Let kids finish school before joining showbiz

Parents who want their minor children to get into showbiz often approach me for help. Sorry, but I am inutile in that department. I don’t manage talents and after all these years I wouldn’t know whom to approach to build up stars, believe it or not.

Most of the time, this is my advice to them: Let your children finish their studies first before they enter show business. Usually, once a person starts earning money, they never get around to completing their studies.

And I pity the child stars, who are deprived of growing up in a normal environment. Parents, don’t make slaves out of your minor kids.

In fairness to some, they allow their children to enter showbiz because it is the kids who are dying to do so. In the case of Niño Muhlach, in fairness to his father Alex, a great part of what the former child star earned from all those movies he did as a kid were invested wisely. There’s still the El Niño Apartelle still standing along N. Domingo toward Cubao.

Unless he becomes totally extravagant, Niño perhaps can afford not to work for life. But he paid a price for that. The Muhlachs are of Caucasian stock. They are supposed to be tall. Niño became the exception.

His being vertically challenged as an adult could be traced to the years he spent as a child star. He worked till morning. Since his adrenalin level would still be high when he got home, he was always unable to sleep.

Then there is supposed to be something about studio lights that stunts the growth of a person. It is not surprising therefore that most former child stars, especially those who did not stop even during the so-called awkward period, didn’t turn out to be very tall. There’s Aiza Seguerra, for one.

We can also cite the emotional behavior of former child stars, but let’s not get into that anymore because I don’t want trouble.

One of the very few former child stars who did not grow up emotionally disturbed is Vilma Santos, who entered showbiz via Trudis Liit as a girl of nine. Of course, Vilma will be the first to tell you that she is not perfect. In fact, she too had periods of emotional turbulence. She did rebel at one point of her life — at the rather late age of 25, or was it 27?

But basically she turned out to be a woman of principles. This augurs well for her now that she is in politics, which is many times dirtier than showbiz.

I am discussing the issue of minors entering show business still as an offshoot of the Janjan Suan incident on Willing Willie. This now ongoing controversy should be a deterrent so that stage parents don’t push their children to be breadwinners at such early age.

Parents should work for their children and not the other way around. Especially when they are minors.

Show business is a totally different environment. Its population usually has different values. Lucky for child stars who have a set of parents to guide them.

In Vilma’s case, I think she was aware that she didn’t really have to work for a living for the family since both her parents were gainfully employed when she entered show business. Sure, they weren’t very rich. But her parents could provide for them. She became a child star because she wanted to. “Maarte kasi ako nung bata pa ‘ko,” she laughingly told me once.

She also shared with me that as adults we should be careful with the topics we discuss when there are children around. “We shouldn’t underestimate their capacity to understand,” she said a long time ago — when she was still doing Bata-Bata Paano Ka Ginawa with then child stars Carlo Aquino and Serena Dalrymple.

In some cases, when kids get to hear what we say (the sensitive issues in particular), they may get it wrong if they don’t have parents to explain about the birds and the bees to them.

This is when the problem starts.

Parents, therefore, who have minors working in showbiz should therefore be around at all times to guide the kids. And no matter what your circumstances are in life, make sure you provide the child with a solid family background. Blessed with loving, caring and responsible parents, I believe this was what made Vilma take the correct path later in life.