has been selected to interview for a role in a reality show. The whole thing is legit according to her agent and the offer came from ABC, which really makes no difference in the general scheme of things. (Our daughter is a working model and former gymnast. She keeps her body in shape for modeling through diet and exercise.)
She’s rather torn between choices. She can go ahead with the interview and may or may not be chosen. Or she can deny the interview and go for possible modeling contracts in So. Africa. Either choice is a toss-up.
If she goes for the reality show interview, and wins a place in the show, she’ll probably be asked to do things she says she cannot do: She cannot be mean or vindictive–nor is she willing to eat bugs or let snakes crawl over her body. But she’d have the chance to earn what is, for all of us, a great deal of money–depending. It would also give her national exposure.
On the other hand, going to So. Africa won’t earn her very much money, but it’ll satisfy her urge to travel, which is, for her, the lure of modeling.
So-called ‘everyday’ decisions can, and do, change lives.
If money is a concern at all to her (ie if she’s not particularly rich), I’d do the reality show. Not all reality show peeps are mean or vindictive. There’s always a place for the sweet innocent one. And hell, who wouldn’t eat a bug for a million bucks?
Because the world really needs more models and reality TV stars.
The bigger choice that your daughter seems to have made is in favour of vacuity and vanity over actually doing something worthwhile with her time. I’d be worried far more about that than about which of two incredibly superficial options that will treat her and her body as a commodity she ‘should’ take…
Interesting. If you’re willing to share, you can educate us by providing a behind the scenes look at the reality show industry, the TV version of online forums.
Hmm… My advice would be, your daughter might write a letter explaining what she is willing to do and not do. She might express enthusiasm for doing whatever it is she is willing to do. Mail the letter to whoever is doing the interviews. And then she gets called or she doesn’t.
National exposure is not good in and of itself. Your daughter probably wisely doesn’t want to be branded for something she is not, because then she might have to live a lie for the rest of her career. There’s a fair chance the reality show has no goal beyond using her up and then spitting her out.
That said, she can surely aggressively sell whatever service she does want to provide. Once she’s clear on what that is, she can proceed with enthusiastic abandon, and leave the chips to fall where they may.
If she is torn, she might as well go to the interview and then decide if she is accepted. And she can interview them, also. Ask about what she will be forced to, asked to do, what she must accept and so on. There are some risks with a reality show. Like forever giving away the rights to someone else to show images of you being fooled, mistreated, mistreating, morning faced, ostracized, falling down on your face, whatever…It is a bargain with the devil, make no mistake about that. An entity that does not care about her and will try to use her to make money period with no concern for her future and without even the minimal integrity most modeling agencies would have for their models. Of course, it might work out fine, even great for her. The devil doesn’t really care. (and by the way, I am not Christian. I don’t mean this literally. But as close to it as possible.)
I’m with Moreno, there’s really no reason to refrain from going to the interview and seeing what it’s all about. Why make the decision now? If she goes to the interview and is not selected, then there will be no decision to make, so why make a decision before she knows whether or not there’s one to make?
If it does come down to an actual decision needing to be made, she’ll be able to travel plenty (and take whatever gigs she wants, however poorly they pay) when she has that kind of cash in the bank if she wins.
I can relate to what you are saying loud and clear. Our daughter was on a reality show 2 years ago. It was called débutante, and it was shown in Asia. She was runner up because she held on to her ideals gained from her membership in FEMA, and she gained international fame appearing in a scanty lettuce wrap-dress (for FEMA), she did not win the reality show first prize, because she objected to a scene, where all débutantes had to go fishing. She did not believe in that, so they eliminated her. She came back broken hearted, and broke. And has given up on show biz including modeling, but she did what she thought was right.
Thank y’all for your replies, but what I was really trying to get at wasn’t my daughter who, btw, does not want to be discussed in a public forum of any type. What I was trying to illustrate was a Mother’s dilemma. Moms want what’s best for their children and they want to be able to advise them as best they can. She hasn’t asked us for advice, btw. It’s just me, as a Mom, worrying about her. She’ll make her own decision as she always has.
I wasn’t too thrilled by her decision to model, but we allowed her to go to Japan when she was 16 and finish high school via e-mail. We sent her to college and she graduated with a degree in geology and international studies.
I think she has a hell of lot more going for her than what she’s chosen. But I can do nothing. That’s the basis of my frustration and angst and that’s what I’m talking about in this thread. It took our choices first. Was our choice to allow her to make her own decisions at an early age (knowing we’d be here to pick her up, if it came to that) the proper thing to do?
My parenting is mostly self-taught–neither my parents nor my husband’s gave us any real parenting lessons. So, my worry is much more about my decisions rather than our daughter’s.
There is a moral to this story - if you let a 16 year old girl ‘make her own decisions’ then she won’t make her own decisions. She will make the decisions that pop culture tells her to make. Hence this apparently intelligent and decent young woman has ended up trying to pursue the most vapid, shallow existence available to her.
It is no surprise. If you simply abandon people to the vagaries of an exploitative, commodifying culture and never bother to tell them that it is an exploitative, commodifying culture that they will need to resist otherwise they will become an exploited commodity, then it is entirely predictable that they will end up an exploited commodity. That all of this takes place in the name of ‘freedom of choice’ is tragic, but entirely planned and deliberate.
