Jan. 15--Anyone with a kid knows there are two types of parenting moments.
There are the picture perfect ones, captured at portrait studios or posted on Instagram: The baby with the 6-months-old sticker affixed on his bulging belly, the dad and son proudly posing with a snowman, the mom's shaky but proud video of her daughter's winning shot at a basketball game.
And then there are the far-from-perfect moments, which often don't get captured on film: Going to the gym with baby food on your workout pants, sharing a bed with a sick toddler and a bucket for her vomit, searching the family car for the source of the sour milk stench.
It's that second category of moments that the Naperville Moms Network hopes to spotlight with its project, "The Journey of Motherhood," which is nearing completion. The suburban networking group hired Naperville photographer Terri Roper to capture images of 40 mothers from across the Chicago area in "real" moments.
The network found moms to photograph by putting a request on its website. Roper and Cathy Subber, owner of the network with a website and an email list of 10,000 people, were moved by the many responses that came in, and quickly recognized that the images, when shown together, would become a poignant art collection -- which they hope to debut to the public later this year.
There's a mom standing by as her son, who has autism, gets occupational therapy. A single mom laying out dinner for her kids at the table. A working mom attempting to feed and bathe her children while still in her business suit because there's no time to change when you're ambushed at the door.
"The mission of Naperville Moms Network is to support and empower local moms," Subber said. "We want moms to identify with these pictures and feel a sense of, 'OK, they go through that too. Their house is messy too. Their life isn't picture perfect.'"
Subber, a mother of two who agreed to be photographed as part of the collection, is shown inside her messy car.
In introductory phone calls before each photo session, Roper urged moms not to worry about having the family look perfect. Some moms still had their kids in matching outfits when she showed up -- proof of how pervasive the pressure can be to seem like a mom in control, Roper said.
"That's not really how it is," Roper said. "We say the Christmas card photo is just the shutter-speed length. Everybody in that family in that 1/250th of a second is looking toward the camera, smiling. But right before that and right after the kids could be fighting."
A national project with similar inspiration has been praised by both photographers and parenting groups for its honest depiction of parenthood. Alyson Aliano, a Los Angeles-based photographer, began a project called "Real Mother" in 2006, shortly after becoming a stepmother to young twin girls.
Since then, Aliano has photographed nearly 200 mothers from a wide range of circumstances -- lesbian, those who went through fertility treatments, adoptive, grandparents with guardianship -- in their natural settings.
"When I would go to somebody's house, or I would have a phone conversation with them, I would say, 'Don't clean before I come. I want to see you. Don't put on any pretenses,'" said Aliano, who recalled one mother who was tending to a child with an ear infection during the photo shoot. The child screamed the entire time.
"For me, as a photographer, I just felt like some of the most beautiful moments were sometimes chaotic and real and awesome," Aliano said.
As a mom who has had to apologize to interviewees for Elmo drawings in the middle of my reporter's notebooks, wash spit-up off my shoulder in the office bathroom, and be lectured by a stranger after my screaming toddler pulled off her socks and shoes in the dead of winter, I welcome any and all exhibits that celebrate the unglamorous side of parenting.
Most people with kids know our children are the most beautiful, amazing and worthwhile additions to our lives.
It's just nice to be reminded every once in a while that beauty isn't always pretty.
vortiz@tribpub.com
