The other day at work I saw the saddest thing. For those of you that don't know I work at Sears Portrait Studio, so I take pictures of kids for a living. Anyways, this mother and her little girl had come to take her 5 year old pictures. Unfortunately the little girl was a, for lack of a better word, brat. She wanted everything her way and nothing else would satisfy. So I was trying to get her to do some of the poses which she woulud not have, and the mother tried to get her to take a picture but the little girl was yelling at her mom. She thenn proceeded to hit her mom and tell her that she hated her.

If you could have only seen her eyes.

So much hatred. anger. resentment.

The crouched mother looked at her daughter in disbelief. She just stayed there in her kneeling position shocked. I watched the mother's eyes fill with tears. She was in so much pain. The look on her face...Her heart was shattered.

After a few moments the mother got up and suddenly remembered I was there. She smiled through her tears, trying to hide her innertormoil, and told me they would try another day. Then they left, as if nothing had happened, but for that brief moment beofre she smiled at me, I saw right through her. And it felt as if she wanted me to see through her..I felt like she was begging me to help her, to save her from what her life has become...But she couldn't admit it to herself. She was in denial....Trying to convince herself everything is ok when it is infact NOT ok.

I see people come into the store like this all the time with the same problem, the same scenario, the same cry for help. Sometimes not just from the parents, but from the kids as well. It's the saddest thing when a child looks up to you crying for help, asking you to save them, and there is not a damn thing you can do. It honestly depresses me. There are so many unhappy people in the world. So many parents that come in that get in a fight over a smile in a picture. The entire family unit is so unstable, it just kinda makes you wonder how it is that it got to be this way. Personally I think it's the lack of parenting skill and the constant need to be independent that makes children turn out to be this way. Don't get me wrong, some parents to a good job, and independence is not bad, it just becomes a problem when someone is so independent that they care only for themselves. It just makes you think....What is the world going to be like 10 years from now when tthe youth is running the country? Honestly I don't want to know.