Parents are going off on the ‘robbery’ of school photo packages (and still buying them anyway)

It’s a rite of passage at every school: kids fight with their parents over what to wear, frantic moms accommodate last-minute hair styling requests, and everyone flashes their most mediocre smiles to be immortalized forever. Yes, it’s school picture day, and almost all parents agree it’s a total scam. Mom perfectly captures the lunacy of school photo packages Annie Laferriere is a popular creator with over 50 thousand followers on Instagram. She shares skits and observations about the often-hilarious side of parenting. In one recent video, she took the opportunity to skewer, in comedic fashion, the absolutely antiquated and nonsensical process of ordering school photos. It’s a conundrum most parents are all-too-familiar with. “Hi, I wanted to buy school photos for my kids,” she says to an imaginary conversation partner. “I think I just want the digital.” Laferriere, also playing the role of representative from the photography company, responds snidely, “You’re gonna need some wallets, aren’t you?” “I don’t keep photos in a wallet. I just want the digital.” “You can’t just have a digital,” she responds to herself. “You have to have the package. The package starts at $39, and then you add on the digital. …And for that, you’ll pay dearly.” The exchange continues and becomes increasingly unhinged before Laferriere gives in. “Just give me the wallets. I’ll buy the wallet thingy.” Parents agree, school photo packages are out of control It’s a common lament. School picture day photos often aren’t great; the packages are extremely inconvenient, and prices have been soaring for years. Hundreds of commenters chimed in on Laferriere’s post to express their own frustrations: “75 bucks for the digital of 4 mediocre pics… my son isn’t mediocre but takes the moooooost mid photos bc he has not yet found his comfort zone at picture day and doesn’t give a real smile … well get there one day” “Hilarious that they still have wallet options . This used to be the only way you could show a pic of your kid to a random person because no one had phones.” “Just paid $40 for my 6 year old’s soccer photos. I only ordered 8 trading cards, and he already had grass and mud stains on his uniform by the time we got to the photo area. … The digital would have been an additional $40.” “They didn’t even give us the option for an add on. Digital only came with the 70$ package. Just got the picture back today and it’s cute but they over corrected it so much it’s almost creepy” “The accuracy on this is insane” “The packages made sense for me when I was sending physical pictures to Great Grandma, but now she’s heaven side, I have more kids in school, and prices have gone UP. By the time I pay for each kids individual package, I might as well have just paid for family photos from a photographer that I picked out.” And yet, many parents still buy school portraits out of sentiment and tradition Interest has waned significantly over the years, especially with the rise of home digital photography on our phones and the rise in accessibility of family portraits. But despite it all, about 30% of families just can’t seem to quit buying these school photo packages. Even though the portraits often leave much to be desired and the packages are overpriced and horrifically outdated, the photos still have real sentimental value. There’s just something about putting all of the school portraits of your kids over the years together in one place, seeing the same pose, the same lighting, and the same backgrounds over and over. The only thing that changes is your kid, and it makes the passage of time incredibly visible and almost magical. In The Guardian, a photographer explains it well: “School photos might be a kind of flipbook; you can start in prep and rapidly watch your child age until they’re just BO and grunts. They’re not designed to be beautiful. Maybe they’re more like a war record.” They add, “The expectation is that this won’t be the best photo ever taken, but it will be my kid, in this moment, marking another year of their priceless life.” Parents can easily take their own photos or hire a photographer for a far more personalized family photo shoot. But the stock background and iconic portrait pose can really only be captured properly at the annual school session, so until we find another way to capture that moment in time, we’re stuck paying for more wallets and 8x10s than we know what to do with. And we’ll do it again next year.