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AIBU?

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Original poster

To encourage my girls to do pageants?

175 replies

Sparklymommy · 16/05/2013 21:24

Ok, sure I am going to be blasted here, however:

I am in the UK, where the pageant scene isn't nearly as bad as it is in the USA. My daughters WANT to compete and ooze confidence and stage presence. They both already perform in dance festivals and talent shows and love the whole dressing up, being beautified thing. My eldest is 10, my youngest 4 next month.

I would never "expect" them to win, or put pressure on them if they didn't do well. I am not into "sexualising" them or turning them into mini adults I just think they would enjoy the experience and it would be good for them.

OP posts:
Original poster
Sparklymommy · 17/05/2013 09:10

No, princess role play is not the only role play, of course not. My daughters play at nurses, teachers, all those 'roles'.

Members of the orchestra usually also compete in festivals. Life is all about competition. Look at sports. So many schools now have non competitive sports days. How is that preparing our children for the real world? Getting a job is a competition.

My daughter dances semi professionally and wants to perform as a career. It is a very competitive world and children need to learn that they won't all get picked all the time.

OP posts:
Fecklessdizzy · 17/05/2013 09:13

Basically OP if it was "all about the personality" they could judge the kids behind a screen! It's a beauty contest. Yay! Let's make pre-teen girls even more self concious! Hmm

Sadly I bet we get loads more of this nonsense now that thing about lardy rednecks and their glittery mini-pig creature is on the box.

Sparhawk · 17/05/2013 09:14

There's a difference between loosing a competition based on your talents, that you can then work on and improve, and loosing a competition because you don't look a certain way. What message is that sending to children? Because to me it's less 'you won't always win' and more 'you're not pretty enough to win.' And that's cruel.

cory · 17/05/2013 09:15

Getting a job (including one of dancing professionally!) is about being judged on actual skills and abilities (including the ability to perform as part of a group); it's not about standing in a line and having the adjudicator pick you before you have even demonstrated your skill because you are skinny and have a long neck (as per your own post).

I have seen many children with performance ambitions in my day. The ones who think it is all about being spotted tend not to get very far. The ones who know it's about graft and knowledge as well as talent sometimes do get somewhere.

Sparhawk · 17/05/2013 09:15

But again, you're still trying to change people's minds. Do you really just want us to validate your choices?

Sheshelob · 17/05/2013 09:17

Gah!!!

My work puts me in direct contact with performing arts children, and I have to say that parents like you are doing their children no favours in hardening then up to "life's harsh realities". They are kids, for fuck's sake. Take away their hope and imbue them with clawing professional desperation and you are setting them up to fail.

What future do you imagine for your children - professionally, that is?

Sunnywithshowers · 17/05/2013 09:18

YABU

cory · 17/05/2013 09:18

Life is about competition. But it is equally about cooperation. And never more so than in the performing arts. If you apply to drama school, half the audition time is likely to be taken up with activities that show how you work as part of a group.

VerySmallSqueak · 17/05/2013 09:19

YABU. Of course,you're being bloody unreasonable.

I so want a world for my DD's to grow up in that has no place for this sort of utter utter crap,and it makes me so bloody Angry that people like you are actively working to encourage this bullshit.

Sheshelob · 17/05/2013 09:22

Totally, Cory. I feel so sorry for the pushy kids. It is not their fault.

I was at a dance competition once and lots of the girls spent their time pushing in front of each other and making creepy eye-contact with the judges. There was no dancing for themselves, so it felt like a hollow, desperate display. What happened to the arts being an expression of something? The only thing these tiny dance puppets were expressing was "I want to win."

Sparhawk · 17/05/2013 09:25

Shesheloband VerySmallSqueak I completely agree.

cory · 17/05/2013 09:31

I am reminded of two children I know some years ago who both had performance ambitions and both had a certain amount of talent.

One of them had parents who thought the main thing was to be spotted, so they dragged her round to talent shows and competitions. She never was spotted- like 99% of the other children who are taken round talent shows. In the meantime, it was clear to an outside observer that she wasn't actually developing as a performer at all, she wasn't shown what she needed to do, she was encouraged to passively wait to be seen. It was a pity because she was a child who would have happily done things another way and who could quite possibly have got quite good.

