Why the photo swaps on phones?

Ever listened to a man describe how beautiful his wife is when he shows off his album of her photographs stored on his mobile phone? The most enviable and glorious things make up her physique and character. But it is great wonder that only a few months down the road these photos are nowhere to be found near the screen of his phone. Instead ,adorning most of these phones’ screens and pages are the photos of an innocent sleeping smiling newborn.

It is common sight to see a man who has over months and sometimes years embellished his phone screen with different photo shots of his wife suddenly relegate these same wonderful shots that described the beauty of their wives to the very backgrounds of their phones.

The swift photograph swap of a wife’s picture which once adorned the phone screen of her husband, is an ongoing trend which men seem to enjoy in response to their wives dropping their photos and replacing them with those of their babies.

Isi Abel said he was only responding to a move his wife made. “She started it. Even before she came home from the hospital, she had taken like twenty different shots of the baby which she used as her screen saver. There were just as many of me with the baby but none of these were on her screen. When I asked her why she didn’t use the one of three of us she laughed and asked if I was feeling threatened her love for me was on the decline. So, I decided to do the same thing and swap her photo on my screen for that of the baby. She asked me the same question I asked her. I am sure you know what my answer was to her,” he said laughing.

“It made me ‘angry’ and ‘jealous’ the first time I saw it,” Anna Abel said. “I removed the photograph and replaced it with one of the baby just after I was delivered of him. When I asked him, he said it was because I had removed his own picture which I used to carry around on my phone and transferred to new phones when I acquired them. He said if a photo which meant so much to me could be easily deleted not just swapped then why should he leave mine on his phone. I think I lost the battle because initially when I used to replace the baby’s picture on his phone for one of the baby and I, together he would delete it and put that of the baby alone. I have given up and rested my case.”

Abu Umar Joseph who used to have a collection of photographs of his wife adorning his phone screen and pages which he changed ever so frequently now also has a photo of his amidst laughter saying, “the same way the baby has taken over her life and everything is about him now, is the same way the baby has taken over my life and everything is about him too, including the photo on the phone. The baby is the one reigning now.”

Adam Ibrahim explained that it was not a question of love for his wife dwindling in favour of his baby but that it just is the way it is. “Even before the baby came, my wife always had her photo on her phone screen and not mine. But hers was on my phone. I remember once when we quarreled and I removed her photograph and put mine, she went and deleted all my personal photos and put hers back on my screen.

“Not long after she gave birth and of course the baby’s photo was on her phone screen the next minute. I applied the same principle to myself; and you bet, this time I have kept my phone very, very far from her.”

Ibi Enebo explains that having a baby is the best thing that can happen to a woman and there is need to remind her of the blessing. “The greatest gift any woman can have in a marriage is the birth of her child; and for many of us, this is the reason we even marry in the first place. So, why then do I want to keep carrying my husband’s face all over the place when I have a most precious gift from God who can remind me of how blessed I am? It is more pleasurable to look at my baby’s face on my phone than to look at my husband’s especially when he upsets me. I remind myself of the blessing (the child) we both share and feel consoled.

On neutral grounds, Elizabeth Agbo decries the issue of whose photograph is on the phone screen and whose is not. In my opinion, this is not a measure of love or an assurance of it. It’s just a habit that we have picked up due to the facilities at our disposal. I don’t think it is something we women should lose sleep over or the men should try to get back at us for. It’s a parent’s instinct, especially in this day of technological advancement to want to show off their baby especially when it is the first one to come.