Child Beauty Pageants.

So I am sitting here flipping thru the channels and I come across WE TV. A show called Little Miss Perfect. It is about little girls and beauty pageants. Would you consider it a sport much like football is for boys? That is how one mother described it. She explained that dressing her 7 year old daughter like a hooker is just a different sort of sport and compared it to dressing your son for football with helmets and pads. This show has pushy mothers spending hundreds of dollars to enter their child in this pageant. Hundreds of dollars more in seductive clothing for this child. They then apply heavy make up and hair pieces. One little girl even has fake teeth. The child ends up looking like a mini 21 year old hooker. IMHO. I am surprised that the girls can even recognize themselves in the mirror. I suppose you can argue that this provides mother daughter bonding time, poise and confidence, I think it must have a negative effect on the child.

While other kids the same age are out playing baseball, riding bikes and having fun these girls are spending time learning new routines, attending dance classes, and photo sessions. And don’t forget the practicing for hours on end in what looks like very uncomfortable shoes and clothes. One little girl whined that the high heels she was wearing made her feet all sweaty. I think it creates a stressful environment with all the emphasis is on beauty and winning. And they coach the girls to act “sexy”. I am amazed at parents that would press their girls to do beauty pageants, there is something perverted in wanting to see a little girl sexualized with makeup and provocative clothing. There is a parental perversion in teaching a child how to moisten their lips, flirt with judges and convey sexuality that would cause alarm bells to go off in most “normal” parents.

These beauty pageants enforce the idea that to succeed you must be beautiful and don’t forget to be skinny. All the mothers say “she loves it; I am not forcing her to do anything she does not want to do.” And maybe a few of them do enjoy it. But why not teach them to enjoy some thing that does not focus on looks so much. Looks will only get you so far in life. These girls are so sweet and innocent they have years to learn to apply make up, wear high heels. Why rush their child hood for a few cheesy trophies?