Extremely Scientific Study

Over the last couple of years Spencer has developed a serious aversion to photos being taken of him. At the first sign of the camera being picked up he runs, he hides, he complains… It’s completely obnoxious.

Unfortunately for him there are times when we really need him to be a part of a photo, like at a special event or for a family picture. Contrary to his wishes we can’t just pretend like he’s not related. You’d think at age 13 he’d be, um, cooperative enough to put aside his dislike for these occasional photo shoots and at least pretend to enjoy he’s part of the photos. But, no, we have to beg, plead, and bargain with him to get him to participate in every single photo. He gives us a number of shots (always less than 5), then bolts the second the number has been hit.

And never smiles. Not even a little.

By the looks on his face in all these photos you’d think he’s tortured and wants everyone to know it.

As you can imagine, this little aversion has caused us much grief…especially me since I’m the main photographer of the family. I try to be accepting, take the 3 pictures that he “allows”, and hope that one of them actually turns out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but it’s all I’ve got.

So this year, as I was going through the Christmas letters I noticed something. Something very interesting.

It seemed like there may be something more to his, um, problem, than I’d originally thought. So I decided an official study was in order.

Hypothesis: Spencer is more uncooperative and difficult than the average young teen, when it comes to participating in photo taking.

Control: Nine Christmas letters (all from 2008) that contained family pictures that included 12-14 year old boys. (Individual photos were excluded) Ten boys (a set of twins included) were found to be eligible for the study.

The results:

Six out of ten boys looked as pained as Spencer in their family photo.

Possible Interpretation:
a) It’s a normal part of going through puberty.

b)Maybe (as Pete suggested) there's something to the whole black & white vs color method of parenting.

c)Or maybe most families just give their teenage boys castor oil just prior to pictures being taken and Spencer really is difficult.

Disclaimer: To my knowledge no teenage boys were actually harmed (or given castor oil) in the making of this study.