Are you Pro or against beauty Pageants for kids?

Completely & utterly against! Superficial, shallow bullshit.
Don’t fuck with a child’s mind wackjobs!

I don’t like them. Going out on a limb here but I think there are some serious pervs here on the internet? and they watch that show and you know they are thinking to themselves- “I’d hit that”

I can’t say I’m in favor of beauty pageants for anyone.

I dislike what these grown ups are doing to their children. Its crazy!

grooming little children to become peodophile bait is the worst kind of child abuse, but it happens , a huge money making industry and parents living out their own fantasies, who cares about the kids ???

Sorry this is making children dress up and be adults when they are clearly not. Waxing and plucking, whiting teeth, putting in false teeth when they loose their baby teeth. This is all obsurd and ridulous. I can’t believe parents put their kids through this and now hearing about putting a poison like botox into them I am appalled at it all!!!

I find it a rather disturbing phenomenon.

If I had to watch any kind of dressing up, I’d rather see cats in hats, or dogs in glasses. Even then, only if gouging my own eyes out with my soup spoon wasn’t an option.

Giving scores of kids serious emotional problems? We have enough of that in our culture already, no need to have any more. I dislike the pageants.

I am opposed to them, and think they should be shutdown as the scams they are. They are prima facie evidence of poor parenting

@nikipedia – we are on the same wavelength. Teach your little daughter she could become a scientist, or president or race car driver or artist.

Teaching her to be a mini tart is so sad. Wonder if anyone ever followed up to see what these girls do become when they grow up.

I am pro individual freedom. I would not put my own child into a child beauty pageant, but I recognize that pageants exist, winners of them derive serious, sometimes life-long benefits (Bess Meyerson, Vanessa Williams, Nancy Flemming, Lee Meriwether, etc.) and that those who get started early in the circuit have an advantage in something that, while trivial to me, may be very meaningful to them. It’s not my job to make up their mind about the value of beauty pageants.

I’m going to school to perform breast implants on children so please don’t do anything crazy like making this Associates degree worthless.

Sweet holy moly, let me get into my fire retardant suit as I will most likely tick both side of the isle.

I have never watched the show and have better things to do than watch, but like “Show Dog Mom And Dads” there is an interest so there is a show. I think as a competition it is no worse than karate, little league, etc. It is just the how the competition is conducted is where I see it is suspect. Self-esteem apart I am against them because of the hypocrisy imbedded in it. If you try so hard to keep kids, a kid long after nature had other ideals prancing them around in thousand dollar gowns and all the waxing, spray tanning and other stuff seems disingenuous.

Esteem wise I can see it going both ways, great if you are winning, poor if you are not. What girl does not want to feel or be the fairy princess? To dress like a Disney princess and get the royal treatment and everyone snapping your picture and telling you how cute you are. If you can never pull in the big win it can start to grate on you because you know you will never beat “that girl” because she is prettier. If she is “persuaded” and I use the term loosely, into participating when she would rather do spelling bees or play lacrosse, then it is really not cool.

Many parents want to be proud their girl won “Little Miss Apple Queen” as those who kid aced the science decathlon. Not saying both competitions are the same but the pride the parent has is the same in my book. If you don’t have a brainy child you can say you had the prettiest. Some parents might be trying to live what they missed or could never have, wasn’t cute enough, through their children, but to a degree we live a bit through our children. The father who wanted to play MLB but was crappy at sports but now has a 11yr old little leaguer who can smoke a 65mph slider; I know he is imagining and living a dream in his head of his kid getting a baseball scholarship, being All American and getting drafted to the Majors.

If you want kids to be kids then don’t muddle the waters.

@ETpro, I think you raise an interesting point. The parents are certainly entitled to their individual freedoms to do whatever they want, even if it’s harmful. But what about the kids? Especially at toddler age, they’re not making any choices about whether or not to participate. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that toddlers entered into beauty pageants were shown to have significantly increased rates of eating disorders, depression, suicidal behaviors, etc—would you then argue that a ban on pageants infringes unfairly on the parents’ individual freedoms and should not transpire?

I hate them. I think they instill in children the ideas that A.) you can and should earn money from your appearance rather than your brain B.) you can and should judge people by their outward appearance rather than their brains and C.) you have to be better looking than the other kids or you’re a loser. Why on earth would you want your kid to think that way?

Esteem wise I can see it going both ways, great if you are winning, poor if you are not. What girl does not want to feel or be the fairy princess? To dress like a Disney princess and get the royal treatment and everyone snapping your picture and telling you how cute you are.

Little girls are equally as cute with a studious look on their face, washing rocks out in the background, or wearing overalls and walking a rock wall as if it were a balance beam.

Unless you’re Kate Middleton, there is no princess; there’s single mother of three trying to make ends meet. There’s housewife worrying why you’re teenage son’s on drugs. There’s working 60 hours a week so you and your husband don’t lose your house. But there is cute, and pretty, and smart, and clever.

You know in a situation like this it’s always the mother trying to live her dream through her kids. I could never do this, it’s sick. How can you justify making your 5 year old shake her hips for the judges? I’m more disturbed by the judges and people that ok this stuff. This is breeding low self esteem in children and it’s sad because at this age kids will do anything to make their parents proud.

I think those are mainly for the parents. I don’t agree with them at all. Dancing, Talent., Acting lessons are fine,

First of all, I don’t think kiddie pageants are “massive” in the US. I think there is a small subculture of people who get into this, it’s a very small minority. It gets hyped up on the shows, but until Jean Benet Ramsay, most of us in the US had never even heard of the pageants and they had been going on a while. I think the show exists because it’s outrageous and gets people extremely emotional. But just because there is a show put on every week doesn’t mean that it’s anywhere near mainstream.

I’m not going to argue that what you see isn’t sensational or scandalous, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were far less pageant families out there than Duggar families or dwarf families or 16 and pregnant families.

@nikipedia Of course if there were data showing that any sort of activvity presents serious risks for children, then I would be totally against parents pushing their children into it. If such data exists for childhood beauty pageants, I am unaware of it.

Parents trying to make their warped dreams into a reality carried by some sick version of what beauty is in a child categorically makes me against this child abuse.

Beauty pagaent for kids? More like Future Anorexics Association.

It depends on the state. Where I grow up, pageants weren’t all crazy weird. I was in pageants, but nothing like you see on tv. We barely had makeup on. It was based on true talent and shit. It was fun and our parents weren’t insane. I disagree with those insane people you see on TV in most southern states. That’s weird, and I disagree with that crap. Come on, Flippers? Geez.

Against.

I highly disprove of child beauty pageants or any beauty pageant. So once you’ve gotten that crown, then what? You can tell people your greatest achievement was being crowned Miss America? There are other ways to teach your child self confidence and self worth.

Beauty pageants are superficial, demeaning, and pointless.