I am not a mom. I do not like having my picture taken. But when I stumbled across this TikTok one evening, I went down a “Proof of Mom” rabbit hole and made an unexpected connection to hidden mother photography from the Victorian Era. Let me explain.
Moms Behind the Camera
Proof of Mom is a phrase coined by Susie Allison of the Busy Toddler blog. In a 2021 post, she shared how she makes a conscious effort to appear in photos with her kids.
“Years ago, I realized I wasn’t in many pictures and I knew that needed to change. I wanted a record of their childhood and all the memories, but I also wanted a record of…me in those memories too.” -via @busytoddler
This post struck a nerve with other parents, mostly mothers. The video has over 1 million views on Instagram and has hundreds of comments as of this post’s publication.
And I get it.
Moms and mother figures are often the ones taking care of the kids on a daily basis, organizing family outings, and wrangling everyone for a photo op. In an effort to make everything look perfect, moms are the ones behind the camera.
Observing these family photos, it seems they’re not there at all.
An Unequal Distribution
As someone on the outside looking in, I think these mothers do an excellent job. Would I be able to keep my kids clean, happy, and organized during a family outing AND remember to take photos? Absolutely not.
Moms often go unacknowledged for the labor they put into preserving their family’s memories and history. Photographs capture precious moments, but these moments often feature dads, grandparents, and other family members.
It’s another aspect of the unequal distribution of labor that straight partnerships in nuclear families experience.
Most heterosexual couples in the U.S. live in dual-income households (where both people are traditionally employed). Despite both people working, there is an unequal distribution of labor at home.
Women in straight relationships not only shoulder the brunt of the housework but the emotional labor of raising a family as well. Moms are expected to perform all the duties a stay-at-home mom had to perform a few decades ago AND bring home a paycheck.
The Visual Archive of a Family
There’s a lot to dissect in the quote above. But that’s an analysis for another day. The part that sticks out to me is this: “It’s like I don’t exist.”
Mothers get erased from the visual archives of family history, even though they are the originators of those archives. Yet these women are very much present, even if they are invisible. Much like their Victorian counterparts.
Hidden Mothers of the Victorian Era
In Victorian portraits of children, we see figures crouching just out of frame, huddling behind black quilts, and hiding behind ornate chairs. Their presence is hinted at by the outline of hands on a baby’s shoulder or the unnatural fall of drapery.
They are the invisible force behind these photographs. They are mothers.
Under a modern lens, these photos look odd, silly, and even sinister. The truth behind these hidden mothers is much more mundane.
Victorian Portraiture
Posing for a photograph during the Victorian Era (1837–1901) took time. A lot of time.
When the daguerreotype was invented in 1839, cameras required long exposure times to properly capture an image– between three to fifteen minutes long. Any movement caused the final image to be blurry, a real bummer considering that portraits could cost quite a bit of money.
This meant that anyone sitting for a portrait would have to sit or stand incredibly still in the same position for a long, long time. As a result, posing stands and braces were used to keep people from moving and blurring the capture.
However, these gadgets were often too uncomfortable or intimidating for children to use when they sat for a photograph.
Enter: The Hidden Mother
Mothers were called on to pose their children and keep them still during photography sessions. Instead of including these mothers in the portraits with their children, they were rendered invisible.
Carpets, drapes, and chairs obscure the identities of women gently holding infants in their laps or carefully steadying a toddler on a chair.
Scholars have speculated that some of these hidden figures are photographer’s assistants or family caretakers. That could be true, adding another layer of meaning beneath the images we see today.
There are even some photographs where the woman’s face is scratched or blotted out, violently erasing her identity from the frame.
These women from the past aren’t fooling anyone by hiding behind a blanket. So, why did they pose like this?
Maybe these mothers wanted a photo of their children to remember them by. Maybe they simply didn’t want their photo taken. Or maybe they didn’t think their presence was important enough to be acknowledged.
But I think the intention behind hidden mothers is similar to what Proof of Mom addresses.
Domestic labor has long been thought of in the western world as “less than.” It’s the behind-the-scenes work that goes unpaid, under-appreciated, and unacknowledged. And many modern moms are tired.
Moms today may not be crouching behind a blanket in the background of each photo, but they’re the ones who are wrangling everyone to get in the frame, sit still, and pose a certain way.
They are the unseen force behind preserving special moments for their families, much like their Victorian-era counterparts were. They have always been hidden from view.
Without mothers, most family portraits wouldn’t exist.
It’s time they start to appear in the frame.
If you want to explore more hidden mother photographs, the MFA Boston has a sizable collection donated by Lee Marks and John C. DePrez, Jr. in 2019.
Sources
Collins, Lauren. The Hidden Mothers of Family Photos, February 12, 2022. The New Yorker. “https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-hidden-mothers-of-family-photos”
The Daguerreotype Medium. Library of Congress. “https://www.loc.gov/collections/daguerreotypes/articles-and-essays/the-daguerreotype-medium/#:~:text=Exposure%20times%20for%20the%20earliest,to%20less%20than%20a%20minute”
Hidden Mother: Tintypes and Cabinets. Flickr. “https://www.flickr.com/groups/1264520@N21/”
Stanford, Kaitlin. One Woman’s ‘Proof of Mom’ Tradition Is Inspiring Other Moms to Get in the Picture, Too, May 21, 2021. Mom.com. “https://mom.com/news/proof-of-mom-tradition-get-in-picture”
Images: Museum of Fine Arts Boston. “https://collections.mfa.org/collections”
If you somehow made it all the way down here, you can read what I write about reading at Far Flung Readers.
