What to Know
Every year, millions of parents lay out specific clothes for their kids for their picture day at school. This is the one time when their role in whatever grade they’re in is officially commemorated.
For us dramatic and emotional moms, it’s a big deal, OK? One mom took a totally laid back approach, however, when her daughter surprised her with the silliest picture imaginable.
And honestly, it’s the best picture day photo I have ever seen. Don’t tell my kids I said that, though.
The mom, whose name on her TikTok account is Brooke Hamilton, shared a video of her kids smiling for her the morning of picture day.
She then cuts to the actual photos from school, and her daughter is throwing up a peace sign and smiling with her tongue out. Even for parents who take picture day pretty seriously, it’s a look and it’s one that all kids should be allowed to do if they want to.
You can’t be mad at her for knowing exactly who she is.
In Brooke’s TikTok, she wrote on the screen that, the morning of picture day at home, there was some “subtle foreshadowing” about what pose and smile her daughter would do in her picture once she got to school.
Sure enough, instead of the typical polite pose and smile, her daughter’s photo came back with a peace sign in full view and even a winky face to match.
She is basically an emoji, and it’s adorable.
It also shows that Brooke is all about allowing her kids to be themselves. And it makes you wonder what the next few years will be like in other school picture days, because how do you follow up that?
Other TikTok users applauded the little girl in the comments under the TikTok. Most wrote that Brooke’s daughter killed it with her photo and that she will love it herself when she’s old enough to look back on her picture day photos from over the years.
“She’s EXACTLY who she thinks she is,” someone else commented.
Another user wrote, “She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she IS the moment.” I mean, they aren’t wrong.
Others commented to say the same thing: “She is exactly who she thinks she is.”
In a follow-up video, after someone commented to tell Brooke to frame the photo and hang it on her wall, she responded with a video of that very same picture day photo, framed in an 8 x 10 and hung on her wall for all to see. In response to the user who told Brooke she would “smile every day forever” just by looking at it.
Brooke wrote, “You were right, smiling forever.”
At the end of the day, picture day might be something parents look forward to, but it’s also something that has nothing to do with us. It’s not our photos being taken, after all.
Despite how important picture day once seemed to me as a mom, I took a similar approach this year for my first-year middle schooler. He asked if he could wear a Shrek meme T-shirt rather than the plaid button up I laid out for him.
On a whim, and for reasons I don’t even understand myself, I told him to go for it. The way his face lit up tells me everything I need to know about letting kids be themselves for their picture day at school.
