Showing off your kids in your own home: do you?

Parent Cafe
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<p>One entire wall of our large family room is nothing but framed pictures. Their high school formal senior pictures are hanging on the living room wall along with a large framed picture from when they were little. Wedding portraits will go on the wall over the stairs. Their prom pictures are on the desk in the family room and right above it are the “MVP” placques they each received in their sport. In the kitchen we have three frames with a picture from each grade and their senior informal picture in the middle. </p>

<p>Maybe yours stands out because there’s only one kid, but nobody has ever said we have too many pictures of the kids. </p>

<p>I too want to know what his email said.</p>

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<p>If this is really just for survey (and not judgment) purposes, I probably have fewer family pictures displayed than most. Getting a copy of and framing that oh-so-wonderful shot from the last family vacation has rarely risen to the top of my to-do list. (Organizing all things picture- and movie-related is high on my List of Things to Do When the Youngest Leaves for College.) As to academic/sports awards, the trophies are in the kids’ rooms; anything paper is in the plastic tub that has everything for that school year tossed into it (including school pictures for the year, minus those 2-3 you actually give to relatives). (Also high on above-referenced list is going through all of those tubs up in the attic.) Now that I think about it, the only academic things we have framed are DH’s and my college diplomas (which hang in the bathrooms).</p>

<p>I was academically much stronger than my kids, but I don’t believe any of the report cards/awards were displayed in our house when I was growing up. Either by temperament or culture, our family tended to keep accomplishments private. (You’ve probably never met a Scandinavian who brags.)</p>

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<p>We have a lot of family pictures around the house - girls take up majority of them.</p>

<p>We do not display awards outside of girls’ rooms. We see them as private. They have friends ove our house, wouldn’t want those awards to be topic of conversation. Many of their framable certificates we keep them in the “trophy” drawer.</p>

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<p>My house: 2 Sons now ages 22 and 19
Frig. is half covered with family pics (not just my kids).
Family room 5x7 “casual” senior pics (one of each S)
Hallway 8x10 formal senior pics (one of each S) and a painting of them (12x14)as kids done by an artist friend as a gift.
Upstairs one of each baby pics (12x14)in the hallway
Our BR, two 5x7 senior pics on dresser, one 3x5 on nightstand and one 5x7 on DH’s dresser.
Bonus room, two big caricatures done at Universal Studios on vacation trip
A couple of h.s. football pics and pic of S1 at his Navy commissioning ceremony (all 5x7)</p>

<p>No big groupings anywhere. No certificates or awards. They both have their h.s football jerseys pinned up in their bedrooms. S2 has some enlarged mounted football pics and shadow box with his varsity letters from senior yr. in his room that were b-day gifts fr. us.
That’s it.</p>

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<p>Oh my gosh, Owlice. I have the kids’ pictures all over the house. I have their school pictures through the years hung in the stairwell – when their friends come over, my kids say it’s the Hall of Embarrassment.</p>

<p>I even put out photos that aren’t framed yet, tuck them here and there. I don’t have trophies, medals, diplomas or report cards displayed, but there are trophies, etc. on the shelves of their rooms. I do put certificates out, but I don’t have a “rule” about it.</p>

<p>I don’t care if it’s excessive. What is more important to display, some “tasteful” impersonal wall art from Ikea? I think not.</p>

<p>You pay no never-mind to s2bxh. He is just fault-finding. You are fine.</p>

<p>(@HisGraceFillsMe – congrats on Sonoma State!! We loved it there. Amazing astrophysics dept., and all the beautiful dorms, named after wine grapes. Funny, the guide said, while pointing to the dorms “…and this is Zinfandel, this is Merlot, …etc” my son pipes up "I would want to live in the one called “seedless”)</p>

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<p>Is it OK to display legal documents like speeding tickets and court Summons?</p>

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<p>Got any mug shots to go with them, MOWC? ;)</p>

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<p>We have senior photos of each of the girls hanging in foyer, one large portrait of them together at younger age in upstairs hallway by our bedroom…used to be above fireplace but they made us take it down! :wink: Various small photos scattered throughout family room that get changed out every year or so. All paper academic or sports awards/letters are in albums since I am a scrapbooker. I keep the albums in a bookcase in the family room and their friends love to look at them! Going down the steps to the basement we have put up each of the girls sports posters and individual plaques of recognition. They will proably come down in the next year (or so) since both will be off to college and we reclaim that area. </p>

