That was a bit of a misleading title, huh? Any chance I had at being a baby model went by the boards around 36 years ago. However, 7-month old Little Man is just the right age.

The idea to get Little Man into baby modeling occurred to me after watching this commercial for Kay Jewelers:

I’m going to put this as nice as I can as it is a delicate subject, but I don’t think Vivian Brady is threaten by the competition from this baby.

I think Little Man could compete with that baby model. Not only that, but he can model for the 4-5 months as he’s a little tiny and still hasn’t gotten any teeth yet.

This Jezebel says the life of a baby model isn’t that great. I’ve also read that there are a lot of scams… companies claiming to get your baby in the industry for a fee.

The one thing that struck me as odd is that parents are interested in having their baby be a model for the status. I wouldn’t be interested in that at all. I would want Little Man to be a model because it would mean he could earn income. Why is that important? Two words: Roth IRA.

Contributing to a Roth IRA requires that you have earned income. Since Little Man’s current skill set consists of dirtying diapers (which isn’t in demand) and looking cute, his avenues for earning income are limited. With him only 72 or 73 years away from retirement, the clock is ticking… best to get started on that Roth IRA now.

I find the whole earned income requirement for the Roth IRA to be so annoying that I started to think of a way around it. For example, imagine a pseudo-money laundering scheme were parents pay a company for placement of the baby pictures on a website… and then the company pays the baby for modeling on the website. The company and the website itself exists only to convert the parent’s earned income to earned income for the baby. That earned income can be contributed to a Roth IRA. Sneaky? Cool? Shady? What do you think?

How do I get Little Man started in baby modeling, I haven’t a clue. I did find that Parenting Magazine had these tips for getting the best pictures. This CBS News article also gives some baby modeling tips.