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School picture day: A dose of nostalgia or an overdose of capitalism?

Why not buy a dozen stiff portraits of your child that might or might not complement the 8,356 photos on your phone?

Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight on The Office, with his Grade 2 school picture.
Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight on The Office, with his Grade 2 school picture. Photo by Craig Robertson /Toronto Sun

As if you can get your kid to brush their hair on the best of days.

It doesn’t matter how much you think you’ve prepared, school picture day always sneaks up on you. There’s a whirlwind of outfit changes and “yes you have to brush your teeth this morning” and just this one day can they try to brush the jam out of their curls?

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And for what? A dozen portraits of your child that might or might not complement the 8,356 photos on your phone. The 8 by-10s are grotesquely large and will be quietly and carefully placed at the bottom of the junk drawer. The wallet-sizes will be doled out to grandparents and godparents who will put them on their fridges for a year or so and the rest will float around the house for months, still in the envelope they arrived in.

There’s a Grade 5 or 6 school photo that I cherish. I’m wearing a pouffy button-up blouse under a quilted purple vest. I’m all nose and perm and acne. It was the year before I discovered blue and pink eyeshadow but I’m smiling like I know that combo is in my near future. The background is some kind of swirly dark blue — I guess my school didn’t offer those cool laser options.

It’s almost meme-worthy. Imagine it in 8 by 10. I bet you have one of these, too.

Rare is the family that can agree on which school-photo package to purchase. What everyone can agree on: it’ll be too much. Packages run $50-$100, and climb higher if there are add-ons, digital rights, more than one background is selected or you have multiple kids. Want all the wallet-size but no 8 by 10? Three 5 x 7s because there are three sets of grandparents? Nope, sorry, that’ll cost you extra. Want to just print them yourself? Check the copyright first.

If you decide not to buy any of them, the portraits will probably be used for school-ID purposes. But you might as well: For families that have the means, the extra photos at the bottom of the junk drawer aren’t doing any damage, and one day your grandchildren will get a kick out of them.

And that’s it, right? It’s nostalgia. Tradition. A way to say: “I was here, I was that person.”

Try not to focus on the not-brushed hair or the weird outfit selection. It’s your child’s moment, let ’em be how they are. You’ve got all those beautiful backups on your phone, after all.

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