Look through your phone’s camera roll and you might find hundreds of photographs of your children: birthday candles, muddy boots, a particularly ambitious breakfast, the day they insisted on wearing wellies despite it being 25 degrees. Finding a photograph with you in it can take a little longer.

For single parents, this can be especially noticeable. When you’re the one taking the children out, organising the birthdays, remembering the snacks, carrying the bags and generally keeping the show on the road, there often simply isn’t another adult there thinking, I should take a photo of you together.

It might not feel important in the moment. But years from now, you may want photographs that show not just what your children looked like, but what your family looked like - including you. The good news is that you don’t need to turn every day out into a photoshoot. A few small habits can help you capture family life in a way that puts you back into the story.

Keep Your Expectations Manageable

Family photographs don’t need to be perfect to be worth keeping. In fact, the pictures you treasure later are often the ones that capture what life actually felt like: uneven lighting, favourite hats, chocolate around someone’s mouth and all.

Before taking yet another version, ask yourself what you wanted to remember. Perhaps it was the excitement of a first bike ride, the way your child insisted on holding your hand or the fact that you all managed to get out of the house before 10am. That moment may already be there.

Editing can remain a small, optional part of the process too. If you choose to retouch a favourite family portrait, decide beforehand what you actually want to adjust and keep the changes subtle. There’s no need to smooth away every freckle, straighten every stray hair or make tired faces look like different people. Those tired faces are part of family life too.

It can also help to give yourself permission to stop. Take a few pictures at the beginning of an activity and then put your phone away. If nobody feels like posing, leave it. Your children don’t need a perfectly documented childhood, and you definitely don’t need another job to add to the list.

Find Simple Ways to Get Yourself Into the Picture

When there isn’t another adult around to pick up the camera, your phone’s timer can become surprisingly useful. Prop your phone securely on a shelf, table or bench, check roughly what’s in the frame and give yourself enough time to get into position.

You don’t have to line everyone up and demand smiles either. Try photographing something you would be doing anyway: reading together on the sofa, building Lego on the floor, decorating a cake or playing a game. Having something to focus on can make pictures feel much more natural, especially if your children aren’t keen on posing.

Friends can help too. If you’re at the park or on a day out with another parent, offer to take a photograph of them with their children and ask them to return the favour. It doesn’t need to feel awkward or like a big request. “Could you get a picture of us together?” is enough.

And if your children are old enough, hand over the camera occasionally. Their photographs might be wonky or include half the laundry basket, but they can also capture things you would never think to photograph yourself: you making pancakes, laughing at something they’ve said or concentrating fiercely on a board game.

There’s something rather lovely about seeing yourself through your child’s eyes.

Make Room for Ordinary Days

Birthdays, Christmases and holidays come with obvious reminders to take pictures, but those big occasions are only a tiny part of family life. Often, it’s the everyday things that become most precious once that stage has passed.

Take a picture of the collection of stones that has somehow taken over the windowsill. The bedtime book held together with tape. The favourite soft toy that has to come everywhere. The elaborate arrangement of cushions that has apparently become a den and therefore cannot possibly be tidied away.

These things can feel completely ordinary now, but they won’t always be there.

You could even ask your children what they want to remember. Once a month, invite them to choose something to photograph: a person, a place, a favourite meal, a drawing, their bedroom or something they’ve made. Their choices may be completely different from yours, which is part of the fun.

And if a month - or several months - goes by without many photographs, that’s fine too. Single-parent life can be busy, tiring and unpredictable. There is no family album schedule to fall behind on.

Remember That You Deserve to Be in the Memories Too

It can be easy, particularly as a single parent, to become the invisible person behind the family archive. You’re there for all of it, but because you’re the one taking the photographs, scrolling back through the years can sometimes make it look as though you were hardly there at all.

So take the selfie, even if nobody is looking at the camera. Use the timer. Ask the stranger at the attraction entrance to take a quick picture. Get in the photo even if you haven’t done your hair, you’re wearing the same coat you’ve worn all winter or you feel tired.

These pictures aren’t just for social media. They’re a record of your family, and you are part of that family.

For your children, those photographs may one day be especially precious. They won’t be examining whether you looked your best. They’ll see the person who was there beside them.

Give Favourite Photos Somewhere to Live

Photographs are much easier to enjoy when at least a few of them escape the endless camera roll. You don’t need to spend a weekend sorting through 14,000 images or suddenly become the sort of person who makes beautifully coordinated annual photo books.

Start with one folder of favourites and add pictures whenever you happen to notice them. That’s enough.

A short caption can preserve something the image can’t show: the funny thing your child said just beforehand, why everyone was laughing or the ridiculous name they gave the cake you made together. Even a few words can bring an ordinary day vividly back to life.

If your budget allows, print a handful for a small album, stick them on the fridge or put one in a frame. Let your children help choose their favourites too, and as they get older, check that they’re happy before you share photographs of them more widely.

The aim isn’t to create a perfect record of family life. It’s simply to keep hold of some of it.

Put Yourself Back in the Picture

When you’re the person making family life happen, it’s very easy to end up behind the camera rather than in front of it. For single parents in particular, there may not be somebody else automatically documenting all the moments when you’re reading the bedtime story, building the sandcastle or standing beside the birthday cake.

You don’t need hundreds of pictures of yourself. You don’t need perfect lighting or matching outfits. But every now and then, make sure you’re in the frame.

Years from now, those photographs won’t just show your children growing up. They’ll show something just as important: you were there, growing alongside them.

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