‘Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it’ is an adage that’s come to mind often in the two years since a trip to the Heidelberg Exhibit in Detroit brought our daughter face-to-face with her future. That’s the day a photographer at the exhibit photographed Tess, emailing the pictures later that evening with a message Tess was a natural and to “get her to an agency ASAP!”
You can guess mine and my husband’s next thoughts. “Yeah….right!”
Our skepticism had nothing to do with the photographer. He didn’t bill us for the photos or promote himself in any way. Still we had doubts as Tess yakked excitedly about how she couldn’t wait to get started in modeling and how this was a sign she should follow her dreams!
“You know I’ve always wanted to be a model you guys!” she gushed while Todd and I stood miserably by suffering every parental fear in the known universe from sexual predators to unscrupulous agents to various relatives questioning our sanity. All that played out before us as Tess traveled to la-la land on a wing, a prayer and her assurance she’d make a great Hollister model. Todd and I both looked back at her with one-eyed disdain because Tess was one of those kids. You know the type I’m sure; ones with quote/unquote “lots of interests”. Over the years she’d insisted on signing up for karate classes, swim club, ceramics, t-ball, soccer, art club and the infamously ill-fated violin lessons (see ‘we should’ve just burned our money, that would’ve been cheaper’ in the dictionary).
Yet after six weeks or so (Todd and I could pretty much set our watches by it), Tess would lose interest in these extracurricular activities, saying she’d mastered them and while we appreciated her self-confidence and quick learning abilities, the idea of signing Tess up for modeling only to have her drop it two months later was not our idea of a sound financial strategy. We went forward with the modeling anyway though, partly out of a desire to support Tess and partly out of intrigue. After all, maybe the photographer was right; maybe Tess did belong in modeling. Heck, for all we knew she was standing on the verge of a lucrative career; a real-life Cinderella story in the making and right in our own home!
I said as much to Todd who countered with a grimace and horror stories he’d heard of parents shelling out wads of cash to agencies all because somebody somewhere told them their kid was the next Gisele Bundchen. And it’s funny I should mention parents shelling out cash (I say to myself as I sit here balancing my bank account) because hubby and I have learned not to judge those parents too harshly. For one thing, we’ve been them of late and I’m here to testify that when someone tells you your kid’s got the potential to make a splash in the modeling world? Well the effect is immediate and powerful. In fact hubby summed it up perfectly as he and I stood in the lobby of the modeling firm Tess would sign with that day. He put on that shit-eating Southern grin of his and said, “I feel like a guy whose son just landed a pitching contract with the Yankees.”
Yes indeed! That there is the rub my friends because it doesn’t matter if you’re Donald Trump or the head greeter at Wal-Mart; that’s exactly how it feels when your kid signs with a big-city modeling firm. It’s like you’ve won some kind of lottery and was unnerving where our minds went after that. Todd and I entertained all sorts of notions in the wake of Tess signing, including my thoughts (which I’ve never admitted openly before) that if Tess got rich enough maybe she’d buy me that long-desired vacation in Bora Bora. I believe Todd’s flights of fancy had more to do with a Porsche (insert shit-eating Southern grin here).
However that was all before reality set in, reality being like most things in life, a rude though oddly entertaining awakening. I will say this much. Our initial fears of predators and unscrupulous agents fell by the wayside. Yes, we’ve met our share of both along the way but those issues were solved and traded out for other concerns, large, small, bad and good that tend to show up when your child’s career blooms. I won’t lie. It’s a difficult, grueling path to walk being a ‘model parent’. The granting of Tess’s wish brought challenges Todd and I were in no way prepared for and that we couldn’t possibly see coming.
That’s when the old ‘be careful what you wish for because you might just get it’ comes into play. Todd and I have said that to each other more than once since the Heidelberg visit. Then again, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ is a wise old saying too; one that’s crossed our lips and minds just as often.
“Once you agree on the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent’s pressure, and the temporary failures.” Vince Lombardi
Future topics:
– Make sure you have plenty of quarters.
– Big city castings on a working man’s budget
– The principal said my kid’s no Justin Bieber
– Traveling to Hong Kong and other seaside ports
– William Shakespeare was wrong about that
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