PLEASE NOTE: This post contains adult themes that may not be suitable for young readers. Parental guidance is recommended.
Recently Eden Wood, star of the show Toddlers and Tiaras and winner of many beauty pageants, visited Australia. I have to say two things upfront about this girl (and the other little girls like her):
- I think, without make-up and fancy clothes, she is probably a very cute little girl (I say “probably” because I have never seen her without make up or fancy clothes on).
- I feel sorry for her because once she loses the cute factor, what’s going to happen to her?
I also have to say that this is not going to be a glowing endorsement of the child beauty pageant industry. I am not a fan. I think it’s only fair to state this upfront. I have nothing against children modeling clothes, being in ads, on TV, in movies, etc. I do have a problem with the way the children are treated in the attempts by the parents to win these things.
Maybe Eden likes doing the pageants but I’m sure she’d like doing them just as much if she was dressed in a cute summer dress and sandals and singing “Mary had a little lamb” as she does being dressed head to toe in sequins and feathers and singing some song that is ten years too old for her, not to mention moves that are twenty years too old.
''If you are looking at children in a sexual way, you should be ashamed of yourself and something is wrong with you. It's all about a beautiful dress, a beautiful child with lots of personality performing on stage.'' Annette Hill, owner of the Texas parent company Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant.
What a joke! If you dress a child up to look like an adult and coach them how to act like an adult then you have to expect that people are going to see them that way; except that they don’t see an adult, they see a child being made to seem like an adult.
The parents of the contestants claim that their precious little commodity can sometimes have a “diva” moment. You say diva moment, I say tantrum. If a child is screaming and crying (and kicking and hitting, I might add) because they don’t want to go on stage, let alone perform, then that’s a tantrum and that’s telling you something.
To be honest, I wouldn't mind so much if they were showing actual beauty, but there's nothing beautiful about smothering your daughter in make up, dressing her up like a drag queen or showgirl and making her dance like a stripper. It’s bad enough that kids see their music idols and film stars doing this, let alone their peers.
One of the Australian television networks followed Eden and her mother as they went touring around. The poor child was dolled up as if she should be on a catwalk with make up, faux fur coat, the works. A part of me died when I saw that. She was at the zoo, for goodness sake! She should be running around in jeans and a t-shirt or a simple skirt and top.
Just because you have a TV crew following you doesn’t mean that she’s given up any claim she has to a normal childhood. You would certainly get a better reaction from the public if they saw you allowing her to be a normal child instead of “on” 24/7.
Some pageant directors liken them to a protracted game of dress up. I have to strongly disagree with this. The child is not dressing up in mum’s clothes and tottering around in heels that are five sizes too big. The child is being dressed by their parents in clothes that would make many adults blush, and if they’re not being sexualised, they are being turned into porcelain dolls.
The whole idea of the porcelain doll look is the lack of imperfection. The young girls where make thicker than most runway models. There have been accusations of Botox and plastic surgery being performed on children as young at 7 years old. Whether these are true or not, it scares me that people are thinking these procedures have been done in the first place.
The Jonbenét Ramsey case, while not directly linked to beauty pageants, did raise some questions about the industry, especially following the investigation into the possible sexual assault motivation for her death. While, in this case, there was no evidence to support a sexual assault claim against any of the men in her life the fear was realised in the public mind that these little girls could be in danger from paedophiles and other sexual predators because of the way in which they are portrayed.
Pageant directors all claim that their event is family friendly and free from paedophiles because sex offenders are registered and not allowed within cooee of a child. What they fail to take into account is the paedophile that hasn’t been caught yet and, therefore, is not on the sex offenders register. They also fail to take into account the ones at home who are watching the videos online or the documentaries on the television. Parading a child around in skimpy clothes and make up is all fun and games until the child turns up dead because a paedophile has tried to abduct them, or the child is sexually assaulted (possibly raped) and has to live with that for the rest of their lives.
I’m pretty sure that if I had a daughter I would think she was the most beautiful little thing on the face of the planet, but there is no way in hell I would subject her to half of what most of the little “beauty queens” go through. I would want her to climb trees. I would want her to play at dress ups. I would want her to not worry if she got a graze on her knee.
And, most of all, I would want her to know that it doesn’t matter what she looks like because she would always be the most beautiful girl in the world to me.
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