Strollerderby : stage parents

Stage Parents, Beware of The Munchkin

Amy Kuras — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:02:00 GMT

I’ve got a kid that loves to be the center of attention, as do many of us, I’m sure. But so far, anyway, that hasn’t translated to dance classes or music or acting save a memorable role as a member of the angel chorus in our church Christmas pageant. Unless she expresses an interest in taking classes, that will be that, although I admit to being tempted when I see the occasional open casting call for local touring productions in the paper.

Or at least I was, until I saw this in the Chicago Tribune. Parents of kids who appeared as Munchkins in a touring production of The Wizard of Oz complained that their children were forced to perform three shows in a day, didn’t get enough rehearsal time, and had to buy their own food even while adult performers were served catered meals.

The best part? The kids performed for free.

Of course, more kids in a production means more proud family members and friends buying tickets, and if they can get those kids for no money than so much the better for the producers.

The reaction from the columnist who wrote about this was a little weird, to say the east. His take was pretty much that these are touring, non-union shows so the parents somehow should have known that their kids were going to be treated like scenery, and that they should get the rules of the game when it comes to figuring out what counts as “professional” experience and what should be just fun. But most parents, especially who themselves are not theater-savvy, wouldn’t know the difference between an Equity show and one that isn’t, nor would they know what’s fair game and what isn’t as far as how their kid is treated.

I guess the best answer, if you reaslly think you've got the next Idina Menzel in your house, is to find a locally reputable agent and have them find jobs for your stage struck kid. Or realize that something that sounds too good to be true probably is.

A Genetic Test That Predicts Kids' Athletic Futures

JeanneSager — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:32:00 GMT

Think your toddler has the foot to bend it like Beckham one day? What if the only thing standing between you and knowing if they'd one day be kicking balls in the big leagues was $149? Oh yeah, and a cheek swab which should be bagged and sent out to a lab in Colorado for testing.

The Boulder-based Atlas Sports Genetics is touting a new test which they say can help pinpoint a child's natural athletic future. For that $149, you'll get a report telling you whether your kid is designed for speed or endurance.

It all sounds a bit West German, Soviet bloc to me, but Atlas owner Kevin Reilly says his test will actually help protect kids with an overzealous parent from being pushed into a sport they simply weren't made to play. The tests are built off of the 2003 study which linked the gene ACTN3 to athletic ability. The study found that the R variant of the gene directs the body to produce a protein used in developing the type of muscle mass needed for power and speed. By contrast, the X variant of the gene was found to be more prevalent in the elite endurance Olympians studied.

Atlas' test breaks down the ACTN3 gene from the swabs and looks for either R or X variants, then reports back to parents. They test kids ages one through eight, with the hopes of giving parents a chance to properly foster a kid's natural abilities from a young age (although, to give him credit, Reilly advises against heavily pushing children into competitive sports until at least eight years old . . . to avoid burnout).

Besides the fact that many scientists have said ACTN3 studies are still in their infancy, and a more in-depth look at the genetic make-up of athletes is in order, I'm skeptical. So a kid may have an R variant of a gene (the one supposedly pointing to power sports); what if he doesn't like football? Won't this promote more overzealous parents rather than limit them?

My husband is a big soccer fan, so he loves kicking the ball around with our three year old. For a tot, she's got a great handle on the ball. But does that mean we should cut out all requests for tee-ball, softball, even a bid to run cross country? Whatever happened to letting our kids play sports because they enjoy them, because they'll gain discipline, learn sportsmanship, get their butts off the couch? Last time I checked, it really is just a game.

Growing up in a small town where the fight for passing the school budget was to ensure we'd still have a football program every year - so boys would have a chance to get noticed by a college scout - I've got to tell you, excellent athletes are few and far between. The best athletes may not be the girls who score every goal or the quarterbacks who lead their teams to the state championships. The kids who are told constantly that they're destined for great things are often ball hogs and prima donnas.

But the kids who discover talent on their own . . . they're the kids who play just for the love of the game.

Image/Source: The New York Times

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Does Your Child Look 'Inbred'?

Madeline Holler — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:23:00 GMT

It's the choice no aspiring stage mom ever wants to make: whether to audition her child for a role that calls for ugly. Or "inbred"-looking. Same difference, right?

