What are your thoughts on Child Beauty Pageants?

[Lovely2CU]

I watched a TV programme this week called "Baby Beauty Queens: Mini Miss UK", the UK's first US style child beauty pageant this week, the brainchild of a middle-aged former beauty queen named Pam.

Pushy mums, fake tans, hair extensions, false nails, £1,000 dresses, too many of the dresses were so trashy too making them look like mini adults. Some of the children had so much make-up on, they looked like hookers.

- all standard beauty pageant fare.

I absolutely despise child beauty pageants.

 

[CathrynRose]

They're utterly disgusting.

 

[LukenDC]

They're disgusting.

 

[Handbag Lady]

They should be made illegal, right up there with child porn.

You just never know who is watching in the audience.

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

I have watched a few of those type shows. I can't stand them.

On one episode of "Toddlers and Tiaras" there was a woman with five daughters (two were twins). She had them all in the pageants (I believe the oldest were around six). Anyway, the mom was talking about the twins and said the one looked just like her and that she won a lot. The mom said the other girl had a big nose and didn't win much, because she was timid. The little girl said she didn't like the pageants, because she lost to her sister.

I have seen a couple parents that don't do the full "glam" and the kids look normal (some even win; imagine that).

 

[rn4val]

I think they are exploiting kids. I think once they are an older teenager fine but not little kids. Trying to look grown up and act grown up way before they should

 

[becjlek]

I think they are scary.

 

[Boxley]

I don't really find anything positive about a beauty pageant at all.

 

[DWGal210]

I agree with all of you - they scare me. What I object to is all the hair extensions, fake tans, makeup, etc. It scares me that all these little girls are made to look much much older and to me, that is sick. I want my 5 year old to look like a 5 year old!

I guess it's also because I don't like the beauty pageants in general. Older girls will probably tell you it's a scholarship thing, and I know that they can earn some $$ and scholarships as they get older, but don't kid yourselves - the "average" looking girl might be the brightest in the group, but if she's not what they consider beautiful, she's out. I'm just surprised that especially now, in 2009, we are still holding beauty pageants. I just don't get it.

 

[Allison]

Let me see....what is the word I'm looking for.....

REVOLTING

 

[N&B'smom]

Yuck!

 

[C.Ann]

If they weren't dressed, made-up, and taught to move around like miniature hookers, I might feel differently about them..

As they currently stand, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a large part of the audience is made up of pedophiles..

 

[barkley]

They should be made illegal, right up there with child porn.

You just never know who is watching in the audience.

or hanging out in the public areas of the hotels they're held in. a realy popular pagent "circut" was held near where i worked and they got the boot from several hotels because other guests were complaining about the sleezo pervs that were hanging out in the lobby leering if that was'nt bad enough the pervs would move on to the pool area where they knew allot of the pagent moms dumped their kids after the pagent while they headed off to the cocktail lounge

it got to be that if the locals knew it was a pagent weekend they kept their kids and their $$$ as far away from the location's nearby eateries and kiddie venues as possible.

 

[AristocatFan]

I feel very sad for those little girls..........and then I always think of JonBenet Ramsey.

 

[golfgal]

I watched a TV programme this week called "Baby Beauty Queens: Mini Miss UK", the UK's first US style child beauty pageant this week, the brainchild of a middle-aged former beauty queen named Pam.

Pushy mums, fake tans, hair extensions, false nails, £1,000 dresses, too many of the dresses were so trashy too making them look like mini adults. Some of the children had so much make-up on, they looked like hookers.

- all standard beauty pageant fare.

I absolutely despise child beauty pageants.

Pretty much the same as everyone else here. There was a woman in our old town that had her girls in these things from the time they were babies. It was really sad. Their older DD is beautiful, graceful and very smart. Their younger daughter is overweight, clumsy and not very bright. She is CONSTANTLY telling the younger one "why can't you be like Ashley". It is REALLY, REALLY sad to see.

 

[LivinInTheCastle]

Those poor kids should be taken from those idiotic parents and placed with normal loving familis.

 

[NMAmy]

I find the whole thing very creepy--the girls look like tiny plastic Stepford wives and many of the mothers are living vicariously through their children.

 

[JessicaR]

I have watched a few of those type shows. I can't stand them.

On one episode of "Toddlers and Tiaras" there was a woman with five daughters (two were twins). She had them all in the pageants (I believe the oldest were around six). Anyway, the mom was talking about the twins and said the one looked just like her and that she won a lot. The mom said the other girl had a big nose and didn't win much, because she was timid. The little girl said she didn't like the pageants, because she lost to her sister.

I have seen a couple parents that don't do the full "glam" and the kids look normal (some even win; imagine that).

I saw this episode last week and it made me sick to my stomach. I never watched before and I'll never watch again. I wanted to hurt that mother. That poor little girl broke my heart. I can't imagine the lasting damage this mother is causing. How sick to blatantly tell one of your children in front of the other that she is the star and you are just plain and dull.

Isn't that a form of child abuse?

As far as the actual pageants go for children, I am disgusted by them.

 

[christineann]

It's as if these parents want their little children to be viewed as s*xual objects...........disgusting doesn't come close.

 

[Shmily1]

DD won a local beauty contest, won state for her age division, and placed 5th at the national contest. She was 1 year old and didn't move like a hooker, have a fake tan, or makeup. I also didn't drop her off at the pool or leave her alone in the lobby for the pervs to look at. When she asked to do a couple other pageants later, she did them but we still didn't do any of the things mentioned on this thread with the exception of putting on a little make up when she was a preteen.

Since then, she has graduated high school and will start college in three weeks. I really can't say she was scarred from it.

On the other hand, some parents do take this to the extreme and force their children to do pageants, sports, dance, etc when the child is totally not interested. I have seen this first hand when DD was in dance and the parents fussed at the children for messing up the dance routine or dropping the baton. We had a rule that any activity like that was for fun. If you took it serious, it made you cry because you messed up, or you started to get obsessed with it, I had all veto power and you were pulled from it. That was understood from the start and I never had to do it.