What Scarlet wants to be when she grows up

MANILA, Philippines — As Scarlet Snow Belo Kho turned 3, she also had her first-ever endorsement deal outside of her family’s Belo brand.

Is the stage being set for the celebrity toddler to enter showbiz? No doubt it would be a breeze given that the daughter of doctors-to-the-stars Vicki Belo and Hayden Kho is the most followed kiddo on social media in the country –– and possibly in the world?

If Scarlet had her way though, she’d want to be two things when she grows up.

“A dermatologist and rainbow catcher,” Scarlet said when she was launched as the new endorser of fastfood and bakery chain Red Ribbon for its Rainbow Dedication Cake, which incidentally was a day before the precocious rosy-cheeked tot turned three (March 3).

Vicki said, “We had several offers for commercials besides Belo Baby, that’s ours. Only Ribbon (did we agree to) because...she loves chocolates and rainbows. It was a perfect fit for us.”

Hayden added that they feel very honored to have a company as big as Red Ribbon, which has its own roster of big-name celebrity endorsers, put so much trust in their daughter. “At the same time, we’re very careful with Scarlet. We wanted to make sure our values as a family and the brand would be similar.”

The three-year-old social media darling and now celebrity endorser greets media guests at the launch

Red Ribbon marketing head Kent Mariano said that he followed Scarlet on Instagram for months before getting her as endorser. Why not indeed get one of the most adorable kids to endorse their kiddie favorite product? Like her two million Instagram followers, he was charmed by her antics.

Outside Instagram though, according to Vicki, typical day for Scarlet is “she sleeps with us. I usually go to yoga six a.m. It’s hard for me to go now because she always says, our family is not complete… We have so many lessons for her — Chinese, Mandarin, swimming, gymnastics, reading class, piano, voice. She enjoys it naman. Her best time is reading time with Daddy. We want her to be totally normal as far as we can make her normal.”

Hayden hastened to add, “Baka sabihin ninyo ino-overwork namin. (It’s) one lesson per week, except Chinese, which is twice. She now speaks better Chinese than me. I think, the most special moments are after 5 o’clock when her lessons and our work are done. We just stay in the room, watch TV, make kwentuhan, just watch her, she’s very jolly. Her temperament now is she’s a bit sleepy, but normally, I wouldn’t say she’s very talkative but she’s very engaging, charming and loves to make pa-cute. And what she loves to do is…”

“Making people happy,” Scarlet, who was sitting on Daddy Hayden’s lap, piped in.

Prior to the presscon, The STAR had an exclusive chat with Drs. Vicki and Hayden, with Scarlet weaving in and out of the conversation. At one point, she rode a bag trolley, making everyone laugh and effortlessly stealing the attention. Here are excerpts: 

On letting Scarlet join showbiz:

Hayden and Vicki: “No.”

Hayden: “Of course, we don’t know what she wants to be when she grows up…”

Vicki: “We want her to finish college first if ever she wants to decide, but no plans whatsoever.”

On parenting style:

Hayden: “On social media, we try to share what we do all the time, no? As parents of Scarlet, we share our bonding moments. More or less, you have an idea. But I think it’s a lot time spent with her, the three of us together, a lot of eating meals together, play time together, praying together. Time is very important and we’re very intentional in our parenting. So, if there are values we want to teach her, we kind of plan how to teach it.

“Between the two of us, I’m more the disciplinarian, I think. Discipline is very important because ang pagkaka-intindi ko, the mom and the child, that’s more the… they develop the intimacy. It’s the father who develops the identity, who gives the identity to the child, so we do our roles that way.”

Vicki: “I think he does most parts. More of the time. Basically, we’re part of CCF (Christ Commission Fellowship), and we really want to bring her up as a good Christian little girl and adult. So, one of the things that they tell us is that you have to… obey, know and wait. Of course, I kinda spoil my first two kids. It’s very different for me to try to discipline, but this one is very special because she’s very cute and very smart, and knows how to negotiate and it breaks your heart when you have to say no. But I know it will be better for her when she gets older so you just keep the end in mind, and then you do it.

“(Hayden) is the disciplinarian but he’s also the most loving father, most nurturing, carries her and plays with her all the time. So, before she gets scolded, he tells her, ‘I do this because I love you.’ It’s never a punishment. She gets it naman. As she gets older, it’s getting better.”

On Scarlet having any idea on how popular her parents are:

Hayden: “I don’t think she has a concept of that.”

Vicki: “Although she gets confused because everybody seems to know her name and so she’s like, ‘Why does everybody know my name?’ But that’s about the extent… Now, she’s very conscious of camera, picture-taking, always hiding her face, turning her face away from the camera.”

Hayden: “Okay lang siya pag kilala niya but if there are strangers taking photos of her, parang (she wants to leave). With Scarlet, whenever people want to take a photo with her, we actually ask her. Even when she was one and a half-year-old, we actually asked her, ‘Is it OK for them to have a photo with you?’ If she doesn’t want to, we don’t force her.”

