When you see a photo of a special memory, it’s easy to want to go back to that time and place. A lot of people like to take their special photos and recreate them. Some do it a few years apart, and some like to do it every year to make a new memory with the same people and places.
One family started taking the same photo every year — and for a good reason.
It started out with a little girl who found a cute photo and asked to recreate it. Tiffany was only a baby when the first photo was taken. She had fallen asleep with her father and pets on the couch.
She found the photo with she was 5 and asked her father if they could take another one just like it. Her father agreed to recreate the photo, and now, the family does it every year. They make sure the pets are a part of it, too, and that everyone is in the same place as they were in the original.
Wong Ting-man said:
“I was very tired. I had probably just changed my daughter’s nappy and was taking rest on the sofa. She was just sleeping by my side. And all of a sudden, my pets came up to the sofa, and I couldn’t move an inch.”
He said it’s not uncommon for his pets to rest on the couch with him.
He has had them longer than his daughter. He explained that there is more to the photo than most people realized. He added:
“It would be better if they also understand the meaning behind these pictures.”
According to Wong:
“Many Chinese families would abandon their pets when a woman in the house gets pregnant due to ‘hygienic reasons,’ but he wanted his photos to prove the point wrong.”
When his wife got pregnant, he decided that he wanted to keep his pets.
He couldn’t bring himself to give them up just because he was having a baby. He was a little worried about how they would affect his daughter’s health, but Tiffany is healthy and happy. He explained:
“We have at least two pets throughout my wife’s pregnancy, and 10 years past, my daughter has never been admitted into the hospital once.”
Not everyone was happy about his choice to keep his pets.
His wife was OK with it, but her parents weren’t so accepting of it. In fact, his father-in-law even questioned his decision. Wong said:
“My father-in-law and my mother told me that I should think about how to handle these animals, but I just ignored them.”
Wong said that his family has grown to accept all the pets and that Tiffany has a close bond with them, too. He hopes that everyone that sees their photo will realize that they don’t have to get rid of their pets just because they are bringing a baby into their home. His daughter is proof that you can have both without any problems.
Wong is happy to take the photos with his daughter.
He knows that he is helping her make special memories and hopefully helping some families keep their pets at the same time. While the photos may look like random snapshots, to the Wong family, it’s a lot more.
Wong added:
“It’s not something special, but they will be good memories when we looked back in 10 or 20 years.”
There’s no telling how many more photos the family will take like this together.
Some of the pets are getting older, and Wong is afraid they may not be around much longer. However, he will always have the photos to look back on and remember them.
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