So awkward. These families tried their best, but once you know their backstories, you can’t help but cringe at their family photos!

1. Knowing that the father and mother in this photo had a long screaming match about a recent credit card statement on the car ride over to the photography studio makes this picture SO PAINFUL.

2.Yikes…so, the family members in this photo have been wanting to broach the subject of putting Grandma in a nursing home because of her extensive health needs, but don’t want to make her feel like a burden! We can barely look!

3. The morning this was taken the father had just lost his job, but he didn’t want to ruin the family’s mood before they sat for the photo. Oof! So awkward!

4. In the years leading up to this photo, this family had seen the worst of each other. There was an air of distance in the house, as though by isolating their feelings they could protect themselves from pain. This, of course, trickled down from the parents, who stumbled blinking out of their own messy, troubled circumstances. She pulled from the children more than she gave, holding them up as shields against her self-loathing and need for approval. He was confused and blunt. A lout, if truth be told. This photo, then, is the perfect keepsake for them. Pasted permanent smiles hiding gale storms of turmoil. This unity, forever bound, forever apart. So awkward!

5. This photo is mad uncomfortable when you know it was taken on the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing.