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 some parents go way over the top as they do in any walk of life

Some parents push their sons into football and make them practice every day, getting them up at 6 am to o running then train i the evening

some parents take away their kids childhood by making them do maths nine hours a day

But that is OK

What about films, here we have another beauty competition where all to often children are pushed by ambitious parents and the industry pours a ton of make up including false teeth onto the children

I would happily allow my daughters to do beauty contests or cheer leading if they wished

I once took part in one when on holiday, I was 13 I thik, it was a laugh, but even their there were parents going over the top with their children

Sorry pushed the wrong button not had chance to correct errors in the above

I was also going to ask is synchronised swimming wrong as only girls/women take part

actually I would really love someone who enjoyed this kind of thing as a dc or whose dds participate in something like this to post so I could understand it better - but I suppose that we have been so critical that no one will feel inclined to do so.

OKaren I think synchronised swimming is a complete waste of time tbh but not wrong!

I also think there is a big difference doing a beauty contest on holiday for a laugh at 13 and a 6 year old spending every waking hour being carted round the country to be judged on adult style beauty week in week out.

They even have evening wear and padded swim wear FFS.

Okaren, to me football, maths, synchronised swimming are all very different kettles of fish to beauty pageants.

For me at least what I am uneasy about is the emphasis on appearance and the sort of sexualising of young girls which is how it comes across to me. Not the amount of time put into it as such but the message about their bodies/looks that girls receive. Playing tennis 5+ hours a day is just different to my mind, even if I am not sure whether it is so great for dc

is it really alright for young boys to be lifting weights in that manner? I suppose they are more token weights and bodybuilding (as opposed to just running about doing sports and building muscles that way). I don't know is this not potentially quite a risky thing to do?

ZZZenAgain, I would not say I enjoy them But I do not see anything wrong with them unless parents push it

What is the objection, girls looking pretty and attractive?

There are boys equivalents I am sure I have seen a documentary on TV once

OKaren are you referring to seeing nothing wrong with pageants?

I think the problem is that it's setting girls up to believe that external beauty is very important, which I believe is unhealthy. I also think it's ironic that in an age where people get really upset about their children being filmed in the school nativity in case of paedophiles they will happily put their kids in front of loads of strangers with adult style make up and clothing at 5 years old +

YANBU

I watched a documentary yesterday called tiaras and toddlers or something

Awful

My mum made a good point - it is teaching girls to be false - false hair, make up, nails, eye lashes and then to be judged on that basis

Horrid IMO

My toddler DD is beautiful - she doesn't need to be plastered in fake tan, and taught to wiggle her bum in front of an audience to validate that beauty

Santa - I read about that too

agree with op - the pageants are vile and creepy. i hate baby contests and forbade any of my or dh's family in entering dd in the vomit inducing 'baby of the year' contest they have in plymouth.

i hate any 'showcasing' of children based on their looks. but then you are preaching to the converted here. i don't even approve of photos of children on facebook or posting them on you tube. just why??

Sungirltan

I think posting on facebook is okay especially if family members are say in OZ so you can share your photos with them. But yes Youtube is strange too!

All children are beautiful. Obviously my children are more so than most though

But putting make up on children is heinous. And don't get me started on waxing them

scooby - you can just email pictures regularly - works for us and yes we have lots of family/friends in oz.

facebook's t&c's state they have the right to sell the pictures you post on to 3rd parties - so never mind the privacy settings i don't want pictures of my dd ending up on an advert in japan or worse :-(

i post photos of dh and friends and i because we are consenting adults and understand the implication of posting material online. you can't get it back.

They look like junior transvestites

they take it to far. But it's only a bit of fun tbh.

It's fucking creepy.

Boys have now begun to participate in beauty pageants in the US.

One mother who was being interviewed was declaring that this way she got to experience having daughters, that her boys were the "girls i never had"

I think the whole set-up is very wrong for either sex, but my main problem with it is that the child starts before they are old enough to make any sort of informed choice.

The children declaring that they love doing pagaents on documentaries, have been living with the expectation that they will love doing them for years, and will likely be well tuned in to the unfortunate fact that this is the way to get their Mummy's approval.

santamouse - thats horrid - what a shame its been spoiled. i used to do ballet when i was little a do a show now and then. i don't remember taking it seriously at all and the only make up i can recall is when we were dressed up in cat costumes and had black face paint. my friends dds (10/3) do ballet now and get plastered in make up just to do the show in front of all the parents. i was horrified - not so much for the 10 year old she loved it as you can imagine but putting foundation etc on a 3 year old????

It is not a bit of fun when parents start fights at kids football matches and police need to be called, neither is it fun when parents push their championship swimmer so hard she hangs herself as happened locally a few years ago

I like it when people tell me my daughters are pretty and although they do not wear make up normally I do spend some time doing their hair and they look neat and nice

Then 20 minutes home later I wonder why I bother!