Vicki: “Some people also don’t realize that she’s only one or two, and they treat her like an adult. Sometimes, they can be very aggressive and she gets scared. So, I think she warms up to people very slowly. She observes and watches first then after a while, she starts to play, so it has to be that kind of courting her. It can’t be, ‘Scarlet can I have a picture?’ then click. It doesn’t work that way. Also, we never spoke to her in baby language. So, she speaks like an adult. And then we have a rule, we speak English to her, the help speaks Tagalog to her so that she can be conversant in both.”

Hayden: “Right now, we’re really teaching more on values and how much she is loved by us. I think, everything else that is cerebral, like Math or Sciences, you can learn that in school. But during this time, when she’s with us every day, we teach her values, especially compassion.”

On giving a normal childhood to Scarlet:

Vicki: “We shelter her kinda, so we don’t really go out much. The only time we can really move is when we go abroad. But even in New Zealand, people knew who she was. In fact, there are Indonesians, Malaysians, Thais, who know her. People tell us that she’s good vibes that when they’re feeling down, they watch her and natatawa lang sila. So, I think we’re serving something. She’s very blessed. Usually, you have to ask why.

“If she’s bringing good vibes to people, it’s fine. But you know, we just have to protect her from a few people out there. Like we went to a place, two days ago, there was this man who was aggressive to her, touching her and everything, we thought he was a friend of my ex-husband, then my ex-husband thought he was Hayden’s friend, so we were in a room but when you think about it, backwards, oh my gosh, we really have to be careful about things.”

The Belo-Khos with Red Ribbon Bakeshop, Inc. president Zinnia Rivera and marketing head Kent Mariano, and kiddie guests after having some fun and games at the Rainbow Chaser Adventure Land set up at the venue

On Scarlet’s budding interests and talents:

Hayden: I think the secret is, I always say… they can learn anything as long as they feel that they are loved. With Scarlet, that’s the way we make her feel. I think nagiging exciting for her ang learning and everything because we’re very intentional in teaching her, every opportunity to teach, we teach. Kapag nag-ask siya ng ‘Why?’ about anything, we try to answer. For example, she asks, why is it raining? Of course, sasabihin mo, the clouds are dark. Then ‘Why is it dark?’ so tuloy-tuloy, you try to answer as honest as you can. Ako minsan, umaabot sa point na she’s asking a question, I actually Google to try to explain to her, like how rainbows are formed, at two. Of course, di mo naman pwede i-BS siya ng kung ano-anong sagot. I actually had to Google again baka naman may mali sa kakasagot ko and try to translate it to her language.”

Vicki: “We don’t force her. But I think it’s important also that at six months, we already exposed her to music. She had kinder music. That stimulates the brain... But, you know, how did you (turning to Hayden) divide the room?

Hayden: She has her own bedroom. Di ba, I moved in but I have no room kasi yung room na dapat sa akin, I still stay at my place, so yung room kung saan ako pwede maglagay ng stuff, naging playroom ni Scarlet. But that playroom is divided into sections, you have the music area, the play and imagination area, you have numbers and colors, you have Mathematics, and you have the dancing and gymnastics, and she has her kitchen, parang bedroom for her ‘babies’ (dolls).”

On being parents to one of the, if not most followed celebrity child on social media:

Vicki: “It was a surprise, we never really expected it. She was already one year old before we… You know, when she was born, everyone was, ‘Introduce her to the world.’ And we go, why? Who are we? We are not movie stars. We’re not politicians. We’re basically two doctors. But everybody kept expecting and when finally she came out, when she was born… what did you do (turning to Hayden again) reserve all the Instagram, Facebook?”

Hayden: “Lahat ng possible social media accounts, I reserved all the names… I felt that when people find out about Scarlet, I was afraid may gumawa ng social media accounts na fake, tapos marami maging followers and eventually people will think that’s the real Scarlet and that person can do anything, ask for anything on social media. So, in order to protect her from that, I reserved all the names — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-mail niya — so yeah, when she got announced, inisip ko, OK, social media accounts will start appearing so I made the first account, kinontrol ko nalang (I just controlled it). Tapos ngayon, biglang naging ganito.”

Vicki: “We really had no idea. Of course, everyone finds their baby cute. So akala namin kami lang, pero marami palang na-kyu-kyutan!”

Hayden: “So, we feel truly blessed. We didn’t do this. This was given to us. But with that blessedness comes also a great responsibility for both of us, kasi kumbaga iba yung terrain, ito yung di pa namin alam, so di kami sure kung paano i-navigate, so we’re very careful. So, how do you handle the strangers who are very aggressive? How do you make her understand that this is not the real thing, that this is not normal or this is normal? We constantly think about those things.

“But what I realized with social media is that it won’t go away. It’s here to stay. The question is, for most parents, what kind of message will you put out on your social media. With Scarlet kahit di siya magkaroon ng social media, eventually, when at 11, 12, 13, she’ll start asking. For us, we decided, we’re only going to post about faith, family, friendship, all positive stuff, compassion, love, tenderness and all that.”

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