Sure, every mom thinks her kid is the cutest. It's probably hard-wired into us so we will love whatever little bundle of baby we end up with. That may explain the popularity of Parents Magazine's Cover Model Contest. It's pretty simple: You think your infant/toddler/kid is the cutest specimen on the planet; you send a photo of said child in to Parents Magazine; and then you try to get every person you've ever met to vote for your child. The thing is - there are literally tens of thousands adorable little ones in contention. All you need to enter is a sincere belief in the cuteness of your child and the ability to upload a recent photo. Voila!
So why am I, the mother of a 17 year old, paying any attention to this contest? Because my 2-1/2 year old niece, Anya, is one of the contenders. I may not be her mother but I do think Anya is one of the most adorable children to walk the planet. She's got mocha colored skin, a dimple in her chin, lively dark eyes and hair that grows straight up in an act of gravity-defying style. But that's not the reason I most want to see her grace the cover of Parents Magazine.
Anya was born in prison to a mother who couldn't or wouldn't identify the father. The mother was doing three years for car-jacking and Anya was the fifth of her children that she gave up. The baby with no name was delivered to the doorstep of my sister and her husband - licensed foster parents - by a social worker when she was six days old. It was there that she met Angel, the three year old foster son they had cared for most of his life and who they would also adopt.
To be honest: Anya was no beauty in her early months. She was big and serious, not much prone to smiling, and a bit lumpish. When she began to walk, they weren't the dainty steps of a girly-girl but more the plodding footfalls of a halfback. I worried a little about her lack of feminine wiles, especially as a defense against remarks over her Al Sharpton-like hair. On the day my sister and her husband adopted Anya in a New Jersey courthouse, the toddler was more interested in getting out of the pristine dress confining her than in enjoying the attention.
But now, on the cusp of three, the photo submitted to Parents Magazine shows Anya as she is today: a feminine, graceful, confident and amused child. A girl who is strong and smart, who outwits her older brother on a daily basis, who insists "Me do it" whenever help is offered. If there is a stereotype of a child born into foster care, Anya defies it. Her family is the one whose name she bears now and - coincidentally - she and her adopted brother actually resemble each other.
So why is this Parents Magazine contest so important? Because no one - not the social workers, or her birth mother, or the prison guards, or even my sister - would have imagined that the newborn whose fetal development took place behind bars would someday have a shot at gracing the cover of a national magazine. Because she has grown into the child she was meant to be, surrounded by love and affirmation. In the photo, she stands barefoot in a lilac dress, her hair wrestled into submission in a topknot. One foot is twisted inward in a flirty pose, her legs strong and sturdy. She's looking directly into the camera, with a hint of a smile.
Anya is beautiful all on her own. But it's her story that makes her radiant.