My suggestion to you is don’t hide behind this ‘she hasn’t asked for my advice, I can’t do anything about this’, because that is just bullshit you’re using to absolve yourself of responsibility. Take some responsibility, express your concerns to her, tell her what you really think and what you think she should do, WHETHER OR NOT SHE ASKS FOR IT. You are a parent, you have the authority and responsibility to do that. She doesn’t have to listen, she might and she might not, but unless you try, don’t whinge when she does things you don’t like…
Offer advice if you have information that she doesn’t (in this case just offer that information), or if you are confident both that you have better judgement on this topic than her and that this decision is too permanent for her to make on her own. Otherwise leave her to it. Keep in mind the outcomes of your past decisions on whether or not to give advice to her and to people in general, and try to feel out what you’re naturally biased to do (what it feels comfortable to do) and factor in that bias. Also, when taking my advice, consider that I’m giving mothering advice to someone I don’t know on an internet forum about philosophy that I just popped into on a lark.
Hmm… If modeling was easy, I suppose everybody would be flying around the world being well paid and famous etc. It seems we have the choice to celebrate the skill involved.
I see modeling kinda like sports. It take skill to do it well, and like anything else it’s really cool when done well, but the problem is the career can be pretty short. But, just as in sports, there must be opportunities to grow off the field in to other parts of the business over time. Perhaps the daughter will eventually have a successful business advising the next generation of models?
If the daughter is now an adult who has chosen her own path, it seems supporting her decision enthusiastically is the best choice left open to a parent.
All that said, it’s surely good to know that SIATD v2 the Wanker NEVER EVER looks at photos of attractive models because to do so would be to support the insane vagaries of an exploitative, commodifying culture bent on an imperialist domination of the helpless victims of the world by evil Americans etc etc blah, blah, blah and blah.
If by ‘skill’ you mean ‘looking a proscribed way and being willing to let people treat you as a clotheshorse’…
Woohoo.
Bullshit.
Who said anything about evil Americans? This thread is about an incompetent (American) parent saying ‘I let her make bad choices, and now I don’t know what to do, wah wah wah wah wah wah wah’. If your kid was crawling towards a railway line and you didn’t stop it, that would be gross negligence. I see letting your daughter get mindfucked and propagandised into becoming a vacuous commodity-entity as only slightly less gross negligence. It isn’t as though lizbeth is proclaiming that she made the right decision, so fuck knows why you feel the need to defend her decision.
Oh, that’s right, because American’s are…
And before you ask, yes, I have been offered the opportunity to be on a reality TV show (I turned it down on matters of principle, because I actually live according to the morality I express).
And so, like me, you are spending your days wanking about on forums for free, instead of being well paid to fly around the world being celebrated by millions because of…
Oh yea, sorry, I forgot, your gloriously pristine integrity.
Ok, as you were, you are hereby cleared to keep on word wanking.
There is nothing wrong talking with your daughter about the various pros and cons and then supporting her in whatever decision she makes. Express your reservations, point out all the possible rewards and all the possible negative consequences, then let her know that you’ll support her in whatever decision she makes. THAT is the role of a caring parent. You didn’t raise her to be wrapped in cotton balls. She makes the decisions supplemented by your wise counsel.
Ignore all the wankers who are busy trying to impose their morality on you and on her. Pontification is cheap when they have no skin in the game.
Thank you, tent. Other than our first decision to let her go to Japan, we’ve done all that. It’s the initial decision made that now bothers me. We made it to give her the experience we felt she needed to grow. And I have to admit, part of my reasoning was because my parents would never have done that for me. Those details aren’t really important, except that they were part of my background and my resulting decision. My parents had no interest in my thoughts. I was to follow orders. if that meant leaving behind something I seemed to be ‘good’ at, it made no difference. There was no discussion. Period. There wasn’t even thought of possible rebellion.
I only actively rebelled against my parents twice in my life. Both times led to unanticipated consequences.
I go with a kernal of truth in there. Backseat driving an adult child’s choices, preemptively or otherwise is something to avoid, if possible. But on the other hand if my kid none too coordinated 21 year old - this is all hypothetical - took up hang gliding, concern would come barfing out of me, hopefully in a mode he or she could hear. It’s not like I don’t react that way with my friends - who tend to be adults. If they arrive for dinner with a new boyfriend who is clearly a serial killer, I will probably, ask them if they are sure they trust this person. Yes, this leads to problems. But you know, it has also led to problems when I’ve been polite and people can see I held back my reactions. It can end up not so great when one says, Oh, yeah, I was sure he was a serial killer that first dinner. (this is a real example - OK, he turned out not to be a serial killer - but abusive, sneaking away with her money, and mistreating her kids. She wasn’t upset that I hadn’t rescued her. She said she never would have listened, she thought she was in love. But she was upset that there was this secret for so long between us, given the bluntness we were generally quite capable of and generally appreciated in each other.)
There’s a big difference between no, you can’t and I am terrifed about X. And it’s a real good thing when young adult children catch on that it really isn’t about permission and that the parents know they will nto listen sometimes and even that this is a good thing. So the parents get to express, and the adult kid does whatever.
I remember my own mother sitting me down when I had made a huge decision. She thought I was nuts. I thought her objection was kind of nuts.
But she raised her concerns - unasked for. I responded to these. And after this she said ‘I feel calm now. I said my piece. You heard me.’ She was sort of surprised much of her fear when away. It was like, she’d done her job as friend or parent, and that was it. I really liked that reaction. Just two free people. Both free to express, both free to choose.
The side you are looking at is where the parent is trying to manage the child’s life and there is a fundamental disrespect or not acknowledging this is now an adult.
So in many situations, even what looks like the same act - the parent raises concerns or criticism - the vibe, underlying level of respect, and parental urge to control - can make the act incredibly different.
I wanna be able to say 'Are you fucking nuts" with some passion and then move on and pray in private.
If I am 80 and my kid is 55 and he is going to get a tattoo on his face, I will probably give some unasked for criticism. But I’ll move on.
