The Problem with Pageants

So yesterday, I wrote about the funny side of my baby pageant experience. But to be honest, it was hard to laugh about.

One woman I spoke to for a few minutes at the beginning of the pageant had a just-turned-two-year-old girl with her. Like the other contestants, Katelynn wore a wigful of curls, false lashes and a sprayed on tan. But her mom seemed nice enough, so Baby and I settled in to watch them compete in the first round together.

As Katelynn's mom carried her up on the stage, the little girl burst into tears. Her mother grimaced and shook her daughter stiffly, trying to make her stop. Of course, Katelynn cried harder. Impatiently, her mother whipped her around to face the judges, then jerked her back and stalked off the stage when it became clear that the tears weren't going to stop any time soon. As they walked past me in the audience, Katelynn's mom didn't speak to or look at her daughter. Her face was an awful mask of anger and disappointment.

Round two was no better. This time, Katelynn's mother had to stand behind the judges as Katelynn walked onto the stage by herself for a dance routine. Hit with the spotlight and the music, set at eardrum-bursting volume, Katelynn froze before the judges and timidly smiled, bouncing slightly, for the entire minute-and-a-half. At first, her mother wildly pantomimed Katelynn's routine from the audience, but when it became clear that her daughter wasn't going to dance, she threw her hands up in exasperation and walked away from Katelynn's sight line. Katelynn walked to the side of the stage when the music stopped and her mother harshly grabbed her and went to angrily vent to some of the pageant coaches nearby.

I felt sick. How could a child who just turned two be expected to smile and perform on cue? And why was her mother so angry when she didn't? Surely she knew this might happen. All of us with toddlers know that the moment we most want them to display their knowledge of the alphabet or "Twinkle Twinkle" is the moment they choose not to perform.

I learned later that Katelynn and her mother and baby sister had flown in from Texas for the pageant, spent around $800 for the pageant entrance fee, and thousands of dollars more for airfare and hotel, pageant coaches (who'd also come in from out of town for the event), custom-made costumes, professionally done hair and makeup and manicures and tanning. I'm sure that Katelynn's mom wasn't seeing her daughter up there on stage; she was seeing thousands of dollars being flushed down the toilet. And this mother wasn't alone. I saw plenty of parents' faces contort in anger when their toddlers forgot a routine, neglected to remove a hat or vest, or cried on stage. It was fucking pathetic. And fucking wrong.

I don't use the term 'child abuse' lightly, but I felt like what I was seeing should not have been happening under any circumstances. I can't tell you how many two and three-year-old girls approached my daughter, clearly wanting to play with her as she hopped across the carpet and munched on Goldfish. These girls, though, had obviously been trained over a long period of time not to move. They would stand a few feet away in their perfect hair and makeup and costumes, looking at her longingly, but not daring to approach her. Any of you who have or have had a two-year-old know that this kind of behavior in an entire group of toddlers isn't natural. It's learned behavior and it's sick.

The contestants in national "glitz" pageants in no way resemble little girls. They are made up to look like little women, dressed up in bikinis, their wispy hair covered by full-length Barbie-esque wigs. I was horrified to see obvious dark roots in some of the under-six contestants' platinum blonde hair that peeked out from beneath their long synthetic ponytails. After about thirty minutes of watching the pageant, I found myself wondering how this one got her hair so smooth and perfectly wavy and marveling at how that one's blush perfectly complemented her skin tone. When one two-year-old came out on the stage wigless and nearly bald, I thought to myself, "That one needs some hair on her head! How does she even expect to compete?!" And I knew I was getting sucked into the madness.

We all know most girls love feeling pretty and I'm sure many of them love looking at their made-up selves in the mirror, but these pageant contestants are obviously too young and naive to realize that they are being sexualized for a crowd of strangers to ogle and judge. It is so disgusting and so wrong and I wish there were a way to put an end to it.

Want to see some of what I'm talking about for yourself? Take a look at this site. Several of these girls were contestants.