Aaron D. Neufeld- BLOG #2 – ‘Is My Family Happy?’

Aaron D. Neufeld- BLOG #2 – ‘Is My Family Happy?’

I was thinking about the photograph we saw in class of the father looking at his infant daughter as if she was some strange foreign object he was unsure with what to do. He seems unhappy and unsure with what to do with her. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for a child. Perhaps he wanted a boy and was disgraced with a girl. Who knows what made him seem so unhappy in the photograph, but it got me to thinking about weather my own family is happy. Am I happy with my family? Are they happy with me? Are we happy with each other?

I first reflected within myself about our past experiences as a family and decided I love my family very much. But do they love me back? Instead of awkwardly asking them, I decided to take to our photos. Did we have any photos of my parents looking at me as a baby with disgusted looks on their faces? I scanned through various photographs and I was indeed happy with what I found. Smiling faces. Only smiling happy faces, from my birth through today. But especially in my baby photos. And not just the staged ones. Even in the candid shots my mom took of my dad holding me as an infant, my dad’s eyes are bright in awe and filled with love.

I’m proud to say that I do believe my family is happy. We’ve been through a lot together. There have been plenty of rough patches. But there have been even more good times and it is those times that show through in our photographs.