should just footnote. Can someone please fix that industry? Because how are they? Hire more people. They’re like, “We can’t get to you for six hours.” It’s like, yes, you could if you had the appropriate number of people answering the phone.
Glennon Doyle:
My favorite-
Amanda Doyle:
It’s not impossible. It’s not an act of God.
Glennon Doyle:
My favorite is, this has happened to me twice. Go up to the ticket place, say, “I’m here for my flight.” And they say, “We don’t have a seat for you.” I say, “Oh, no, no, I bought a seat.” And they’re like, “Yeah, we see that. We just couldn’t keep it.”
Amanda Doyle:
Right. The important part of the reservation is the keeping of the reservation. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
No accountability. Zero accountability.
Amanda Doyle:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like the weather reporters. Weather reporters, they can just say whatever the hell they want. No accountability.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, and unfortunately the weather people and the airline people are in cahoots to ruin our lives.
Amanda Doyle:
I say to John, I say, “With this kind of logistical nightmare and frustration, I could get that for free at work.”
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
Why am I going to pay money to get this thing that I get on the regular just as part of my daily life?
Amanda Doyle:
But luckily, we get there. Then the next day we have pictures on the beach. “Free” pictures on the beach. Which means they don’t charge you for that, but then they charge you a mortgage payment for procuring the pictures after they take them.
Amanda Doyle:
And Alice proceeds to vomit on the beach-
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no.
Amanda Doyle:
… while the woman is taking our pictures.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, please tell me you got those photos.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes because those would be worth the money.
Amanda Doyle:
The lady stopped taking them.
Abby Wambach:
That’s like the best 30-year-old looking back at the trip you took.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, no. Was she sick or just upset?
Amanda Doyle:
She was sick, and then she slept for 12 hours. I’m like, “Well, that’s really expensive nap we’re taking for this week.”
Amanda Doyle:
But it just got me thinking about pictures, and I think we should talk about pictures in picture day. Because it’s like we’re trying to document the best moments of our life, but they’re the worst moments of our life.
Amanda Doyle:
I’ve never been more angry and frustrated with my family than when we are taking the beautiful, loving family photos.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve seen it in action.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve seen in action.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve seen Amanda in action.
Glennon Doyle:
And by the way, poor Sister, because there’s only been three times that we’ve ever taken a picture of our family, right? It’s never happens.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s why it’s so fraught.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m like, “This is my one for this half decade. Make it good, assholes.”
Glennon Doyle:
So the three times around Christmas that we have tried to get a picture, the second someone says, “Let’s get a family picture, Sister’s husband looks terrified.”
Amanda Doyle:
PTSD.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Terrified.
Abby Wambach:
I have PTSD watching it.
Glennon Doyle:
Terrified because…
Glennon Doyle:
Well Sister, why don’t you explain in your own words what happens in your body when you are trying to get a family picture?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, it’s really just feels like I’m not throwing away my shot. This is my one chance and everybody sit and look like we love each other and be the appropriate distance from each other. Just while I’m asking is for one second to look in the same place. Just one second. Don’t look miserable, and look in the same place.
I don’t think that’s a hard thing to ask every five years.
Glennon Doyle:
No, I don’t.
Amanda Doyle:
I really don’t.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s deeper. I think it’s like a symbol or a microcosm of what you feel all year. Which is, why doesn’t anyone fucking care about this as much as I do? Why won’t anyone put in a goddamn effort to be a family that it takes from everyone? You think?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, yeah. Pull a little weight, you small people and you large person. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
One thing that actually has happened to me recently, because I’ve been looking through a lot of old family photos and photo albums, I have always been the person in this experience that’s like, “This is not that fucking big of a deal. Can’t we just be here with each other and not need to document it?” That’s been my mentality.
Abby Wambach:
But after looking back at these photos, and now I’m getting a little bit older, I’m like, “Oh, these moments to capture and to remember,” because you forget. We don’t remember everything. And when you see the photo, it’s a chance to remember. What we are, I feel, is just a whole bunch of memories, our whole lives.
Amanda Doyle:
And most importantly, we’re not remembering the memories. We’re remembering what we see in the picture as if it represents the memory. That’s important.
