Photos: Pageant Girl Paisley
Thursday, August 23, 2012 5:00AM
Filed Under: As Seen On The Show
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I'm appalled at the parents (usually mothers) who use their little girls in these shows for what has to be the satisfaction of their own egos or as some sort of compensation for their own unfulfilled lives. To me this is tantamount to child abuse.
I don't care what excuse the parent makes - usually that the child loves to participate and compete against other little ones - the child would not even be aware of her looks had she not been brainwashed into believing that they were all-important. She will grow up believing that they are what define her as a person.
The first response that today's mother had regarding her ambition for her daughter was that she'd like her to one day be Miss America (or one other such title). As an afterthought, and I think to cover up her shallowness, she added that she'd like her child to go to university.
And please don't talk to me about developing the child's talents. There are other ways to do this without robbing her of her childhood and tarting her up.
I watched one program on this industry and felt sick at seeing the tired, pressured little girls, forced to travel miles, missing a regular life of play with children of their own age and feeling stressed that they had to win against other equally-stressed babies.
Their parents should be required to go through psychiatric evaluations.
I wish these pageants could be banned, but suppose that would be considered interfering with the personal freedom of the adults involved. I wonder about the freedom of choice of the small girls, who were barely more than infants and incapable of making informed decisions on their own behalf when this lifestyle was thrust upon them.
Shame on their shameless exploiters!
By the way, has any research been done on former child participants who are now old enough to have independent opinions on their early lives> What has become of them? What are their feelings towards their parents, in particular the mothers who pushed this life onto them? And do they ask why their fathers didn't protect them?