Child Beauty Pageant and Pushy Parents Make Me Sick

The other week, I watched “Toddlers and Tiaras” for the first time (through a lack of anything better on the box) – and I was totally disgusted by it.  There was this 4-year-old called Maddy, dressed up to the nines and sporting fake breasts and bottom enhancements to make her look like Dolly Parton. Beauty pageants are bad enough – but this brought it down to a new level.  I wanted to switch off, but the horror of it all kept me glued.

Poor little Maddy was being made up to look like a full grown woman and yet she had absolutely no idea why it would even be desirable to look like a full grown woman! She looked like a doll, a miniature sex bomb; it sent shivers down my spine.

Then I realised that maybe the absurdity of it all could be a good thing. Mothers who have paraded their children at pageants have denied it in the past, but with this sort of behavior is it even possible to deny that beauty pageants are about the sexualisation of children? There is nothing ‘pretty’ or childishly cute about a pneumatic pair of breasts and a curvy bum.

Personally I think child beauty pageants should be banned altogether. Mothers should not be allowed to parade their children for the vicarious pleasure of being ‘beautiful’ through them. Forcing your child to be a sexual object before they even know what sex is – it’s nothing less than abuse, in my opinion.