Amanda Doyle:
For example, if we get a picture from the beach trip, I’m going to say, “Hey baby, remember this was the best day of your life.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
She’s going to be like, “Yes, it was.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so true because, and Sister, we’ve talked about this so much. I’m going to say it’s a little bit different now because the kids are older. But when for most of our family life, when I’m on a trip with the family, I am not enjoying myself. In the moment, I am not having fun. Trips with families are not fun. If it’s fun for you, congratulations.
Glennon Doyle:
But in the moment it’s not. It’s like you’ve paid this money. You want everything to be perfect, your people suck. It’s so much effort.
Glennon Doyle:
But something magical happens afterwards, and you’re like, “That was so fun.” It’s the after. It’s retroactive joy. It’s not joyful in the moment, and the picture represents that retroactive joy. We just replace all of our miserable memories with that one shot, which is why we-
Amanda Doyle:
We don’t have proof of your misery. All we have is proof of this really smiley picture. It’s your memory versus this picture, and we’re going with the picture.
Amanda Doyle:
I had a recent actual picture epiphany because… This is outside of the family picture phenomenon, which is just too fraught. We’d need an expert on to really delve deep into that one.
Amanda Doyle:
But we do twice a year pictures at school, the kiddos, and it’s always picture day coming up. You have to sign up for the thing. They’re like, “If you want three pictures, that’ll be $750,000.” If you want-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s much you love your kid. How much do you love your kid?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it’s exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Because if you love your kid, you will order the $786 package.
Amanda Doyle:
Are you going to get the one with emblazoned and foiled gold or not?
Glennon Doyle:
It comes with four jog leashes with their kid’s face on it and 16 Christmas ornaments and a dreidel.
Amanda Doyle:
But recently, so again, we don’t have many pictures of our family. Actually, my kids keep asking every time the holidays come around. We get all the pictures in the mail of people’s cards and my kids are like, “Huh, when are we going to do one of these?”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s like-
Amanda Doyle:
I’m like, “Oh, eventually, eventually.” Bobby’s like “I’m 10.” Well, let’s wait till you’re 11. We don’t want to push it.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s like Amma. She’s always like, “Where are the pictures of me?” And I just show her pictures of Tish when Tish was a baby and say the-
Amanda Doyle:
They look very similar.
Glennon Doyle:
They do. No one can prove it.
Amanda Doyle:
No, exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s picture day. We pick out the clothes for Bobby and Alice, pick out Alice’s clothes. I braid her hair, put her in the dress.
Amanda Doyle:
She gets home from picture day and she sits me down like she’s going to tell me something important. She goes, “Mom, actually I am really not a dressy person. I’m more of a casual person.”
Glennon Doyle:
Is that what she says?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
God, that girl.
Amanda Doyle:
She said, “I’m more of a casual person.” And she said, “Is it okay if I don’t wear a dress for picture day anymore? Will that make you sad?”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, wow.
Amanda Doyle:
I had this crazy experience, because I was on many levels of course, and I was like, “Of course you can wear whatever you like to wear on picture day.” I said to her, “What I want is a picture that looks like you, not to make you look like a picture I want,” which is what I had been doing.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s such a wild thing. A picture is supposed to document a person, but I wasn’t documenting her as she shows up at Tuesday to school. I was thinking of the picture I wanted to have and then conforming the way she looked to look like that picture. It seems silly, but this message that I send when I get her all dolled up to look like something that doesn’t look like she naturally looks like is telling her that the way she is as she is not worthy of documenting.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like it’s not something that I would love to see. It’s not something I would feel proud to send to her grandparents or see in the yearbook. In this very subtle way, it’s like she needs to be improved or altered to be acceptable and celebrated in this photograph.
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, the elementary school photos that we get home on the thing where you give the $850,000 for your wallet size because everyone’s around there carrying wallets full of wallet-size photograph.
Glennon Doyle:
You know how you pull out your billfold or whatever and you just show your friends?
Amanda Doyle:
Me, myself, I use a money clip. But I make sure I have all the wallet-sized photos in there.
Glennon Doyle:
Next to your pocket watch.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. The elementary school photos give you the option for retouching, I kid you not, the kids’ photos, the six-year-olds.
