Former Enfield Mom Continues Back to School Photo Tradition

SHREWSBURY, MA — Back to school time has come to mean three things in these parts in recent years: crisp pre-autumn mornings, frantic last-minute clothes shopping and the annual reaction photo from a mom with deep Enfield roots.

For the third straight year, former Enfield resident Jackie (Nason) Fashjian has tickled a lot of funny bones with what has become a tradition: a photo of her daughters on the first day of school. In 2017, she was depicted leaping for joy on the doorstep, wine bottle in one hand and glass in the other, as her two daughters waited for the bus. Last year, after being criticized as "an alcoholic mother, living off the system who hates her children and lives to traumatize and embarrass them" by people who missed the obvious joke, she did a 180-degree turn and was pictured clinging to her daughters' ankles, looking clearly distraught.

This year's offering, however, had a new twist to it.

Fashjian's oldest daughter, Millaina, is beginning her freshman year at Curry College in Milton, Mass. On the day she and her husband Mike moved their teen into her dormitory, Fashjian came up with a modified version of her photo ritual, which she immediately posted on her Facebook page.

Beneath the caption "Back to school... WAIT... I'm leaving you here?" was a picture of Fashjian with her arms outstretched, her face an avalanche of tears, as her husband lifts her from the floor and pulls her out of the room. For her part, Millaina wears the classic "Good God" look of any teenager, her eyes rolled so far up into her head that her pupils must have collided with her brain.

A 1983 graduate of Enrico Fermi High School and an actress in several Massachusetts theater groups, Fashjian said this year's photo, though tongue-in-cheek, is an honest depiction of the real-life emotions parents deal with when sending their first child away from home.

"I always love doing silly photos and spreading laughter, but on a serious note, dropping her off was one of the hardest things we've ever had to do," she said Tuesday. "I think a lot of parents can relate to this photo. We will miss her more than any words or pictures can express!"

What will be in store for next year, when daughter Hayley becomes a college student?

"Looks like we will be empty nesters soon. It sucks getting old and watching your kids fly the coop. I don't like it one bit!"