Politician Puts Pouting Son on Christmas Card

Andrew Leigh and his family standing for a family portrait

Taking Christmas card photos can be difficult for a multitude of reasons, especially if you have a youngster. Sitting in perfectly posed positions isn’t exactly the most attractive activity to a toddler, and the Leigh family’s youngest didn’t hide his feelings about it.

Back in 2015, Andrew Leigh, a member of Australia's House of Representatives, his wife Gweneth, and his three sons stood for family portraits. “We did a photo shoot with the whole family for about 20 minutes. Our 3-year-old (Zachary) enjoyed it initially, but then found it rather frustrating that we were all standing still and looking at the cameraman,” Leigh says. “From his perspective, you can understand it: Why stand still when you can play?”

“Gweneth and I were smiling at the cameras, along with our eldest two boys,” Leigh explains. “What we didn’t [realize] was that our toddler had left the group and was sitting a [meter] away, with the world’s biggest scowl on his face.”

Instead of choosing a photo where all of the family members were smiling, the family decided to choose that photo for their holiday cards—and everyone loved it. “People didn’t want to see airbrushed politics; they preferred to know that our kids were just as grumpy as everyone else’s,” says the politician. Someone had put the photo online; and soon, their sulking son was making international headlines.

After their family photoshoot garnered attention across the globe, Leigh detailed his role as a parent and a politician in an article he wrote for The Guardian. He says, “Ideally, both parenting and politics should be done with a sense of kindness. With children in your house, a politics of love looks a whole lot more attractive than a politics of hatred. You’re more attuned to the ridiculous and less inclined to take yourself too seriously. And maybe, just maybe, our youngest child will one day forgive us for featuring his grumpiness on our Christmas card.”