Amanda Doyle:
I just think that, I sat and thought about it for way too long, but there’s a real thread between me sending her that message, sending my eight-year-old the message that she needs to wear the dress that she would never ever choose to wear and get her hair braided in a way that is uncomfortable for her and the millions of women who step out of photographs because they’re not ready yet. They’re not ready for a photo. I’m like, “That’s crazy, being not being ready.” But I get her very ready for her photos.
Amanda Doyle:
Then you got this retouching thing, and then 90% of women use a filter or edit their photos before posting them. I’m like, “That’s crazy.”
Amanda Doyle:
It’s so interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
It is. Sissy-
Amanda Doyle:
Just a little subtle things that we think are these benign things that are planting the seeds.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a little story of my life. This is literally how I grew up, where my mom would put me in dresses. I mean, I was a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding, and I had to wear one of those dark cranberry colored… What is it called, dresses?
Glennon Doyle:
Strapless?
Abby Wambach:
Strapless dresses.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, baby.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, my God. How old were you when you wore a strapless dress?
Abby Wambach:
I mean, I must have been 25. I don’t know.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh. Oh, God. I thought you were like-
Abby Wambach:
I was old. I was old. I just had to. In my mind I knew, I was like, “Okay, I’m just going to do this because this is what the bride wants.”
Abby Wambach:
Then as I got older, I had the option. I was in another person’s wedding and they’re like, “Wear a suit. Just wear it the same color that the bridesmaids are wearing.” I was like, “That is so nice.”
Abby Wambach:
But what I want to say to you about Alice coming home and feeling like she can tell you this, that is not something that was an option for me. I just had to grin and bear it because I-
Glennon Doyle:
Literally.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Literally grin and bear it. What the hell is this?
Glennon Doyle:
You guys, this is big. I feel like this is big. I don’t know how to…
Glennon Doyle:
It’s just like this because we’re doing the same thing with the vacations. When you said, Sissy, the point of a picture is to document what a person looks like, that is not our intention.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, no. It’s definitely not my intention.
Glennon Doyle:
No, but it could be, right?
Amanda Doyle:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
When you went to take your family vacation picture and so you stopped your family vacation, made everyone miserable, made them dress up in the shit, stand-
Amanda Doyle:
Made my daughter vomit.
Glennon Doyle:
Made your daughter throw up, stood in front of the waves, that was not a picture of your family vacation at all.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
That was a deviation from the vacation.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. You deviated your family vacation to take a picture.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, well it’s the theme of this podcast. The thing that screws us up the most is the picture in our head of how it’s supposed to be.
Amanda Doyle:
The picture in our head that we think we should have.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, exactly. You look at your kid, your precious little kid who’s wearing her scrappy little shit and her hair’s all messed up and she’s out in the backyard doing your thing.
Glennon Doyle:
If you were going to take a picture of what your kid is, you would take a picture of her right there in the backyard. Or you would send her along to school looking like the ragamuffin she is so that in 10 years you could look back and be like, “I remember that. That’s my baby.” As opposed to this set of 12 pictures where your kid looks nothing like-
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like an Alice impersonator.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
I was reading this book recently. This woman said when she forgets what her life was like, she goes back and scrolls through her social media to find out what her life was like.
Glennon Doyle:
I was like, “Oh my God. No, no, no.” That’s something else. That’s not even our life. That’s our pictures of what we think other people will like to see about what our life was. But it’s 12 step remove from what is, from what our people actually are, and from what our daily moments are.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Maybe we should just start committing to… What is it called when you’re just taking a photo of what’s happening?
Glennon Doyle:
People do that in other cultures-
Amanda Doyle:
Candid.
Abby Wambach:
Candid. Yeah, yeah, candid.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, we pose the out of our candid pictures.
Abby Wambach:
Why are we doing this?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s not always been like this, and it’s not always like this. It is a distinctly American thing to create the perfect situation. Have everyone stop and look at a camera and smile, smile big.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s a lot of people who think we all look ridiculous in all of our pictures because why are you guys always smiling fakely?
Abby Wambach:
That’s so true.
Glennon Doyle:
A lot of places when someone takes a picture, people just turn and look how they look.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, I’ve traveled the world and that is very true of so many different countries I’ve traveled to. People, they just stand there.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
And also old photos-
Glennon Doyle:
They’re not smiling.
Abby Wambach:
No, and it looks so sad. I’m conditioned to believe these people are really upset.
