A California-based mom is striking a chord with parents everywhere after sharing her emotional reaction to realizing how quickly her son is growing up.
Kim Salisbury, a 55-year-old mom of two, says it was just another busy day at home when her 17-year-old son Camden’s latest school photos arrived. She did what she always does — grabbed the photo album, reached for the glue stick, and went to add the new picture — when something suddenly made her pause.
“I was in a hurry, reaching for the glue stick when I saw only one slot left, and this visceral reaction happened to me,” she recalls. “I can’t even really explain it beyond that.”
Salisbury, who frequently shares snippets of her life on social media, immediately grabbed her phone to record the moment for her more than 36,000 followers. She says she was completely unprepared for how strongly it would hit her.
“I just started crying immediately,” she says. “But it wasn’t necessarily sad crying, just emotional. I put the photo in, went to close the book, and then I saw a few more pictures of him as a little boy, and it just hit me again. It just stopped me in my tracks.”
Flipping through the pages and seeing Camden at different ages sent her — and her heart — straight down memory lane. Salisbury, who is also mom to daughter Phoebe, 20, used the caption of her post, which has now earned over 420,000 likes, to reflect on how quickly childhood passes and to urge parents of young kids to savor the chaos.
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“Don’t blink. It goes by SO fast. Mamas with littles, I know you are in it right now. But I’m here to tell you, The days are long, the years are SHORT,” she wrote. “You can’t even imagine how fast it goes until you go to do the same thing you’ve done every year since your first kid started getting school pictures, and you burst into tears. 😭”
The response online, she says, was instant and deeply emotional. As the video spread, she watched the likes, comments and shares pour in, each one reflecting how many people saw their own story in hers.
“I was just talking to [my loyal followers], but it has resonated with so many more,” she says, adding that the video has touched people in all different stages of life. “I’m trying to respond to as many comments as I can, because I can feel the emotion coming through, but it’s been hard to keep up. I wish I could talk with each person reaching out to me. It’s had such an emotional reaction.”
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Looking back on how she’s preserved memories over the years, Salisbury — founder and CEO of the home organizing company Home Method Co. — says she’s “beyond grateful” to have kept physical albums. Through them, she and her husband, Christian Salisbury, 53, have an entire visual timeline of their children’s lives.
“These books are tangible, and document the kids’ lives through their school and sports photos, along with small snapshots of what their life was like at each stage,” she says.
