Non-Japanese looks are considered exotic in Tokyo

He is also only one and a half years old.

His modelling career began when he turned six months.

I was talked into it by my friend Sara, as her two children had earnt millions of yen by appearing in ads for a whole range of Japanese products.

So, with dreams of his college education being paid for before he could walk, I found an agent.

There are a lots of companies that deal exclusively with 'gaijin' or foreigners.

Non-Japanese faces are considered exotic and are in demand here.

But even so, I did not expect the phone to ring the very next day - Alexander had an audition and I had become a 'staji mama'.

That is what mothers of young performers are called in Japan and it is not very complimentary.

'Pecking order'

About 15 stage mamas and babies were crammed into a tiny office with the gaijins on one side, the Japanese on the other.

Japanese babies are sometimes paid less by advertisers

The babies of both kinds were all gorgeous but there was clearly a pecking order as far as the organisers were concerned.

Gaijin babies took priority over Japanese and, even though I arrived last, Alexander was seen ahead of all the Japanese babies.

I apologised to the stage mamas but they just smiled and told me it happened all the time.

Once inside, the photographer cooed and coaxed while the assistants waved rattles and dolls.

Alexander seemed happy - but as the first flashbulb popped I felt a creeping sensation of guilt that I was exploiting the little scrap.

However I forgot all that when he got the job. It is because he is so cute I thought, after all what mother wouldn't think the same?

Segregated

But when the day of the shoot arrived I found out differently.

In a vast, drafty studio, dressed in a fluffy white nappy made of fake fur and an absurdly huge pair of adult headphones, Alexander performed perfectly.

The photographer was ecstatic: "mashiro mashiro" he rhapsodised.

It seemed that Alexander's white skin, not his babyish charm, was the key to his success.

That first taste proved to be typical, and afterwards Alexander seemed to get every job he went for.

The Japanese and the foreign models were usually segregated, not just in terms of space but also in treatment.

We would be given curry for lunch, while the Japanese mothers would receive Japanese lunch boxes.

The gaijin babies were given bigger dressing rooms, and were photographed and sent home first.

And on some occasions they were also paid more. The same goes all the way up the scale to the most prestigious high fashion shoots.

Different economy

Foreign models rule the roost, and a famous designer here made no bones about it.

Even Japan's baby princess would not be considered appropriate

"I like tall," she told me, "The taller the better and boyish in the hips - that's just not the Japanese figure."

Of course, we are all in it for the money and it can be a lot in a market where there is a constant demand for new faces.

The many American military bases in Japan have also proved fertile recruiting grounds, with lots of cute children and lots of women with not much to do with their time because it is difficult to get jobs off base.

When I met Charlene, she was at her third job of the week.

She called it working "in the economy" - it sounded like she was talking about a distant and slightly scary world.

She and the baby had got up at five in the morning to make it to the shoot on time.

The charms of traipsing round Tokyo with a not always compliant baby model and the fascination of the stage mama world were wearing thin

Her daughter was registered with three agencies, all of which had come to a special recruiting fair at a base near Tokyo.

"You can earn so much money in the economy", she said.

And that is why the agencies love what they call the base mamas- they are really hungry for work.

Not only do the relatively low fees for baby models translate into a lot of spending power in the subsidised military supermarkets, but the shoots represent a welcome escape from the confines of the base.

"It's great," explained Charlene.

"I get out: into the economy."

Early retirement

The phone did not stop ringing for Alexander, and I started turning down jobs. The charms of traipsing round Tokyo with a not always compliant baby model and the fascination of the stage mama world were wearing thin.

College education or not, Alexander had an extremely early retirement from his first career

But the final blow came at an audition for pushchairs and high chairs.

They wanted blond babies and they did not even have to sit in real pushchairs, they would instead be digitally inserted, which I felt would be less hassle as Alexander wouldn't squirm.

But then I heard the stage mama next to me practically growl to her blond-curled bundle who was being photographed.

"Come on now smile- it's showtime," she said.

And that was that - I saw myself and I did not like it.

College education or not, Alexander had an extremely early retirement from his first career.