The Pageant Craze

Beauty pageants have been a popular pastime for decades, however in this day and age, pageants have grown to be so much more than what they used to be. Nearly everyone I know has watched the TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras or heard about the newly popular toddler beauty pageants. Essentially, the new trend is not to enroll toddlers in summer camps or sign them up for ballet or baseball, but to sign them up for beauty contests.

With hundreds of competitions around the country, children can be enrolled into pageants practically at birth, as the youngest division is 0-11 months old. While there are natural pageants (usually forbid makeup, hair extensions, etc), glitz pageants, which include choreographed routines and look favorably upon big hair, fake teeth, sparkly gowns and nail extensions, are the most popular. Children can compete for a variety of prizes, ranging from money to massive trophies or electronics. Toddlers & Tiaras, which is one of the more commonly recognized shows about toddler beauty pageants, exposes the realities of what the children and families committed to these pageants actually go through.

As innocent and adorable as Toddlers & Tiaras may sound, the controversies connected to these pageants have gained nearly as much attention as the show itself. From giving a child an energy drink mix before going onstage to forcing a child to get her eyebrows waxed to gain points, it seems that some individuals don't have limits when it comes to beauty. When is it too much? Why are there so many parents who seem perfectly content with altering their own child until they seem "flawless"...just for a trophy or some cash?

One of the most disturbing stories I've heard regarding toddler beauty pageants involved a mother who gave botox injections and leg waxing on her 8-year-old daughter. As the article asked, how young is too young? If an individual wants to do these things to themselves when they are old enough to make their own decisions, then so be it. However, it's frightening to think that a mother would allow her daughter, whether she wanted it or not, to get these things done just so that she would be better prepared for a pageant. Clearly this is a recurring thing, which leads me to believe that the beauty pageant system is flawed. Beauty pageants have the potential of being fun and appropriate, however if to win, a child is advised to have fake extensions, fake teeth, a spray tan, an expensive costume, and a lot of makeup...what is that saying about what our society values?

Appearance is important to people; that will likely be true for a long time. However a line must be drawn somewhere. When someone is old enough to make their own decisions and decides that they would like to participate in a beauty pageant, then they can pursue that. Forcing children to do these pageants while altering their natural beauty in the process is a different story. With beauty and makeup already playing such a strong role in our culture today, is it necessary to start exposing children to this specific lifestyle so early? If a child wants to enroll in a beauty pageant, is it necessary to play to win instead of playing for the experience or for fun?

At some point, when a parent has been applying makeup onto their child for 20 minutes straight or starts spray tanning, injecting or waxing their kid, the child begins to lose the appreciation for their natural beauty and for who they are themselves. If a child grows up thinking that they must be beautified to be rewarded, that sentiment is likely there to stay.