AIBU to think that childrens beautiful pageants are vile

[scoobytoo]

I don't understand why any rational parent would slap om make up and set their little girl up to compete in beauty pagaents. I also get massively irritated with parents who put their kids photos onto to bonnie baby competitions online and ask me to vote for their plain looking child!

I think the ones with all the make up etc. are horrific and they sexualise young girls. I'm not as bothered by the bonnie baby ones but I think it's a bit sad that as a society we still favour beautiful children more than plainer ones.
It's not a good message to send out and at the end of the day good looks are just luck so why do they deserve to be awarded.

I don't enter bonnie baby competitions of course because it would be unfair to the other competitors for my beautiful DD to take part

Yes, horrified. Apart from the sexualisation angle, etc, I hate the encouragement to think that how we look is so much more interesting and important than what we can say and do.

Ridiculous...

I agree they sexualise young girls and the fact they don't have them for boys says it all.

It's normally mothers not fathers that push kids into this though, why would a grown female think this would be okay for their offspring?

I totally agree - i don't even let my 2.5 yr old dd play with my make up as she is already very girly and i think it is giving her the wrong messages.

I have my work cut out to try and encourage her inner beauty when the whole of society is focussed on appearances.

PS - and I am a scruff bag and not a girly girl!

Come own up has anyone on here put their kids into any of these competitions? If so why?

I was always struggling with this when I lived in Venezuela. At that time I did not have dc of my own but I kept encountering people who had little money and yet seemed willing to spend a great deal of what they did have on dresses, hairstyling, make-up, etc for their little girls in order to enter them in these beauty pageants.

I suppose though Venezuela - at least back then was a place where if a woman was viewed as beautiful by the people around her, it could make the difference between a life of poverty and a reasonable lifestyle so possibly not so crazy in the end if this is how their society largely judges women, parents seize on things like physical beauty and emphasize it - even if it just ends up perpetuating the situation. I don't understand why people in the UK choose to send little girls to these type of things really - or in the US for that matter.

when you say it is normally something the mothers wanted to do themselves, do you mean they wanted to do it when they were children but were not given the chance - or later as adults?

My question exactly ZZZ

I should have added to the original post that I think those dancing competitions and cheer leading competitions are just as bad. I'm sure the mothers suck up or give back handers to the judges anyway to get their kid to win. It always seems to be about the mothers.

Whenever I am thinking about whether something is sexualising girls, I try to imagione doing the same things to boys.

Would I spray tan my boys to make them look leaner and more muscular? Would I gel their hair and pad their swimming shorts to give them a more masculine shape? would I parade them seminaked and spray tanned in front of an audience, insisting that they 'flirt' with the judges? Would I expect them to submit to hours of grooming and posture lessons?

Has ANYONE ever done that to a little boy?

If you don't do it to little boys, you shouldn't do it to little girls, and vice versa

they do do it to boys in those body building competitions

Really do young boys do body building?

Well said Coldtits

Totally agree OP.

Well no - I looked a little into the child bodybuilding weirdness just now - and it's mostly pages of exercises and nutrician, and the importance of checking with your child's doctor, and not overworking your child.

So, despite the actual ioling and tanning of the shows, the point seems to be the child's health and fitness.

I somehow cannot truthfully apply this to beauty pageants, what with high heels, leg waxing, false teeth, eye lashes, hair and nails, and the sexual dancing and posing.

I didn't know little girls used false teeth for those shows tbh

What is the attraction I wonder? Is it the prize money? Wonder what you get for first prize usually

Small boys wear loose shorts and lift things. Small girl looks very uncomfortable in a tight bikini, and wiggles her non-existant womanly hips for the audience.

ZZZ, re Venezuela, I agree that the families may do it there as a way out of poverty. I think parents in the US and UK also see it as a way out of poverty too. In the US and UK, perhaps it can lead to television commercials, catalogues, packaging, as well as more established competitions. I don't really know but that is what I wonder.

Anyone remember the baby modeling threads that were always in Active Convos for a while? What became of them?

While the poor in the US and UK are not as poor as the poor in Venezuela, poverty is relative and social mobility also difficult the further down the ladder one is starting.

It is one of the few ways a person can leap over a few rungs of the ladder and attain a lifestyle they would like.

Beauty competition, modeling, dance, music, sport are avenues which many in deprived communities feel like they have a more equal opportunity to gain.

Oh yes. Little girls with missing teeth have something called a 'flipper' fitted - to fill the gap nicely so they don't look like children any more. Because it would of course be uncomfortable for the judges to be grading small girls on their figure, appearance, and flirting ability, so dress them like adult streetwalkers and then it's ok to stare.

these pageants have gone on for years and years, i can't really get worked up about them. seen alot of reality shows and as long as the kids don't mind what the harm really?

kids have always dressed was ott for ballroom dancing too (and the like)

That's so wrong on so many levels. But I can't imagine that the prize money would be enough to allow social mobility, surely not. Plus most kids won't win anything therefore costing the families small fortunes.

gosh that is a very strange video coldtits

It's just weird

I see what you mean Kelly