Amanda Doyle:
Why did they only take pictures of sad people?
Abby Wambach:
They look pissed.
Glennon Doyle:
Because mostly we’re all sad.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I mean there’s a few reasons for that. It was the exposure time period. The first photo was eight hours, so you can’t have any movement. You have to be totally, totally still.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God. Imagine-
Glennon Doyle:
Imagine how family photos feel.
Abby Wambach:
Imagine-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, exactly. It takes me eight hours to get a picture of everyone looking at the same picture. It’s the dot, people. Look at the dot.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, they didn’t have good dental hygiene so you couldn’t show your teeth.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, it was seen as you only smiled freely and widely if you were wild or drunk, so it wasn’t socially acceptable. Same with the Asian countries. Typically, large shows of emotions are not-
Glennon Doyle:
Okay-
Amanda Doyle:
… as culturally accepted.
Glennon Doyle:
But we could be saying the same thing. Why are wild, ridiculous smiles not natural? Because only drunk people and Americans look like that. It’s fake. Look how happy we are.
Glennon Doyle:
I think it’s baked in to us. It’s our pursuit of happiness. Look at us, look at us. Look at our pursuit of happiness.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve been reading all these articles about they put out this study. It’s Finland again, once again, is the happiest country in the world. And so all the Americans are turning that into 700,000 articles about what we can learn from Finland about being happier.
Glennon Doyle:
But the more I read these articles when they interview the Finnish people, they’re like, “I mean, I guess we’re fine. We’re fine-ish.” We’re not-
Amanda Doyle:
We’re Finnish and we’re fine-ish.
Glennon Doyle:
None of these people are like, “Well, here’s my following my bliss and I’m blah, blah, blah, blah.” They’re like, “I think what you Americans are calling happy is we’re just okay with they’re not being that happy.”
Abby Wambach:
They’re content. We’re okay with not pursuing happiness.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re not pursuing. We don’t pursue it all the time.
Abby Wambach:
They’re pursuing contentedness.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, they’re just like, “This is life and this is being human, and it’s all these different feelings. We are fine-ish with that.”
Amanda Doyle:
Well, actually, interestingly, not to go too far on a cultural tangent.
Glennon Doyle:
No. You know you hate that. Sister never does that.
Amanda Doyle:
I know. I know. There’s nothing I hate more than that.
Amanda Doyle:
But interestingly, Americans do smile so much more, and there is research that suggests that since the US is so heterogeneous, so we have so many source countries as a country of immigration, as opposed to the super homogeneous countries, China, Zimbabwe, where there’s just a few nationalities, they see a direct correlation between the expression of smile with the immigrant-heavy countries.
Amanda Doyle:
Because coming here, we had to have emotional expressiveness to find people that were safe to make connections.
Abby Wambach:
Whoa.
Amanda Doyle:
Whereas if you are a country where it’s more homogeneous, you’re coming from your people and of your people. You know who people are.
Amanda Doyle:
And so there’s this really interesting thread through that where you have to build mutual cooperation. The way you signal that to each other is through this emotional expression, which I think is fascinating.
Abby Wambach:
That’s cool.
Glennon Doyle:
So does that show that when we feel safe, when we already have our people, when we have emotional safety, we are forced to smile less because we have peace?
Abby Wambach:
It’s like a performance.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re not desperate for tribal protection, so it is a performance. It’s a calling in of help. It’s a, please accept me.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I think it’s performance. It’s thou doth protest too much. You need all your pictures to be like, “I’m the happiest family. Look at mere so happy,” while I’m gritting through my teeth. Look at the camera.
Amanda Doyle:
In fact, there’s these things when McDonald’s went to Russia. They did all their trainings when they were setting up McDonald’s there and they were like, “Look at the people. Smile,” they had to totally revamp it. Because people were like, “What the fuck is going on at McDonald’s?”
Glennon Doyle:
They’re like, “Everyone at McDonald’s is wasted and I don’t feel safe.” Order it.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly.
Same with Target. You know the greeters at Target? When they set those up in Germany, the Germans were like, “Oh hell no, Target.” As we come in and they’re like, “Welcome. Smile.” They’re like, “Y’all have to change that or no one’s coming back to Target.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God. It’s so fascinating.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve been thinking a lot about pictures lately because I’m trying not to be disembodied anymore. And so if I’m using a camera at all, I’m trying to take pictures of something that brings me joy.