But it's the choice starstruck moms across West Virginia are having to make, thanks to on-location filming of an upcoming Julianne Moore movie. These mothers are putting away washboards and setting aside the chicken scratch to stare long and hard at their offspring's misshapen heads and the tangeled branches of the Jones family tree, or so a Pittsburgh casting agency hopes.

The call to audition for extras with an "inbred" look has set off a firestorm (probably started by uptight neighbors, the ones with the pretty kids). Historians, area leaders and people who bristle at stereotypes in general condemned statements by the Pittsburgh casting director. She botched it when she tried to clarify what was meant by "regular looking people," who had been told not to show up.

From Pittsburgh Live:

"It's the way it was described in the script," Belajac [of the casting agency] said Monday. "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."

The actual ad wanted people who are Extraordinarily tall or short. Unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features, especially eyes."

Also ..."a 9-12-year-old Caucasian girl with an other-worldly look to her. Could be an albino or something along those lines -- she's someone who is visually different and therefore has a closer contact to the gods and to magic. 'Regular-looking' children should not attend this open call.'"

Asked if she felt the characterization might be offensive to West Virginians, Belajac said: "We tried to word it in a way that's not offensive. I hope it's not an offensive thing. It's not meant to be a generalization about everyone in West Virginia. That's why we put that it's in a 'holler' in the mountains."

So she only mean to offend the mountain people of West Virginia (who are too inbred to care, I'm guessing). The casting director has been fired.

And with that, let's get back to the mom who can now see her son's buck teeth as an asset, his floppy ears as nothing short of "otherworldly" -- a ticket to Hollywood, fame and fortune.

How do you break it to your kid that she's so ugly you'd like her to try out for this film? Oh, and I wonder what Jennifer Garner, West Virginia native, thinks about all this.

Miley Cyrus Turns 15, Gets Birthday Wish, Still Isn't Pregnant

Kelly Mills — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:38:00 GMT

Miley Cyrus, star of the show Hannah Montana and idol of screaming girls everywhere, turned 15 on Friday. For those who don't know, Miley is the latest child star from the Disney "build-a-child-pop-phenom-make-big-bucks-and-then-watch- her-implode-by-the-time-she's-18" machine. Brit and Lindsay may later teach her how to crash a car and snort blow off a college kid's booty, but for now, "I'm staying pure" Miley celebrated her big 15 with, well, 15,000 of her hometown "friends." Yes, I suppose the result of money and sold-out shows and hordes of rabid pre-teen girl fans would be about 15,000 friends. Who I'm sure all continue to stand by you when you go into rehab.

Miley got a cake onstage and her birthday wish--~~a childhood~~ to be in Nashville with her peeps, working the crowd on her birthday. Her dad may now be stripped of his mullet glory but at least he gets a chance to bask in his kid's limelight glow. Miley brought him on stage for her encore, saying, "I'd like to bring out my best friend -- that just about says it all -- my daddy." I've never been into the whole 'parents-as-friends' thing but I suppose when you have 15,000 friends, you sort of lose perspective.

Don’t Let One-Upmanship Become One-Up-Yours-Manship

makeitadouble — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:52:00 GMT

If you’re a mother or a father, which you probably are, and if you’re reading this, which you obviously are, then you’ve at one time or another experienced the brutal underground counter-culture of Parental One-Upmanship.

Come on, don’t play innocent, you know what I’m talking about. Your 11 month old takes her first brave hesitant steps and you rush to the nearest play-date, parent group, Gymboree, or Chuck E. Cheese to proudly announce your baby’s milestone accomplishment only to be knocked down a notch by parents extolling the unparalleled brilliance of their own ambulatory wunderkinds. “My Rosie walked at 7 months. My Charlie ran at 6 months. My Elizabeth did a back handspring out of my vagina.” You counter with a “Well she also said her first word this ….” And you’re interrupted with a flurry of “My Rosie said her first word at 7 months. My Charlie knew nursery rhymes at 6 months. My Elizabeth recited Shakespeare out of my vagina.”

Your immediate instinct is to skip the “One-Upmanship” and go straight to “One-Up-Yours-manship” and shout retaliatory haymakers at the sanctimonious antagonists you thought were your friends, but you don’t want to get pulled into a futile war of who’s child is bigger, better, faster, stronger. Your inner voice, the one that sounds like Keanu Reeves, presses the question, “What do you do? What DO you do?”

