{"id":5300,"date":"2013-08-09T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T23:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/?p=5300"},"modified":"2013-08-08T21:37:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T01:37:12","slug":"model-mom-parenting-a-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/2013\/08\/model-mom-parenting-a-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Model Parent – The Triumphs and Pitfalls of Parenting a Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it\u2019 is an adage that\u2019s 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\u2019s the day a photographer at the exhibit photographed Tess, emailing the pictures later that evening with a message Tess was a natural and to \u201cget her to an agency ASAP!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/a>
Parenting a Model<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can guess mine and my husband\u2019s next thoughts. \u201cYeah\u2026.right!\u201d<\/p>\n

Our skepticism had nothing to do with the photographer. He didn\u2019t bill us for the photos or promote himself in any way. Still we had doubts as Tess yakked excitedly about how she couldn\u2019t wait to get started in modeling and how this was a sign she should follow her dreams!<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know I\u2019ve always wanted to be a model you guys!\u201d 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\u2019d 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\u2019m sure; ones with quote\/unquote \u201clots of interests\u201d. Over the years she\u2019d insisted on signing up for karate classes, swim club, ceramics, t-ball, soccer, art club and the infamously ill-fated violin lessons (see \u2018we should\u2019ve just burned our money, that would\u2019ve been cheaper\u2019 in the dictionary).
\nYet 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\u2019d 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!<\/p>\n

I said as much to Todd who countered with a grimace and horror stories he\u2019d 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\u2019s 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\u2019ve been them of late and I\u2019m here to testify that when someone tells you your kid\u2019s 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, \u201cI feel like a guy whose son just landed a pitching contract with the Yankees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes indeed! That there is the rub my friends because it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re Donald Trump or the head greeter at Wal-Mart; that\u2019s exactly how it feels when your kid signs with a big-city modeling firm. It\u2019s like you\u2019ve 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\u2019ve never admitted openly before) that if Tess got rich enough maybe she\u2019d buy me that long-desired vacation in Bora Bora. I believe Todd\u2019s flights of fancy had more to do with a Porsche (insert shit-eating Southern grin here).<\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/a>
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2019ve 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\u2019s career blooms. I won\u2019t lie. It\u2019s a difficult, grueling path to walk being a \u2018model parent\u2019. The granting of Tess\u2019s wish brought challenges Todd and I were in no way prepared for and that we couldn\u2019t possibly see coming.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the old \u2018be careful what you wish for because you might just get it\u2019 comes into play. Todd and I have said that to each other more than once since the Heidelberg visit. Then again, \u2018nothing ventured, nothing gained\u2019 is a wise old saying too; one that\u2019s crossed our lips and minds just as often.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce 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.\u201d Vince Lombardi<\/p>\n

Future topics:
\n– Make sure you have plenty of quarters.
\n– Big city castings on a working man\u2019s budget
\n– The principal said my kid\u2019s no Justin Bieber
\n– Traveling to Hong Kong and other seaside ports
\n– William Shakespeare was wrong about that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it\u2019 is an adage that\u2019s 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\u2019s the day a photographer at the exhibit photographed Tess, emailing the pictures later that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[831],"tags":[842,514,840,843,841],"sp_smart_badges":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-guest-writers","8":"tag-model-mom","9":"tag-models","10":"tag-parent","11":"tag-professional-models","12":"tag-tess","13":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/detroit-photographer-fashion-editorial-20121029f-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/detroit-photographer-fashion-editorial-20121029f.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Penny Karr","author_link":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/author\/pkarr\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5300"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulmanoian.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=5300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}