My family’s involvement with modeling started with Stephanie. It is a somewhat personal, unusual story…


My favorite aspect of the medical training I received while in veterinary school was the internal medicine stuff… physiology, neurology, endocrinology. I loved learning how the body worked together and the changes that dominoed if one thing was out of whack.


AND… my first job as a practicing veterinarian was working for three guys who had just hired their first woman and who professed to be free of gender bias… but who would have killed me if I was on maternity leave during the peak spring and summer season.


SO, you put those two things together and when we were ready to add a second child to the family, I decided to buy an ovulation test kit. I have never been one to take things slow… when I make up my mind to do something, I want to do it NOW.


Well, it worked! So I filled out this little questionnaire in the kit and sent it back. This was a new thing on the market way back when. Stephanie was born in December, and the following spring I received a phone call from the manufacturer of the company. They asked me to send pictures, so I did. I sent the picture shown above. A few months later, they called to tell me my daughter would be featured in a national print ad… and around the time of her first birthday she appeared in several women’s magazines! (They cut Kyle out of the shot and just showed Steph's face.) That first “gig” paid a thousand dollars… and I was hooked.

So Stephanie and Kyle were signed with an agency in Indianapolis. Kyle did a local commercial, ironically as the “son” of my childhood friend that I hadn’t seen in decades! And Steph was featured in telephone ads that ran in the newspaper as well as this billboard. That, too, was ironic as my father had worked for the telephone company his whole career.

At the time that Steph and Kyle were modeling, Amy would have been in demand as well. Although her 25-hour-per-day pout killed her cuteness for us, she could turn on the charm for other people, and her minority ethnicity would have helped immensely. But there was no way I was going to put her in modeling. She wouldn't follow the simplest request at home and she "shut down" any time anyone expected anything from her. She most definitely was not a candidate for modeling.

All you have to do to get your kids started (assuming they have the disposition and the inclination to take direction from the photographer) is send photographs to agencies in your area. Send a packet of candid shots. You could even start by researching local agencies, checking out their websites and seeing what they ask potential models to submit. In Illinois, there was not an agency exclusive arrangement, meaning a model could be “signed” with more than one agency. Beth had 5 in Chicago and 1 in Milwaukee that would call her for potential jobs. In Kansas, a model signs with one agency.


I’m not interested in this being a career for Beth… but it is a wonderful way to put aside college money, learn to follow directions, build self-esteem, meet interesting people, and develop a professionalism that will help in many other areas of her life. Beth will get to keep a percentage of her earnings… so that is good incentive for her too. But most of all, she enjoys it.