Glennon Doyle:
The other day, Amma had a bunch of kids over, and I think I sent this picture to you.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s just a pile of shoes, of teenage girls’ shoes just all over the foyer.
Glennon Doyle:
I was like, “That’s my church. That pile of shoes.” Because that signals to me that this house is full of kids and that they feel safe here. But none of the kids are in my view. They’re all in the basement.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s a representation of children but not actual children.
Glennon Doyle:
This is the picture in my head of how things should be. But what are you thinking about with little ones still?
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t do social media, so I don’t have that conflict that I feel like a lot of people have where they have to like, oh, this is my vacation and I have to put up these photos to prove what we’re doing.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it’s really nice that I don’t have that option because I think it would be in the back of my mind a lot. In fact, I just heard for the first time, this is probably a very old expression, someone said, “Oh, my last vacation it rained the entire time where they were on some island. I had to force book these photos because I was miserable.”
Glennon Doyle:
What does that mean?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s you’re posting things to Facebook but you’re force booking them. Meaning you’re actually miserable, but you’re posting a photo that is representing your experience as positive.
Glennon Doyle:
Whoa. And what is the intention of that? Because actually a ruined nightmare family situation is such good content. That’s funny. Having a miserable time is funny and connective, so what is that?
Amanda Doyle:
I think it’s also everybody else is posting their pictures. Maybe you’re like, “We also did a thing.” I don’t know. Or maybe it’s yourself justifying because you’re like, “We invested in this vacation. It took us all of this time, and I will have a receipt to show something for my efforts.” I’m not sure what it is.
Amanda Doyle:
For me, I haven’t gotten a lot of photos that I wish I had of certain events, so I really want them. There’s not enough photos of me with my kids, and so I really want those.
Amanda Doyle:
I think my hardest thing is letting those photos look like what they look like. Because my biggest hurdle is that I don’t like the way I look in photos.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, is that true? You don’t like the way you look in photos? I am stunned.
Abby Wambach:
Why?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, this is a debate I’ve been having with myself for a while because I always thought for a lot of years that I don’t look like myself in photos.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what I think when I think I just look like that.
Amanda Doyle:
And then I realized, “Oh, fuck. Maybe that’s what I look like.”
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, remember when I used to say my eyes are two different sizes in pictures?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It took me till I was 40 to understand my eyes are just two different sizes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. People joke with me. It’s a running joke that I am puffy pirate.
Glennon Doyle:
What does that mean?
Amanda Doyle:
In every photos, I’m puffy pirate because when I smile I squinch my face up. My face is like a puff ball, and then one of my eyes completely closes and one stays open.
Glennon Doyle:
Puffy pirate. Oh, Sissy-
Abby Wambach:
You do the pirate. You close one eye.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what? In college my mean friend, what is that, Mark Lauder, used to call me smoosh face-
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
… for the same reason, smoosh face. Also, I had chipmunk cheeks from bulimia.
Yeah, puffy pirate, smoosh face.
Amanda Doyle:
And I’m like, “God, it’s so weird now my photos don’t look anything like me.”
Abby Wambach:
I’m going to just throw this out there because I also sometimes I cheese smile sometimes when I’m actually so happy. Those photos I’m like, “Oh. Whoa, this is not right.”
Abby Wambach:
Now I have a picture face-
Glennon Doyle:
She does.
Abby Wambach:
… that I feel confident in that will show the way that I want to be looking like in the photo.
Glennon Doyle:
Sissy. Sissy-
Amanda Doyle:
I haven’t put that much effort into it.
Amanda Doyle:
But I’m also just like, “Why can’t I just let the pictures look how they look?” Why can’t I just be an Alice and be like, she’s like, “I’m really more of a casual person.” Why can’t I be like, I’m really more of a puffy pirate.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
Let it be.
Glennon Doyle:
But here’s the other thing. I actually don’t think you are a puffy pirate. I think puffy pirate is a perfect example of forcing the pursuit of happiness into your pictures.
Glennon Doyle:
Because when I think of the pictures that should exist for you as who you are and how you parent, when I think of, oh, the picture Sister should have with her kids, I have flashes. I just had a flash of you knocking Alice over when she was the goalie when we were playing beach soccer.
