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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:
Draylon · 23/03/2018 19:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Littlechocola · 23/03/2018 19:14

Do you mean middle class as in middle year of school?

user1471453601 · 23/03/2018 19:14

My most favourite school photo of DD (now just short of her 48th birthday) is of her sat proudly in the front row of her class photo, legs spread wide and the zip of her trousers wide open😁.

She didn't care for convention then, and she sure as hell doesn't now. So proper

Pastaagain78 · 23/03/2018 19:15

Tempest hate children.

Pumpkinbell · 23/03/2018 19:21

50/50 you dont have to buy the pics!!!

SherbrookeFosterer · 23/03/2018 19:24

I'm with JamPasty on this one!

snewsname · 23/03/2018 19:24

I have copies of all my childrens school photos kept in their baby boxes. They all have "sample" printed right across them but they are an accurate record of their school years Grin

Why does anyone want a school photo on display when you can take nicer, more natural ones yourself? I bought the year 6 and year 11 class photos. Haven't ever bought one of them on their own.

DairyisClosed · 23/03/2018 19:25

May end you could pass it off as hipster? There is something ridiculously ironic about buttoning up a polo shirt all the way.

UnimaginativeUsername · 23/03/2018 19:37

but doesn't it always surprise you when the Missing Teenage boy, 15/16/17/18, his photo is The School One? Because he has not allowed anyone else to take his photo for those years? Sometimes, the photo, for a missing 14 year old, is them aged 11

DS1 has refused to allow photographs of himself for many years. If he went missing, we’d be able to use the mug shot on his driving license now, but at 15 or 16 I’d’ve had to drag out an old photo or draw them a picture.

He hasn’t had a school photo taken since he was at primary school. If he has, he’s definitely kept it a total secret. But I don’t think he’s cunning enough for that.

MrsKoala · 23/03/2018 19:41

DS1 started reception last year and they had the class pics in the paper. I raced along to buy the local rag only to not see DS1. I was looking and looking. I was sure i sent him in that day. Then i realised he was the 'top of the head leaning forward child'. I laughed about it with the teacher and she said they tried a few shots but in every one he was leaning forward and telling the other kids to stop talking and face front. Grin

I love it. If photography is an art form which truly captures a person this is it. It just sums him up really.

As an aside. I'm very jealous of you with polo shirts, DS1 has a buttoned shirt and fucking tie. Angry

swivelchair · 23/03/2018 19:50

I was all set to have one picture for each school year, as is traditional, but outside the first one, they've just been terrible - I don't know how, DS1 is averagely photogenic, I'm his adoring mum, so I have low standards for how good he has to look in it, and yet they're so bad I just can't part company with the extortionate amount they want, when I have a phone full of pictures for free (and I'm a terrible photographer - that's how bad the school ones are!)

I couldn't care less what he's wearing, if only they could manage a decent shot.

MrsKoala · 23/03/2018 19:57

Also i quite like the top button done on a polo shirt look. It's very modish and reminds me of my youth. DS1 has a Paul Weller haircut and the top button done up looks great on him.

Slightlyperturbedowlagain · 23/03/2018 19:58

He hasn’t had a school photo taken since he was at primary school.
In the UK I think the school usually have one taken in year 7 for their records, it’s the reason school photos get done.

Shockers · 23/03/2018 20:02

We only bought one individual photo. It was so bizarre, that we felt we had to or nobody would believe us. DS1 was in some sort of Victorian library, with dark wood shelves and a wooden globe... with an huge (real) snake draped over his shoulders.

This would be around 20 years ago and only happened once. Can’t imagine why it didn’t catch on.

UnimaginativeUsername · 23/03/2018 20:03

DS1 moves from a primary school to a middle school in Y6. Then to a high school for Y9. So he didn’t have a photo taken in Y7. If he had one taken in Y9 it was just an in-school thing, not anything offered to parents to buy.

Shockers · 23/03/2018 20:03

The library must’ve been photoshopped in btw. His school was built in the 60s.

Slightlyperturbedowlagain · 23/03/2018 20:04

Shockers
Grin
And I thought the fake-sky effect was rubbish

Sennelier1 · 23/03/2018 20:10

Oh well, DS was having orthodontic treatment and exactly on the day of the school photo his front teeth were wide enough apart to put a pencil or a cigar between them. Picture of the year 😂Don't stress to much over that stupid top-button! It'll be a running joke when your children grow up and they'll see themselves dressed up as Uncle Igor, year after year after year 😂

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks · 23/03/2018 20:12

This is why I love MN. Victorian street children, pickled aliens and tiny Bolsheviks.Grin

WhatwouldJoydo · 23/03/2018 22:49

Tempest not only make my children look very odd, but also never send the extremely bad photos to us anyway!! Waste of time and money!

RoseWhiteTips · 23/03/2018 23:00

Polo shirts are better with the top button done up and the collar tucked in.
Think mods.

Whitelisbon · 23/03/2018 23:01

I have a school picture of my dd, with a black eye, swollen lip, and scabby face, after she ran down a hill with her hands in her pocket the day before.
She was 3, she's now 15, and I like to bring it out every year or so and hang it up somewhere until she notices GrinBlush

pollymere · 23/03/2018 23:42

My dd always seemed to end up looking like Legolas from Lord of the Rings in her primary photos. Now she's at a school where the photo cost is horrific but the photo is amazing.

eridanus · 23/03/2018 23:51

I know some people disagree but I love school photos. However my kids school photos from the start of the 2017-2018 year came back with... fucking filters applied. They both have a smattering of freckles, completely wiped out. They kind of looked like what I would expect an android to look like.

wellymelly · 23/03/2018 23:52

I’m glad someone else mentioned Tempest. Since they’ve the monopoly on school photos these days round here, I have not seen one decent or bought one photo. Local school used to use a great local photographer who took amazing pictures and you got choices. Now you get one badly taken picture of child looking in shock!! Surely in the digital age they could take 3 or 4 and afford a few choices.