<p>It is your house…decorate however you want, whatever makes you and your son feel at home.</p>

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<p>We have about a dozen informal pictures from family vacations on the mantle, tables, and in bookcases throughout the house. Most are of both children. One formal 8 x 10 family picture is in the living room along with an informal picture from New Year’s Eve 1999. The magnetic chalkboard in the mudroom has various sports photo magnets but nothing really organized. D’s senior picture will go up on a wall in the staircase as soon as I remember to purchase a mat so her brother’s smaller school picture can be put into a matching frame and placed next to her photo. </p>

<p>Both children put up whatever awards and photos they want in their own rooms on bulletin boards, bookcases, etc. D’s senior year awards and plaques were on display at her graduation party as well as a picture from her first day of kindergarten. </p>

<p>Ultimately though you should not worry about what a soon to be ex says about your display. It’s your house and your choice. You should do what makes you happy in your home.</p>

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<p>We never really displayed any pictures in our house when we were kids, but when we left for college, my parents started putting up a few pics of us in frames. My mom went through a brief phase post-divorce where she started cropping all our family photos with a scissors, so I… erm… relieved her of the originals and provided her with a pile of duplicates. She displays those on her walls and proudly brags to her neighbors about her kids. My dad and stepmom each have photos of their respective kids all over the place in their house. </p>

<p>Our ribbons and trophies and certificates were always our own-- we sometimes displayed them in our rooms, but after college, we packed them up and took them with us. I think all my old ribbons and trophies are crammed in a box up in my closet. </p>

<p>As to art projects, anybody who’s done ceramics knows that after a few years, you amass an unbearable quantity of horrid little pinchpots and some really terrible lopsided bowls. All those are packed away where nobody will ever find them again, but my better stuff that I started turning out after about ten years-- a copper-and-ceramic mobile, an art deco box, a few teapots and vases-- my stepmother has dusted off and started displaying just because she likes them a lot. She and my dad found a set of high-fire windchimes that I’d extruded and tuned and glazed but had never assembled, and those are in the backyard now. I guess I’m being shown off, then, but it’s less look-what-my-daughter-did and more hey-look!-free-art. =)</p>

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<p>We’re pretty minimalist. There are photos of the kids in various locations around the house. Most of them are no larger than 4x6, with a few 5x7s. No awards. Like ingerp, the only academic things up are the adult’s college and postgrad diplomas in the home office. (the spouse got mine framed, though I’d have been happy enough to leave mine in a file cabinet). Some of their artwork is on display: some fired clay pieces from ceramics class at camp, a really lovely collage, some Judaic-themed pieces from religious school. </p>

<p>We have one relative who is a photographer and who takes regular pictures of the kids. We then get copies. Sometimes the copies are enormous, mounted on posterboard or framed. It’s really not our style, so we never put them out on display. The relative, who DOES put these giant pictures up on display at their own home, still gives 'em to us. </p>

<p>I see the whole gamut of kid-inspired decorating at friends’ houses, ranging from nothing at all in private spaces to every award out on display. </p>

<p>Interesting to compare to the previous generation. My in-laws have photos of the grandkids up on walls, but none of their own children. My parents have photos of their grandkids all over the kitchen, and photos of their children receiving various honors/degrees/publicity in the home office. Photos of us kids growing up are on the wall of their bedroom. Wedding albums are out on the coffee table in the living room.</p>

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<p>We have a few pictures when the kids were younger but we mostly keep pictures on computers today so that it’s easy to email them to others or look at them with someone else in person.</p>

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<p>I have one son. He is presently in college and his photo, taken on the day he was born, has been on my night stand since I got home from the hospital with him. In the master bath I also have a photo of him at age ten, in underpants, covered head to toe in red splotches due to an allergic reaction to penicillin. When we have visitors over and my son thinks they might want to see the house, he goes into the master bath and flips the photo face down. He isn’t able to articulate why he is so sensitive about that photo. On my dresser I have a twenty-five year old photo of my spouse and I at our wedding, and my son has a more recent photo of us on his dresser. All photos are 5x7, and those are the only photos displayed in our home. </p>

