Pageants and children
 

I am a strong believer in child pageants but that is only if they want to. I think a child can gain a lot from it and I was wondering what everyone else thought?

I don't have a problem with child pageants, as long as the child has expressed a desire to participate. If parents are forcing their children to participate, and it's not something the children are interested in, that's when I have a problem.

I learned routines and had all the costumes and yes my mother did spend a lot of money on me. But I also won a lot of money back and lots of prizes. Most pageants give away a lot more then just a crown and banner. It is just like a sport. Parents and the child want to do well in the sport, so they need all the equipment that is involved to do well. They need a uniform, shoes, ball, net, lessons and etc. The same is with a pageant you need the shoes, the outfits, make-up and etc. For me when I was younger pageants was my sport. I did a lot of dance to but I competed more in pageants. Through my 14 years of experience I have see some unhappy children but most of them love it! Now some parents can be too into it also, esp. in the southern pageants. But you will find a lot of pageats have a lot of rules about wat outfits you can wear and how much make-up to have on depending the age, hair extensions, etc.

The video of JonBennet Ramsey performing in pageants make me ill.

This IN NO WAY intimates that her being in pageants had anything to do with her tragic death. I just detest the makeup and costumes that made her look like a minature woman instead of the child she was.

Thats actually a good point. Sexualizing your child at an early age may not be the best idea.

Jon Bennet Ramsey and others were made to like sexy women at a young age.

Overall I'm against pageants all-together (child or otherwise). I think they reinforce the idea that women deserve things based primarily on their physical appearance.

I'm not a fan of putting your kid in a lot of activities anyway (one or two tops, especially if they're young), but I personally would want my kids in something I feel is more substantial- along the lines of music lessons or martial arts.. something they can grow with the rest of their life if they enjoy it.

I question how a 3 year old girl can become interested in participating in pageants in the first place, but if the kid wants to do it, and the parents feel it's okay, that's their choice.

Pageants in general:

I dated a couple pageant winners from the Ms. America Circuit. They won nice amounts of money, although the actual profit was uncertain given the amount they had to spend on accessories.

It seems that for the winners it might be a nice self esteem booster. To win you have received a certain validation as to your desirability, because lets face it, at its core its a beauty pagent.

Losing might make girls more neurotic lol.

If a girl is into her adolescence, very outgoing, or even a bit of an exhibitionist, and she finds out about a pageant somehow and wants to do it, more power to her.

But when the parents are entering young girls into pageants . . well lets face it . . . they are doing it for their own ego's. Even really young children in the movies, that is parents living through their kids. Boring, but it happens.

There are two women in particular I knew when I was much younger -- one was a Miss Ohio and First Runner-up Miss America and one was Miss America in the early 1970's.

They both started out as professional pageant enterers.

The latter still advises entrants and designs certain clothing for them.

The first one turned out to be a pretty cool woman with a great attitude. By the way, in my opinion, she was the better looking of the two -- but that's very subjective.

A few years after Miss Runner-Up was in the pageant, I had the opportunity to hire her to do some local TV work and she and her husband and my wife and I became friends. We went to a party at their house one night, and she asked us if we would like to see her Miss Ohio trophy. When we answered in the affirmitive, she took us into their bedroom -- she had had it turned into a lamp! It was great!

I've loved her attitude ever since although we haven't seen them in many years.

Little ones
I don't like them. I feel the pressure on little girls to compete against other little girls (my dress is prettier than yours or I'm prettier than she is, THE JUDGES SAID SO!) is really destructive. It could really warp their attitudes and set up a situation where this competitiveness towards women continues through life. However, LOTS of things parents promote can do as much.

The age of the participant is what gets to me the most. Those little ones, dressed up, made up, prancing around... For every little girl that carries the crown, there are 10 others crying and feeling like they don't measure up. My stomach is churning just thinking of their little broken hearts.

My sister was in pageants-my niece as well. It was totally their choice and both were HS age. We had a pagaent on campus and my sorority asked me to participate and I did- for them- it was one of the dumbest things I've ever done!!!(No I didn't win not even CLOSE, but ended up dating the announcer for a short while;) In my life I may have watched 2 or 3 Miss America Pageants. I know this is wrong, but I stereotype participants and yet none of the 3 of us would fit that stereotype-but we weren't
"lifers", we were flukes...

Bottom line-IMHO-
Little girls should not have to worry about how "pretty" or "talented" they are. They should be as free from that kind of pressure for as long as possible. It comes soon enough.

I'm okay with pageants as long as the girls don't look like they have 18 year old faces on 5 year old bodies.

I'm with dzrose93 on this one...

There was this girl I was friends with in middle school who had been in pageants since she was 5. She was Little Miss Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, etc. Her parents moved every single year so that she could be the Little Miss of that state. When she got to middle school, she started entering the Junior Miss pageants. I just remember her mother being really pushy. It was the mother who wanted her to enter all these pageants, not the girl. She had a really warped body image. At only 11 years old, she was bulimic. Her mother made her take diet pills.
I think that pageants are fine only if the girl wants to enter them. You just hear so much about the mothers who put their girls in pageants to raise their own self-esteem and self-image. They mess up their daughter's emotional well-being in the process. Personally, I would not put my daughter in pageants. She should just enjoy being a child.....she has the rest of her life to put on high-heels, wear make up, and have her hair and nails done. Why start these things at age 5?

I also dislike the fact that the Miss USA system is simply a paying thing instead of off of talent like Miss America system was. I think it's a joke to just judge off of beauty. At least with a lot of the different pageants there is some weight in talents, athletisism, and community involvement.

*rubbing hands in an evil fashion....ready to embark on a caffine induced spiel*

Ok.....beauty pageants are fine if that's what a young adult/woman wants to do. However, I hold serious reservations when the "I'm 40, but trying to look 20 stage mother" coos, "But she waaaannnnttssss to do these pageants, she looovvveeesss them." Ok, and the "she" is a child of five. When kids are five, they also want to eat dirt, ride their bikes in the middle of the road, etc.... Kids want to do all kinds of things that aren't necessarily the most reasonable things.

When a parent enters a child in a beauty pageant does she realize that she's putting her child in a psychologically dangerous situation?

Judging anyone on their appearance objectifies them. You are your beauty. What happens when a child of 5 grows to be 13, hits the "ugly" stage, and doesn't win pageants anymore? She objectifies herself. She doesn't judge herself on how she feels about herself, she judges herself on how other people judge her. Life is hard enough......

I also watched that HBO special. It made me physically ill. Some of those mothers just seemed so....crazy!!! Why not develop your child's talents? You know, like academically, athletically, artistically? These are much more profitable ways to benefit your child than expecting that 50 buck savings bond won at the local Miss Crawdad pageant is going to pay for college. Hello....scholarships based on merit??

And no one in the world will convince me that they are not beauty pageants regardless of what the PC term is now. (Can there be a PC term?? hmmm....) No one can tell me that a 5'3", 150 pound, gorgeous woman who does a ton of philanthropy work, is pre-med, and sings like a bird is going to win over the size 3 6'0 mutant with big teeth/hair who wants to "stop world hunger." It doesn't happen.

Another thing that makes me upset is that I have heard people say that "Jon Benet's parents were 'setting her up' to be molested" by dressing her like a sex kitten. I mean, substitute Jon Benet with a 21 year old college student out for the night dressed in "bar clothes"....does she deserve to be sexually assulted?

Ehh...to each her own, I guess.