Like most parents with smartphones, I’m prone to taking a lot of pictures of my kids being cute. I’m not at the point of recording all 72 minutes of a dance recital — although there was that time that my step-daughter and foster daughter were snuggling on the couch with a book right before the chaos that is our seder and I took a whole slew of adorable pictures. I’ve documented everything: first days of school, last days of school, birthdays, bike rides, first steps and lost teeth.
Every six months or so I use one of the many online photo printing services to make a photo book using the pictures in my phone. I take 20 minutes to put them in an order that makes sense, add a few captions, and fork over some money. A week or two later, I have a book documenting this chunk of childhood, say from the gummy smiles of a four-month-old to the victorious and toothy grins of a new crawler.
These books are as much a reflection of my life as they are of my kids’ lives. There is the baby’s first plane ride, which I was absolutely panicked about even though it went perfectly well. There is the show my step daughter put on after Thanksgiving dinner with the shadow puppets I grabbed from the clearance rack at Target. There’s the time I tried to light a hanukkiah with one hand while holding back a toddler from reaching for the flames with the other hand.
These books include, as one would expect, pictures of big events like holidays and birthdays. But they also depict everyday life — bath time, sisters snuggling together before bed, practicing yoga poses, and eating dinner. They are snapshots of our lives.
On the High Holidays, Jewish liturgy refers over and over again to the Book of Life. According to tradition, God writes the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah, and we have 10 days to repent for our sins and resolve to do better. On Yom Kippur, God seals the Book of Life shut.
For many years, this made me think of Santa Claus and his “naughty” and “nice” lists. But I don’t, however, want to believe in a God who’s just a glorified Santa, recording who deserves toys and who should get coal. I know too many good people who’ve had lives full of coal, and besides, I don’t believe in using religious practice as a threat.
These days, I think of my photo books as my own personal Book of Life. Have I had one printed recently? Have I used it to review, with myself and with my kids, what happened in the past year, and to think about what we look forward to in the year to come?
I don’t print photos of my parenting fails in these photo books — I would prefer not to commit those to paper. But some of my smaller missteps certainly show: a messy house in the background, a child eating a cupcake for breakfast because that was all I had in the house the day before Passover, and me looking slovenly and frustrated in one picture for who knows what reason in particular.
These books remind me that I need to do better — as a parent and as a person. My kids are adorable (and brilliant and funny, of course), but they need a mom who is more patient, more thoughtful, and less sarcastic and snippy. They are worth trying to change for, these books remind me, even if it seems incredibly difficult.
Year after year, these books will show a version of my life, the version I want my kids to remember. They also inspire me to do better, to be the kind of mom I’d want printed on the pages of our family’s Book of Life.
This year, may you and your family be sealed in your own Book of Life — whatever it looks like.
Tamar Fox is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia with her partner, step-daughter, and foster daughter. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, the Jerusalem Post, Tablet, Lilith, and many others. Her children’s book, No Baths at Camp, was published in 2013 by Kar-Ben and is a PJ Library selection.