<p>In our home office (we’ve been telecommuting for fifteen years) my spouse and I have our framed degrees on the wall. Our son has already scoped out a place where he wants to add his. I’ve mentioned that he will have his own walls on which to hang his degrees, but he wants his to hang his with ours because he was home schooled in that office K-12 and sees his degrees as completion of the education he began in that room. His awards are all in the form of ephemera (notifications of scholarships, Presidential Scholar Program, etc.) and are kept in a file in a cabinet.</p>

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<p>We have no awards and only a few photos of kids in main living area. I probably should have more photos displayed than I do.</p>

<p>Every Christmas some friends of ours set up a Christmas display that includes all their annual family Christmas photo cards to date. It is pretty cool and it makes me wish we had taken a photo every year. The family’s first card has one baby, a few years later, the oldest child is joined by another sibling, and a few years after that, a third baby appears in the photo with the older two siblings. Maybe it’s just that time of year, but it is touching to see the passage of time through the growth of little kids, even if you don’t know the family well.</p>

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<p>We have pics everywhere. On top of our family room fireplace there is at least 1 3 X5 pic of each kid. On top of my fireplace in our MBR, I have pics of all of them. On top of my dresser, some more, on top of Bullets haberdasher there are more. On top of my rolltop where I am right now there are some more. </p>

<p>I don’t think it is wrong at all. None of our pics are portrait school types, except DS1 sr (but, he is in jeans and a polo using our dog as the prop), the rest are just candid shots. We do have a formal family portrait hanging in the hall.</p>

<p>The kids had their trophies for yrs on their armoires, eventually they packed them up, with no prompting from me…one day I walked in their room and they were there the next day there was a garbage bag of them in the can.</p>

<p>For us, we have had a tradition since they were born which is every yr we buy a Xmas ornament for the kids tree, as they are now flying the nest and I am by myself decorating I am glad that I have those momentos to reflect back. I use to promise the kids that when they got married I would give them all of their ornaments (my mom also gives each an ornament, so they will have a lot), but I am now backing away from that thought…call me an INDIAN GIVER :)</p>

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<p>As for photos … We have formal portraits of our children in our living room and then various casual photos of them plus other family members and friends on a long table in our family room. I don’t have a lot of other photos but what I do seems to fit a “theme.” I have a cute one of the two of them in the bathtub as toddlers covered in bubbles, that’s framed and next to my tub, as an example of what I mean.</p>

<p>In our basement (which is finished), we have various caricatures of our whole family that we’ve gotten on vacation. There’s also a huge photo of the two of them blown up, that I had blown up and mounted on posterboard for their 16th bday. (Like a sign-in board.) </p>

<p>As for certificates / diplomas … I had certificates / awards framed when I was a teenager - but they were in my room over my desk, not a public area of the house. My kids have various certificates / awards / trophies but in their rooms, too – hanging off a bulletin board, that type of thing. Those things seem to belong in their rooms, not in public rooms, in my personal opinion. Things that we want to keep long term go in files in my office, along with report cards, standardized testing scores, etc. </p>

<p>My hs and college diplomas are filed away, just in memory boxes along with other pertinent papers and mementos. I would never frame them for my home or office. Dh has his college and med school diplomas framed for his office, but that seems to be rather an “expected” thing for a doctor. </p>

<p>What you describe in terms of what you have framed and out sounds like a lot to me, but that’s personal preference of course. I hate clutter. I worked for a company for 15 years and when I left, had various awards / mementos / trophies. I brought them to my home office, but ultimately threw them all away. I have the memories; they were just dust-collectors, really. </p>

<p>But if you and son are happy, that’s all that matters. Some people are naturally more picture-displayers than others, and I’m on the lower end of that spectrum.</p>

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<p>Oh - even though we’re lighter than many here on the photos, we do have two measuring sticks in our laundry room (they’re cute / decorated / personalized) that we got when our twins were babies. Every year on their half birthday and birthday we made a big to-do of measuring them and marking it – even at this age (16). The markings go up the wall but I would never paint over them!</p>