The other child had a different approach. He approached it from the pov of learning first and competing afterwards and you could see him developing year after year, though he wasn't engaged in any competitive activities. Eventually he got into a very good performing arts school. He may well be able to use what he learnt professionally.

ICBINEG · 17/05/2013 09:32

Quote of the thread: The only thing these tiny dance puppets were expressing was "I want to win."

Saski · 17/05/2013 09:34

OP can you explain how a pageant can do any one thing you claim to be looking for (I say claim because I think you're breeding your daughters to be some variation on a beauty queen - WAG or whatever) - better than a good drama or dance class (by good, I mean a class that develops actual skills, dance or otherwise, that rewards hard work with discernable progress)?

Sheshelob · 17/05/2013 09:41
givemeaclue · 17/05/2013 09:41

100% of posters pay yabu.

I don't see that judging kids on their "personality" is any better than judging them on their looks. If your dd doesn't who does that mean someone else has a better personality than her? How do you measure or assess personality?

Spice17 · 17/05/2013 09:45

This has probably been said a million times but I would not entertain the idea of my DD entering these competitions even if she begged me. She was not born to be paraded around in heels, fake tan and make up aged 5 (or whatever)

Fed up with young girls having no aspirations and thinking that if they're beautiful enough, they will be happy, successful and loved.

I used to work with young people and girls would often say 'I wanna be a beauty therapist' just because they knew they could do their own make up/nails/apply fake tan and felt that's all they could do (not dissing that job BTW)

What's wrong with the world, makes me sad.

flowery · 17/05/2013 09:52

"Members of the orchestra usually also compete in festivals. Life is all about competition. Look at sports. So many schools now have non competitive sports days. How is that preparing our children for the real world? Getting a job is a competition. "

Yes, true. But none of those things involve being judged on how you look, they are all about skills, talents, experience and hard work. Not parading around in different outfits, which I'm sure wont give your girls useful skills for coping with different kinds of competitive situations as they get older.

specialsubject · 17/05/2013 09:52

the only dancing this does is on the graves of all those who tried so hard to have women taken seriously.

Gingersstuff · 17/05/2013 09:59

Aw bless you, feeling sad that my girl never played at being a princess Hmm (and really, she never did...the whole Disney princess thing bored the tits off her and still does)
OP, you are setting your girls up to be leather-skinned, orange vacuous airheads whose only aim in life "is to be famous". Not for curing cancer mind...just, because. You do realise that, don't you??

ICBINEG · 17/05/2013 10:02

My mind is boggling at the idea that it isn't all about looks and yet 50% of the rounds described are judging 'outfits'.

How does one judge or even quantify 'personality'?

Is there a round were the children fill in a Briggs Myers test?

ICBINEG · 17/05/2013 10:03
WilsonFrickett · 17/05/2013 10:05

As a former professional actress I can tell you now that nothing your children learn in pageants will help them in a future performance career. It is a very specific set of attributes and 'performing' style. It won't help either child develop their technical skills or learn to emotionally connect with text or music.

It may help their confidence if they win but performance is only 5% confidence. The rest is vulnerability, talent, hard work and luck. But being vulnerable - allowing your self to disappear into the work - is one of the most important and difficult things to do. It is also completely at odds with the 'confident face and smile' nature of pageants.

(Also, what everyone else said about pageants in general. I'm just picking up on the specific points that DD would like a career in the performing arts.)

Gingersstuff · 17/05/2013 10:09

OP, you actually sound fairly articulate but every post is a mass of contradictions. You must know by virtue of every single person on this thread boaking at pageants, that this is not one of the better ideas imported from across the pond. We're trying to get away from the idea that girls/women are just objects to be gawped at, you know. It makes me sad that people like you are trying their damndest to perpetuate it. You've had your youth, now please let your kids have theirs without turning them into glorified WAGs.

Sheshelob · 17/05/2013 10:12

Spot on, Wilson.

Bit hard to show vulnerability when you have been transformed into a dead-eyed, trophy hunting performatron.

Pretty fucking sad for these kids, man.