Glennon Doyle:
Pod squad, please understand we’re playing a nice game of family soccer on the beach at Christmas. Alice was in the goal because she’s the youngest member of our family, so the rest of the family was kicking the ball around her, gently approaching her, cheering her on. Sister was crushing her daughter, slide tackling her. Sister looked at her daughter-
Amanda Doyle:
That’s how we do it in Virginia.
Abby Wambach:
Actually, I’ve never seen somebody so competitive.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Abby Wambach:
And I’m a former pro athlete.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister-
Abby Wambach:
Sister-
Glennon Doyle:
… looked at this child-
Abby Wambach:
Sister takes it to a different level.
Glennon Doyle:
… this small child in the goal said, “Oh, shit. I can take her down.”
Abby Wambach:
I mean, I’d get close to Sister, I’d be like, “Nope, I’m not going into this tackle.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. But like-
Abby Wambach:
She’s coming in for blood.
Glennon Doyle:
… pictures of that. Pictures of you on the floor being ridiculous with them. I could just have flash after flash of what they should be.
Glennon Doyle:
You are not puffy pirate in any of them. Puffy pirate is what comes when mothering stops and you end the vacation and you stand in front of a camera.
Glennon Doyle:
You know what puffy pirate is? Puffy pirate is misery, okay? It’s misery. It’s, “I will get this picture.”
Abby Wambach:
We got to think of a name for this because I think that this is an important moment that most people will recognize and see in their own life.
Abby Wambach:
What is it that we’re doing, that we’re stopping? This is a snapshot of evil.
Glennon Doyle:
Because none of us think that our lives the way they are and ourselves the way they are and our children the way they are and our days the way they are is good enough. We all think we’re supposed to be someone else. Our kids are supposed to be someone else.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re pursuing, we’re pursuing, we’re pursuing. We never think, “Right now in this moment, the way things are is good enough.”
Abby Wambach:
This is so funny.
Amanda Doyle:
I think there’s a more practical element to it too, and people should go back and listen to WHY ARE THERE NO PICTURES OF US?!?
Amanda Doyle:
I think that part of it, if people were going around taking candid shots of me all the time doing my thing I would not feel the pressure to make sure that I am documented with my family at these different stages. And so I wouldn’t feel the enormous pressure when it’s like…
Amanda Doyle:
Literally the one time ever… We’ve gotten professional pictures, taken a time after the beach. That’s what when you got it for me because you were like, “I’m going to make this happen for you.” I think it puts extra pressure on that because I want to be in a photo with my family.
Amanda Doyle:
Whereas if I had legions of photographs of being candid with my kids, I would feel less of a sense of urgency around those moments where I know it’s going to be the photograph I’m going to have for this year.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s-
Abby Wambach:
Important.
Glennon Doyle:
… that’s beautiful. It’s so true. That’s something for all partners and friends and people listening to remember.
Glennon Doyle:
When you see your person or one of your people being themselves in a moment, snap that picture.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Because guess what will happen? When the moment when the “family” picture comes up, they’re going to be less assholes because they know that they’ve got some other options to choose from.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Scarcity creates emergency-level emotional response, and so I think that that is true.
Glennon Doyle:
But listen, there’s a difference. A picture is about being seen, being seen. And this idea that we have to change ourselves, change our children, dress up, look different than we are, alter ourselves. That means we are never really being seen.
Glennon Doyle:
In an extreme way, if someone takes a picture of me and I have spent three hours in a makeup chair and someone has changed my hair and then probably done some editing afterwards, and then someone says, “look at this picture of you. This is how I see you. You’re beautiful,” There’s no part of me that feels like that’s… I don’t feel that compliment. That’s not real.
Glennon Doyle:
If I’m laying on a couch and reading with the dogs laid on me and I don’t even know it, and then Abby shows me a picture later, a picture she shot of me laying on the couch reading with the dogs, and she’s like, “Look at you. This it,” That makes me feel so seen.
Glennon Doyle:
With Alice, she comes home in those braids and you put that picture out on the kitchen table and say, “That’s my daughter,” she doesn’t feel like you’re really seeing her.