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<p>One of the things that my mom has is really neat and the OP reminded me of it (the handprint for her). I am sure every pre-school in the world does the butterfly folded in half painting. My mom took all of them and framed eash one singularly. Her bathroom is filled with all of the grandkids butterflies. She received so many compliments that when she visited any of us (when the kids were in elem) she would steal their art project and framed it. She now uses them seasonally, as art work, they range from snow scenes for winter to flower scenes for the spring. She even makes sure that each grandchild has their special time. DS1 has Halloween, DD is Christmas/winter, DS2 is mothers day (the handprint), my nephews are dispersed in between with Thanksgiving, Valentines, Saint Patty and 4th of July. I loved the idea so much that I told her she has to leave them to me, since I gave all of their artwork to her or the garbage can (prior to knowing she was doing this), my kids have told me no way, because they want them for their own house to remember Meema by!</p>

<p>I do believe you can show off the kids in a unique way that it doesn’t look like bragging.</p>

<p>BTW, Mom had them professionally matted and framed so it doesn’t look tacky, it looks cute!</p>

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<p>I have my S’s and D’s painting on the walls, not to show off, but because I like them. S does not like that. But he has been out on his own for a great while and I did not listen to him, I did not remove his paintings. I love art in general and I want to enjoy his paintings on a daily basis. My D did not object at all, she did not care one way or another.</p>

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<p>Very interesting responses, some of which made me laugh out loud! Thank you all!</p>

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<p>He’s never said anything about the two photos of him in the living room (one of which was a gift from him for Mother’s Day), and sat for the oil portrait willingly. (This kind of surprised me!) The stuff that’s in the private part of the hall is right outside his bedroom door, and that apparently doesn’t bother him, either, as he sometimes hands me things to add to the collection (which means opening a frame that’s already there and stacking the new thing on top of the old).</p>

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<p>Oh, that made me laugh out loud!! As did this:</p>

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<p>What a great pic that must be!!</p>

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<p>I have one child, so no other children, and no other family, really, though I have close friends who function as family. I have a couple of things in the kitchen from other people’s children – a birthday note one kid wrote me on the refrigerator, a window cling a kid made on the window (that will probably take replacing the window to get rid of!) – and a magnet my son made on the refrigerator. I have one 4x6 picture of me in the living room, which goes with another 4x6 picture of my oldest-friend-who-is-practically-a-sister (both pictures/frames a gift from her, and a reminder of a splendid day together when I was a college freshman), and a 4x6 picture of a cat I used to have! (It’s a great photo.) These are all tucked on top of a tall bookcase, so not prominently displayed. I have other artwork in the living room as well, mostly signed and numbered prints, some from artists I know/knew at one time in my life.</p>

<p>I did have pictures of soon-to-be-exH in the living room and bedroom, including a large poster in the bedroom with H’s photo on it that advertised a concert he was in, but I no longer have those displayed. I’d planned to have an oil portrait of him done by the same artist who did my son’s when we had spare money for this, but that time didn’t come before his affair did. (We’ve been married for just over two years; this is a second marriage for both, and absolutely the LAST for me!)</p>

<p>I hope to have another oil portrait of my son done when he is 24 by the same artist; I told the kid he’s on his own for portraits of himself at 48 and 96!</p>

<p>I do not have the “Sorry about the pee” cards a couple of kids (one my own) made for me years ago displayed anywhere; those are tucked away for future embarrassment. :D</p>

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<p>I have a Zits comic on my refrigerator; it SO reflects life with my teenager!!</p>

<p>This also made me laugh out loud:</p>

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<p>And this made me a bit misty-eyed:</p>

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<p>Good for your D! </p>

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<p>It is just for survey purposes; the email made me curious as to what other families do. I know what my friends-with-kids have done (about the same as I’ve done, except most of the other kids have sports trophies), but thought I’d ask a wider audience.</p>

<p>I’m perfectly fine with what I have in my home; I think what I have displayed is pretty normal and nothing soon-to-be-ex-H has said/written makes me feel bad or anything, but it did make me curious!</p>

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<p>I had to clean my monitor after that! MOWC, some of your posts need to come with a warning label!</p>

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<p>I do something similar, in that I buy my son an ornament every year – he picks it out. When he establishes his own home, he can take these with him. </p>

<p>The talk about diplomas by some of you reminds me that I have my college diploma… stashed in a closet and still in the tube in which it was mailed to me.</p>