Sandra Bacchi: Watermelons Are Not Strawberries | LENSCRATCH

As a young child, I naively thought that parents have all the answers—that they have everything figured out. As a father of two, I now fully recognize that parents often have no idea what they are doing. Why else would parenting books be so popular? We don’t have the answers. We are constantly scrambling for them and trying to work out solutions. Watermelons Are Not Strawberries narrates photographer Sandra Bacchi’s personal experiences as a mother, and speaks universally to some of the anxieties associated with raising kids. Through Bacchi’s lens, we feel her connection to her daughters—that of awareness and empathy. We get a sense of the vulnerabilities of both parent and child, as well as adaptations necessary to overcome (what seem to be daily) unanticipated challenges. The title of the project refers to a statement made by one of her daughters, who has a strawberry allergy. Rather than being discouraged, she creatively imagines watermelons as strawberries and pretends to eat them. She is also figuring things out.