What is a beautiful child? Is a beautiful child the one with the natural look, smile and innocent demeanor? Is a beautiful child the little girl with the hair extensions, grown-up cosmetics and an artificially developed charm of must be a winner? Imagine more than three million children each year now vie for most beautiful, talented and photogenic.
Some pageant parents will spend thousands of dollars to provide their child that “edge” to wow the judges. Thousands of dollars on one outfit? Some parents believe money spent is an excellent investment on winning for their child. How far will a parent go is answered by the child using false boobs in a pageant. Are these practices encouraging an even darker practice?
As a society, are we robbing our children of the innocence of childhood in favor of pushing adult practices? Spray tanning a five-year old? Streaked or dyed hair and hair extensions on a four-year old? False teeth on a seven-year old for a perfect smile as the child lose baby teeth? Make that transforms a three-year old into a small adult? When does providing a venue for a child to have fun, become the exploitation and abuse of that child?
What role models do these children follow? Cinderella and they lived happily ever after is a horrible role model for many reasons. Although the uniqueness of each child should be celebrated, developing a princess mentality in a child will create future problems. Bad spoiled behavior, and the inability to cope when the center of attention, lights and applause fade can be consequences of princess behavior.
How will these small pageant participants handle the challenges of outgrowing cuteness and the onset of puberty’s challenges? They were taught to judge success based on physical beauty and professional charm, and changing bodies, may not fit the artificial standard of perfection. If a child is constantly judged to some invisible standard of perfection in physical form, what about the acceptance when one is constantly unable to meet that standard?
As tiny children are taught that winning is the most important point, how warped will a child’s perception become of fairness and the reality of life? Can a child become bitter at an early age unable o cope with the disappointment of loss? And when normal is distorted with artificial glitz and glamor morphing into an absurd sense of normal, what then?
Beauty pageants do not celebrate the natural holistic beauty of women. Beauty pageants emphasize the empty standards of judgment of a woman by her physical attributes, despite questions probing her depth of character. Talent, charm beauty, but seldom intelligence takes center stage in these competitions.
Are some of the pageantry mothers reliving their “glamorous” childhoods? Are these mothers so intent on proving their children are the most pretty, talented and charming children, they will force their children to practice being anything, but themselves? Dragging a child from one pageant to the next, robs a child of precious time being innocent and the damage cannot be erased.
But ah, don’t forget the money, because at the root of any business industry including toddler pageantry is the money. How much of this money is for scholarships? How much is for bragging rights for parents to say, oh my child has made this much money and has a gazillion trophies? Is the money worth what tiny children endure to be “successful” in the absurd world of pageantry?
How do the judges justify their role in declaring which child is a winner and another a loser? These judges must be rewarded somehow, lucrative salaries, books, interviews or the pleasure in the power of deciding who is who in their worlds? Do these judges understand the impact they have on each of the children, win or lose?
And do we as viewers encourage more parents to join this bandwagon? Do we encourage this practice and behavior by watching these programs? Ah, so many questions, but who has all the answers?
http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2011/08/31/7538319-exclusive-clip-toddlers-tiaras-are-here-for-boobs-too
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=126315&page=1