`Baby Talk' contest takes down a barrier

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

No hurt was intended. In fact, the young woman from the modeling agency was apologetic. In New York, it's different, she said. In New York, babies with special needs model for lots of companies. Boston just isn't there yet.

I didn't expect that Lucy would be chosen. I just didn't expect that she wouldn't be given a chance solely because she has Down syndrome.

Discrimination is a wall you can live a lifetime and not see because it's glass and invisible and unless you bump into it you don't know it's there. ``This club is restricted.'' ``There's no vacancy.'' ``The house is sold.''

I knew about these things. I'd heard. I'd read. But it took my granddaughter and a personal ``Sorry, children with disabilities need not apply'' to make me understand.

I went home and studied the babies in local ads. And I thought about how diverse they were, but how it wasn't always this way. And how hard it must have been for years in this country not to be white and blue eyed.

Advertisers now use black babies and Asian babies and ethnically ambiguous babies as well as blond babies because the demographics have changed. Because advertisers are appealing to the millions of parents who are black or Asian or ethnically ambiguous or white.

But there is no financial reason for advertisers to appeal to parents of children with special needs. The market isn't big enough.

So it's a groundbreaker, a real civil rights moment, what ``Baby Talk'' magazine has done. It held a contest - its 2004 Baby Talk Cover Contest. It chose ``Six of the cutest faces in the country.'' And among the finalists is Hannah Reynolds from Mercedes, Texas, a smiley 13-month-old who just happens to have Down syndrome.

Babies ``R'' Us occasionally includes children with special needs in its ads. So does Wal-Mart. The culture is changing.

But change is slow and most companies that sell products for children still want nothing to do with wheelchairs and braces and children who look, in some way, different.

Hannah Reynolds is too young to know the impact of her smile and the importance of the words ``cutest faces in the country.'' But the people at New York's ``Baby Talk'' know exactly how important and inclusive this picture and these words are.