I saw an episode last week and one dad seemed very uncomfortable with his daughter looking so old. It makes me wonder how many of the dads have any say in what their daughters do.
And, yep, I'm a train-wreck watcher! I've never heard of these here in Northern California.
not sure if it's still the case, but antioch and plesant hill used to be big areas for these types of pagents. it got to be that you could'nt go into some of the diners near the hotels on the weekends without seeing packs of little pagent princesses. it was realy creepy too-there was definatly an element of creepy guys who would sit at the counters drinking cup after cup of coffee and leer

i think things changed a bit when allot of the hotels began to refuse bookings for these things (they got too many complaints from other guests about kids running wild and noise, and they attracted some realy sleazy audience members). there's still allot of stores in the area that specialize in pagent wear, but it seems like the bulk of the actual pagents are being held in sacramento.