Читать книгу The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year - Mosey Jones - Страница 18

On a visit to worship at the chubby feet of Boy Two, Middle Sister suggests I get into child modelling. Well, not me, obviously, but the offspring. Once I’ve recovered from the laughing fit I have to concede that she has a point. My children aren’t astoundingly beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Boy Two’s passport photo is back and in it he is doing a fine impression of a Hungarian shot-putter – male or female, take your pick. Now, naturally I think that the kids are stunning, but that’s a mother’s prerogative, along with believing that everyone else’s children have appalling manners and are borderline ADHD.

However, Boy One certainly fits the wholesome, outdoorsy image favoured by kiddie catalogues – Boden and their ilk. Boy Two’s bottom is just crying out for a Johnson’s Baby Wipe to be artfully draped across it. Middle Sister says that a friend of her boyfriend’s is a talent scout for this sort of thing and that she’ll send over some pictures. It isn’t really morally wrong to send a three-year-old out to work to support his parents’ Merlot habit, is it?

After Middle Sister has left I crank up the internet and look into this modelling malarkey. Children don’t have to be ‘overly beautiful’ (good), just ‘clear-skinned and bright-eyed’ (would chocolate-smeared with unidentifiable foodstuffs in the hair count?). They also have to be ‘sociable, good at listening to instructions and carrying them out with the minimum of fuss’. This is all right for Boy Two who, having just discovered his smile, flirts with anything that moves, making for a very slow journey round the supermarket. Smiling babies are an absolute granny magnet.

Boy One, however, may prove a little trickier. Massively photogenic (like his mother, natch), he does have a tendency to try to crawl inside my clothes when he meets new people. It doesn’t take long for him to get over himself and start showing off like a pro, but probably long enough for ad men to get bored and move on to the next angel-faced urchin. Equally: ‘Bad manners or sulkiness will not be tolerated.’ Boy One’s manners are fine but I’m a little sceptical about his Tourettelike penchant for bellowing ‘POO!’ for no good reason. He also does a nice line in teenage sulks if things aren’t going his way. (What will he do when he’s a teenager – behave like a toddler? It’s not beyond the realms of imagination.)

Nor does it bode well that shoots can take ‘two to three hours, but factor in lots more time as they often overrun’. Bored children, shyness followed by obstreperousness – it doesn’t sound like a recipe for an easy life. And then there is the pay, which initially sounds great until you realise all the ‘extras’ you need to accommodate. Babies can coin in about £50 an hour, and older children even more. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, the agencies take a quarter of that and you have to be willing to leave everything at the drop of a hat, plus pay for your own transport costs. Sure, one day they’re grinning over a bowl of peas and the next they’re Patsy Kensit, married to a rock star and doing a nice line in soap operas. But twenty-odd years is a long time to wait to hit pay dirt. I’ve given Middle Sister the go-ahead just in case something comes of it, but I’m not sure that I’m suited to the role of Mother of Supermodel.