Child Models

[TN_Vixen]

my cousin's daughter (5 yrs) is a very beautiful little girl. She has enormous blue eyes with very long soot-black eyelashes and long blonde hair. My cousin took her to a "model-call" here the other day and without doing anything but standing on the stage, her daughter won the contest. Now she's been asked to go to Chicago to have a portfolio created and where things lead from there is unknown.

My cousin is a successful professional as is her husband and she's not likely to be one of these mothers that would push anything on her child... in fact, the child was the one who initiated the entire event. My concerns are, though.. that the child will get caught up in this world at a very young age and miss out on her childhood, the attention she should be getting from her parents, a proper education and more. My opinion hasn't been asked for in this situation and I'm unsure whether or not I'd give it if it were.

What foreseeable problems do you see in this situation and what would you (if anything) do about it?

 

[Cheyenne]

I have a friend with two beautiful daughters- very wholesome looking kids. Both modeled for ads for a national department store chain. One is too old now for modeling kids/teens clothes, the other is just borderline. I talked to my friend yesterday, as a matter of fact, and found out where the latest bill board is that her daugher is featured on so that I can go see it.

Anyway, these two kids are very normal. The money they earned by modeling has been put into a fund for them for their college education. They never did it to excess, and didn't travel for their modeling sessions. I think you can have the fun of modeling, not to mention the earnings, without going overboard and having it take over the child's life.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Yeah, I was a child model once......

But it kinda fell apart when the realized I was actually.....

32.

But I tell ya - while it lasted!!!!!

The pussy, the drugs - man what a life!!!

 

[teresafannin]

Make sure the agencies are reputable. There are a lot of crooks in the modeling business, as there are in most businesses. It is very expensive to get a portfolio put together & from what I know, it is up to the parents to pay for it all. If the agency pays for photos, makeup, etc, most will expect to be fully reimbursed before the child gets paid. The few people I know who have let their kids model ended up spending way more than the kids ever earned. Most agree that if they had to do it over, they would have spent the money on something useful for the kids.
Tell them to read every single piece of paper that is put in front of them & it is probably wise to have a good attorney when it comes time to sign contracts & things.

 

[Closet Desire]

If...

...it's the child's idea and he or she loves what their doing then I'm always in favour of supporting them. None of our kids ended up having the same interests as me. I was always bitter toward my parents because they wanted me to do what they "thought" was best whether it was be on the wrestling team, play clarinet in the band (I wanted to play trumpet), or be an engineer. I ended up not being very good at any of those things. I've got a son who loves judo, a step son who loves school and trains (go figure!), and a step daughter who loves gymnastics even though she will never make a top team (started too old).

What I loathe are parents who do it for themselves. Ugly, ingratious women who hound their daughters into modeling or beauty pageants and fathers who get into fist fights at baseball or hockey matches.

 

[Expertise]

After a piece on Investigative Reports (A&E) I am totaly disgusted by the whole industry.

Child beauty pagents are..... words almost escape me. The pagents they showed, and the parents were reprehensible.

One upsmanship (My kids better than yours) and parents trying to live out their fantasies through their children. Fucking pathetic.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

I saw that show......

Un-fucking-believable!!!!

And then they just drop a bomb of info on you like their hair-do's cost $250!!!!

That's some kind of major twisted hobby those parents put their kids through.

 

[Closet Desire]

I saw that too...

...I was shocked but...my tar brush isn't that big.

 

[Expertise]

Thats unfortunate CD.

I was thinking there oughtta be "Camps" for those people.

 

[OUTSIDER]

In this country we don't have thoes kind of child beauty pagents but I've seen some programmes about them and I can only say that they make me feel very uneasy and the parents of these children always seem to be weirdos...enough said.

 

[carini]

on the subject of kiddie pagents... all it brings to mind for me is an old Mr.Show Sketch about fetal beauty pagents... the most beautiful in womb baby... cracked my up

 

[*Lazer*]

I don't even want to hazard a guess at the neurosis that prompts people to parade their kids at those cattle shows.
It is nothing less then outright exploitation of the kids and as far as I am concerned it is stupid and sad.

I think what disturbs me more is those kids you see doing bumps and grinds on the talent shows. Dressed up in showgirl outfits and all that makeup and crap. I get a sick feeling in my gut at the message we are sending to these kids by sexualizing them in that way.

Whats the matter with using normal people in ads anyway. I for one am really tired of looking at airbrushed nonsense. I regularly boycott clothing labels that exploit people with their ads ie: Calvin Klein for his heroin chic period.

Better we spend time teaching kids what is essential to happiness. I just would never want to expose my kids to that superfical and tacky lifestyle. I think advertising can be a destructive force and it can be empowering. It is up to us to demand that it be used for the good.

 

[coach]

TN my kids did commercials and cataloges when they were younger. we had a good agency though. There are alot of bad ones out there. just remember that it shouldn't cost you a cent, all good agencys work on commission.
A lot of beauty shows are used to entice you to join their agency and then they start charging you picture fees and for modelling classes.
My son did a major comercial and it never cost him a cent.

I keep go back to what our agency said, "you can have the most beautiful kid on earth, but if they need a kid with freckles and your kid doesn't have them we dont care what he looks like"

one time they cut hundreds of kids from one shoot because they didn't have an inny belly button.