Baby Beauty Pageants: Dangerous Or Just Fun?
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I’ve recently become obsessed with reading an old debate online about child beauty pageants. It’s a fascinating study in polar opinions on one issue. At first I found myself staunchly opposed to the notion of putting fake teeth, fake hair, sprayed on tans and sexualizing my little girl and couldn’t believe pageant moms think they have any arguments in their favor. As I read more and more though, I can glimpse sane reasons for what these moms encourage their daughters to do, amid the insanity. Because yes, I am still opposed to baby or child beauty pageants.
The pros. The pros that pageant moms use in defense of glitz beauty pageants vary. Glitz beauty pageants, to clarify, is where thousands are spent on costumes, hair and makeup, entrance fees, and where the children truly do not look like a child anymore. This is opposed to natural beauty pageants where no makeup or anything fake is allowed. The argument is that they are fun, enhances the child’s self-confidence, that the fake stuff is just proper gear like you would put on in any other sport or activity like cheer-leading, ballet, theater. The children love doing them and are the ones who push to do them, and that they are safer than other well-accepted activities like football where injuries abound.
The cons. The cons are too many and too grave in my opinion. The bottom line? These events sexualize young girls. I really cringed at some pageant clips I saw where toddlers, for pete’s sake, were gyrating to highly sexual music. This teaches young girls that not only does appearance matter, but also that to be a girl, you have to gyrate, swing your hips just right to be a winner. There are other fun activities out there that can enhance a child’s self-confidence and focus on character and not looks.
brit says...
I think they are reprehensible. If parents want their child to dance, or sing, they should enroll them in ballet or tap or singing classes, not pageants. Look at what happened to JonBenet Ramsey. Well, no-one knows what happened to her, but would she still have been killed if she wasn’t paraded about for perverts to drool over in pageants?