18 Vintage Photos of Very Cranky Kids

Parents have always wanted photographs of their children to represent the best of their child. That’s because photographs can last a long time, and it’s natural to want the good qualities of your child to be the ones preserved forever. But that’s not always what happens. For every Facebook-worthy photo, there are usually at least six that go in the trash.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, though, a child might have been photographed only once or twice in her young life—so parents usually had to take whatever they got. Sometimes that was sweetness, and sometimes, as in the cases below, it was extreme sourness. Let's take a look back at some old photos of very cranky kids from eras past.

1. “No, you idiot, I said the blue handkerchief! Father is going to hear about this.”

2. Small pox? Cholera? Typhus? Bring it on. This little lady plans on living to see The Jazz Age.

3. “Molly, everyone knows your dolly is the best dressed in town. Don't look at me like that—I swear it's true!”

4. "Prohibition won’t be repealed until I’m in my thirties?"

5. "Could we speed this up? I have to be back on the cotton loom in five minutes."

6. “You will thrust this snowball directly into your own face at once sir. At ONCE!”

7. There is probably a connection between making boys wear big stupid bows, and the misdirected rage that fueled the First World War.

8. Bertie was beginning to suspect the benefits of the butter diet were grossly over-rated.

9. "Tsk. Newborns today. Back in my day, eight months ago, we were weaned on castor oil and chicory, and we LIKED it."

10.Young Albert Einstein. According to the theory of relativity, one second in this ridiculous outfit feels like a thousand years.

11. May God have mercy on your soul, because Lulabelle certainly shan’t.

12. “We don’t have time for this frippery. You think that coal is gonna mine itself?”

13. These faces are enough to strike terror into the heart of even the toughest babysitter. 

14. You'd be cranky too if you had to pose with a chicken.

15. You can put a kid in a fancy dress, but you can't make her pose, no you can't.

16. If you don’t want one of these … wear one of those.

17. Reading Kierkegaard was the worst mistake Jeb ever made. Nothing made sense anymore.

18. “We pleaded with dolly to show mercy, truly we did. Unfortunately, she just didn’t see it our way.”