Child beauty pageants; hideous or harmless?

[LittleSarah]

I've just been reading about the rise of child beauty pageants online (not huge really, I think about 20 now) and I'm struggling to understand the motivation of the parents who enter their children in such things.

Recently dd was in a local fancy dress contest (not the same thing of course) and she was upset not be given a prize (similar incident at sports' day). Now, I don't mind competition and she got over it quickly enough but to put her on show because of - in the main - her looks is not only risking some real self-esteem issues but would also - I think - be teaching her that being attractive is the best method of getting on in this world... which, despite celebrity culture, I don't think it is.

Would you consider it?

no.

I would not consider it but see a difference between taking part in an olnine thing where you post a picture of your child for people to vote of American beauty pageant type of thing which makes me very very unconfortable

this actually made me cry

hideous i'm afraid. wouldn't consider it. ack.

Disgusting. Only for wannabe mothers!

Should read ""our child for people to vote of and American beauty pageant type""

Gross, I couldn't watch that revolting you tube video for more than about a minute......

(scrubs self w bleach, uuuuurrrrrgggghhhhhhh)

Hideous. Never in a million years....

Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar.

Yes, I rather thought you'd all say that! (And I agree). Where are these parents?

gorionine - yes, that video is horribly depressing.

Yuck.
But I get irate at the 'bonny baby' comps in the local paper too. Judging a baby?? Wrong wrong wrong

Hideous.

Yuk. And I speak as someone whose DDs have been/are child models (I have a very thick skin, I'm ready for the kind of flak that was thrown around here a few years back!)

Pageants are about a freakish idea of beauty, from the same mentality that thinks that adults should look like Barbie dolls (collagen pouts and fake boobs)

Child modelling is competitive, but at the end of the day it is like an interview - you didn't get the job because you weren't pretty enough, but because you were not the right person. Pageants are about achieving a standard like judging pedigree dogs.

The make-up on children is totally wrong and a bit pervy IMO, the dresses are a hideous waste of money (and probably made by poor Chinese children working their fingers off)

That is so sad. And people think women's oppression is over .

awful on every level.Mainly parents living out their own short comings

Hideous.
Bonny baby in the paper is different, though: it's nothing to do with the baby's looks, but rather a popularity contest of who can get the most friends and family to ring up and vote!

Hideous. On very many levels.

As are Bonny Baby contests. (although they are useful when one wishes to prove the point that there is a correlation between horrendously "unique" names, and the kind of parent that puts one of those headband things on a baldy female and then puts them in the local paper)

hideous.

I always refuse to vote in those crappy 'judge my baby' competitions as well.

I bet jonbenet ramsay would still be alive if she hadn't been involved in those sick contests. bit of a leap perhaps, but somehow, they lead to her death.