Glennon Doyle:
If you snap a picture of her outside with Seamus in the backyard because you’ve noticed how beautiful and free and wild she looks when she’s doing what she loves and you put that picture on the kitchen table and you say, “That’s my daughter,” then she knows that what you find most beautiful and stunning about her is her the way she is.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like pictures are existential. This is a real person. When you take a photo of yourself, it’s like I exist. There’s something really deep about it. I think it’s so special that Alice was able to actually communicate that with you. I want my pictures to exist as I really am. If we could all have that kind of confidence to be able to-
Amanda Doyle:
Basically she was saying, “Can the picture of me really be of me?”
Amanda Doyle:
I just realized that. Oh my God, what are we doing? We’re starting this performance so early. That is telling her as you are I don’t want to put on my wall. Why would I want to a picture of you just as you go to school on Tuesday on my wall? That’s preposterous.
Amanda Doyle:
It really, for me, helped me think through like, “Oh God.” That’s really close to how I am now where I will go through… If John takes a picture of me and the kids, and I will look at all of them, maybe the kids look amazing and I don’t like the way I look at any of them, I won’t print it.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like, what? But that’s the way I look. That’s a picture of me. Well, sorry.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s only so many decades. You can say, “Oh, that angle.”
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, God. That’s so weird how the camera does that to me.
Amanda Doyle:
There’s something liberating about just being like, “Can we…” I’ll just be like, “Yep, that’s a picture of Alice. Yep, that’s a picture of me.”
Abby Wambach:
And maybe if we start doing it with our kids, we’ll allow ourselves to start doing it with ourselves.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, yeah. Let’s not buy into it unintentionally, just buy into the idea that there’s this one way.
Glennon Doyle:
It would be cool if we all started taking pictures and let it be, let everything be. Let the vacay be. Let the day be. Let the moment be. Let the daughter be, let the partner be, and just snap it the way it is.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s a challenge, pod squad.
Did you want to say something else, Sissy, before we wrap here?
Amanda Doyle:
I wanted to tell my favorite picture day story, which my dear friend, she had to go out of town on picture day. She left her husband in charge and said, “Today’s picture day. Make sure you get the kids ready.”
Amanda Doyle:
We have this restaurant in town called Lazy Mike’s, and they sell T-shirts. Of course, it’s my friend’s husband’s favorite restaurant, and so he was like, “Perfect, that’s the one.” He sends the kindergartner to school in the Lazy Mike T-shirt for picture day.
Amanda Doyle:
When the pictures finally come in, she opens the envelope for the pictures and pulls it out. There is her precious six-year-old in the photo with… All you can see is the top of the T-shirt in emblazoned, giant letters: lazy.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s just a picture of her face with five-inch block letters lazy across it, and it is the funniest shit you’ve ever seen in your life. I’m going to text it to you. That picture, which she was so pissed about-
Glennon Doyle:
Gold.
Amanda Doyle:
Gold. And now it’s like every picture day we text the picture to everyone. It’s like, “Reminder, picture day tomorrow.”
Glennon Doyle:
Lazy.
Amanda Doyle:
Everyone. Lazy.
Amanda Doyle:
She had to send that shit to everybody who requested a picture.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, it’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
I just love it
Abby Wambach:
I want to circle back. You said that your kids have two picture days a year?
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
What the fuck?
Amanda Doyle:
Because how are you going to make $6 million if you only have a winter picture? You got to have your spring picture, too. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Did that happen for us when we were growing up?
Amanda Doyle:
No. And remember our backgrounds where we never got to pay extra because my parents never paid extra for anything. But remember how the kids whose parents would spend money would get the laser backgrounds?
Glennon Doyle:
Or a meadow.
Amanda Doyle:
What’s going on with those backgrounds? It’ll be like you sitting there, and then there would be a field of greens behind you while you’re sitting there in your smock dress.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I remember you could get yourself-
Amanda Doyle:
So weird.
Glennon Doyle:
They could change out. You’d sit on a little bench. But some of the kids, his parents were whoa, loaded. We’d get their pictures, and the bench would be gone and they’d be sitting on a bale of hay.
Amanda Doyle:
Because nothing says second grade was fun like a bale of hay to sit on.
Glennon Doyle:
With purple lasers in the background. All right. We love you, pod squad. Thanks for listening. Go take some pictures.
Amanda Doyle:
Have a good picture day.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner, or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod.
Glennon Doyle:
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