The Today show recently addressed why some parents engage in this type of exhausting and futile competitive banter. Well, the piece actually only concentrates on the over-the-top Moms for some reason, but I think we all know how competitive Dads can be as well (see Youth Sports + Living Vicariously Through Your Child + Inappropriate Juvenile Social Behavior)

Apparently the root of this evil can be traced back to personal identity insecurities and as a way to bolster a shaky self-image. Moms it seems, because again Dads were strangely left out of this psycho-mélange of aggressive parenting analysis, transitioning from the business world transfer that corporate mentality into their parenting style. In other cases the child becomes an extension of the parent and way to validate their self-worth.

Regardless of the cause, Today offers some sage advice to parents who don’t want a healthy relationship between friends to degenerate into a “the only way to make myself feel better is to make everyone else feel like shit” situation. Some suggestions are to empathize with the competitive parents and try to understand where they are coming from, to use non-competitive responses and to reduce the possible escalation of an exchange by not upping the comparative ante.

So, the next time “that” burgeoning stage mom brags about how her Elizabeth strolled from the birth canal rhythmically finger picking her umbilical chord like a Mariachi with a flamenco guitar, remember that it’s not about winning, it’s about appreciating ourselves and our families for who they are and about connecting with the people we love; and in our minds connecting with a perfectly placed uppercut.

Parenting Lessons From Lynne Spears: How To Use Mama Blame

Kelly Mills — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:35:00 GMT

When adding a new technique to your parenting toolkit, it can be helpful to observe a masterful parent in action for tips on how to use the technique to full advantage. Today we are going to take a lesson from celebrity-mom Lynne Spears, parent to troubled Britney. Lynne shows us how to use self-blame, a time-honored tactic employed by moms for generations. Let's dissect Lynne's excellent use of this technique.

Lynne recently accepted responsibility for her wayward daughter's woes, saying, "“I blame myself...What mother wouldn’t?...I wish I’d been there more while she was touring. But I couldn’t be. I had the other kids to look after."

Bravo Lynne. Now note the key points: Lynne blames herself for her child's problems, thus deflecting critics who might make the same claim. However, please observe how she follows the statement with the assertion that of course the absence of her helpful guidance was the problem (not her stage-mommying) and that she couldn't be available because she was caring for other children. This is crucial: when taking the blame for your kid's faults, you must immediately make it clear that you would have done a better job but you actually couldn't because of circumstances and the fact that you were occupied with some reasonable pursuit. Never, ever accept responsibility unless you can soften it with an excuse as to why you aren't really responsible.

This tactic allows Lynne to keep ~~pimping~~ promoting her upcoming book, "Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World," where she details how she dealt with the fame of her brood. She says it won't be a tell-all. Noooo, that might be, you know, exploitative.

Thanks, Lynne, for showing us how it's done.

Note to Stage Parents: When Your Star Child Is Effed Up, Just Forcefully Push the Other Kid Out in the Spotlight

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:36:00 GMT

Although I have no intention of signing my kid up for some out-freaking-rageously priced headshots and an agent in an attempt to potty train him on the set of commercial for some high fructose food, I do take quite an interest in the parents of celebrities passed out...I mean, smiling...for the cameras.

I am very interested that the parents of stars like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Nick Carter always have their roots done and rarely are photographed carrying a big ass bag full of contracts, tabloids and their kid's crap. I don't know exactly what's involved in being your super-famous child's manager or whatever those stage parents do, but I do spy a trend in how they handle it when their gazillion-dollar earning offspring (see above list) hit a rut, a bad patch, maybe even a tree with their car: They start pimpin' the next child in line.

And really, it's brilliant. Parents dreaming of raising up the Next Big Thing to hit TeenPeople, consider having more children and take note of how PR (as in Parental Relations) is handled for the for the stars: Britney's a bald, bad mama? Ohhhh, looky! Isn't Jamie Lynn purty in her party romper?

Forget the bad-mouthed, abusive big brother! His little bro's a big tatooed softy!

Lindsay's on the sauce again? Hey, check it out -- the celebrity gene runs in the family and I spawned them all!

The first-born's a bawling, clausterphobic, unmake-upped incarcerated mess? But look at her supportive and silky-skinned sister!

Never mind the divorced one with the God-awful acting "career", check out her little sis instead! She's perky and unscathed by sex, alcohol and Paris Hilton!