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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Middle Class problem, but AIBU?!

113 replies

Maffy · 22/03/2018 16:07

Apologies... Nancy Mitford would be proud.

However, my DC's school insists on polo shirt top buttons being done up for school photos.

They have no ties, it is a primary school, there is no school policy about it, and no children do up their top buttons normally.

Yet for every school photo, all my morning requests and pleading from DC goes unheeded. My DC come home upset and are captured for eternity looking like Bolsheviks.

AIBU?!

OP posts:
MsHarry · 22/03/2018 17:49

I do the buttoning op! I'm a TA in year 2. We presume most parents want their chn to look smart. the photographers do it too. If a parents specifically asked us to not do it then I wouldn't.

fullofhope04 · 22/03/2018 17:49

Is this thread actually serious? Confused

MsHarry · 22/03/2018 17:49

Sorry typos galore!

ikeepaforkinmypurse · 22/03/2018 17:56

I,wouldn’t care because I never bought a school photo. They are usually crap and they are ridiculously Expensive. I’m not a mug!

They are not really for the parents though, are they.
If you mean the individual photos, I am with you, mine are a lot better than the school ones. If you mean the class photos, I buy them for my kids, it's quite a nice souvenir, even if they cost a bomb

MsHarry · 22/03/2018 17:58

I agree, I've bought them to keep for them. I love my old ones.

BennyTheBall · 22/03/2018 18:02

I have a friend that puts her dc's school photos up on a wall. In her sitting room.

There are loads of the bloody things.

IceBearRocks · 22/03/2018 18:31

DS2 goes to a SEN school and always ensures he gets his own school photo done but when it comes to the family one...he manages a fucking seizure...so I have lovely picture of a two then one....

Slightlyperturbedowlagain · 22/03/2018 18:39

Another vote for secretly cutting off the top button on the polo shirt on photo day if you don’t like it done up.
We have a policy of only buying them if they look different enough from the last one, which works out at every couple of years.

geekymommy · 22/03/2018 18:43

Fekko, are we related? I thought that was my family curse. Certainly DD and DS always have a bruise, cut, weird haircut, or something going on on school photo day.

Sequencedress · 22/03/2018 18:50

Our school stopped doing school photos when DS was in primary 1. I don’t think the two are connected - he was pretty cute! Best thing they ever did. I still get bothered to send random pounds to school to support deaf lesbian lions’ day but I don’t have to buy pictures or worry about buttons!

*No harm or offence was meant towards deaf lesbian lions.

GrannyGrissle · 22/03/2018 18:53

With the tech available now even phone cameras take professional standard photos. Dress DS in his polo shirt styled as preferred and do your own photos? School pics are extortionate and shite.

Avonandice · 22/03/2018 19:01

The last school photo I have of my three looks as if they are a family group of serial killers.

I also have the one with DD2 after she cut her own hair and after a mad dash to a hairdressers the night before she is sporting a very fetching 1980's mullet.

DD1 has started looking at the camera as if she is trying to suck your soul out through the camera lens.

renegadebehaviour · 22/03/2018 19:12

Have bought one of each child in 10 years of schooling - most make them look either deranged or lobotomised. I feel a tiny bit guilty but there are plenty of other things to worry about. Stupid rule though OP, totally agree.

spiderlight · 22/03/2018 19:15

Last year's class photo was a farce. Two of the boys were late so the photographer took a picture of them separately and said he would photoshop them onto the ends of the row. Which he did, except that he photoshopped one of them over the top of the girl at the end, so he's standing there with a sticky-out skirt protruding from behind his trousers and a disembodied pink Jojo Bow floating above his head. We only got to see the proofs - I'd have bought one just for the amusement value but the school sent them back.

catgirl1976 · 22/03/2018 19:21

DS is at primary school and they have ties and blazers so I don't have the top button issue

However he still manages to look like a scruff in all of them and as DH always says if we wanted a picture of him against a white background in his uniform we'd just stand him against the wall at home and take one, not spend 40 quid buying one where he looks like no one owns him.

UnimaginativeUsername · 22/03/2018 19:25

We rarely buy school photos. DS1 hasn’t had one taken in years and DS2’s tend to be awful. He’s generally a pretty photogenic boy (unlike his mother) so I really don’t understand how professional photographers manage to make him look like a zombie that’s been out on the lash.

Sendit · 22/03/2018 19:32

They forgot my daughter was in Learning Support when they did the year 6 photo. I wasn't at all happy so they photoshopped her in to the year group shot!

Giggorata · 22/03/2018 19:35

Hilarious! Also, glad it's not just mine who managed the subhuman/chimney sweep's boy/guinea pig/wartime orphan/waxwork/scrubbing brush hair/chrysanthemum hair/baleful glare/sneering contempt looks that we've had over the years..

Dangerousmonkey · 22/03/2018 19:39

I think it's the polo shirt masquerading as a shirt thing? The red trousers brigade wear their polo shirts unbuttoned and their shirts buttoned with a tie. I think some deluded types are under the impression that the working class are somehow unaware that a polo shirt is a casual dress item.

Dangerousmonkey · 22/03/2018 19:41

So if you're trying really hard to be mc then maybe sneering at polo shirts is important?

italiancortado · 22/03/2018 19:45

Does it matter? They are generally shit pictures anyway. You could take a pic of your DS any day of the week with his short buttons exactly as you wish Confused

OCSockOrphanage · 22/03/2018 19:55

We have a few school photos (Tempest are the pits) but only one I like, of DS as a canoeist. It's a small group and he looks really happy at the centre of the picture.

turnipfarmers · 22/03/2018 19:57

All of his school photos involve him wearing a creased jumper 2sizes too small and messy hair due to said jumper being squeezed over his rather large head.

So send him to school in a jumper that fits and has been ironed?

starlightmeteorite · 22/03/2018 20:01

This thread has made me realise how lucky we are. The school photographers get the dcs to dance about, do silly poses, lie on the floor with their chins propped on their hands etc. For one of the joint ones they even had ds climb on dd's back (her expression was priceless). The photos are brilliant, funny and the dcs are either laughing or smiling big genuine happy smiles. It is hard to pick the one(s) you want. I'd buy them all if they weren't so expensive.

My school photos however - wonky fringed depressed zombie child. Every single one.

Swirlingasong · 22/03/2018 20:12

I have two children. In real life they are both equally cute. One of them however has the ability to look adorable in every school photo. The other, well, either terrifying or unbelievably messy (or both). We have had to not buy some truly gorgeous pics of one child just so that we don't have to waste ££ on buying the other as well.

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