Exploitation of Children in Beauty Contests, or No?
Sep 13th, 2011 | 12 responses
She is about four years old…
by Amelia Alisoun
Obviously it is not the tiny children parading across the stage in Vegas showgirl atture who have chosen to be there. It is the parents, most often the mothers, who have carted their child around the country, taken them to salon after salon for various physical treatments, forced them the practice their stage routines and selected the garish clothes and makeup who are the architects of the child pageant.
What is in it for them?
A desire to live out their youth through their children, to indulge their own failings and inadequate sense of physical attractiveness by channelling it to the tiny toddlers in their care?
Parents’ most fundamental duty is to care for and protect the child or children in their care. By encouraging and allowing children to trade their attractiveness for money, recognition and material prizes, they are opening the youngest members of our society to the risk of exploitation and damage.
What do you think? Should child pageants be banned? Or are they simply a way to show off a bunch of cute kids?
12 Responses to “Exploitation of Children in Beauty Contests, or No?”
“Or are they simply a way to show off a bunch of cute kids?”
Show off indeed.
These pageants are tacky, and tackiness is a sign of stupidity. And stupidity is the same as evil. My sense of aesthetics make me want to call for a ban.
But I guess the mayonnaise people and the other fodder need to have some fun as well. Shame they have to abuse their kids and make people like me feel queasy while doing so.
GOOD GRIEF!
..and I once thought the Texas football dad was the worst! What the hell wrong with these people? Why would you want your kid to look like a freak of nature? Look at her, they even did the teeth whitening thing. That kid needs a haircut and chocolate bar right away!
YES child pageants need to be banned and the parents spanked!
I saw a report on this a while back. One mother had given her child botex treatments to give her lips that “jolie” look.
It is very disturbing…extremely. I can’t imagine what kind of damage this might do to a child. That being said, banning crossing the line into the state raising kids, not parents.
I had sorely hoped this barbaric and abusive practice would end through peer pressure and good sense after Jon Benet Ramsey was murdered. The light cast on this shameful “hobby” by that trial should have turned off any responsible parent from ever putting their little girls through that.
Alas, people are shallow and self-absorbed (these contests are more about the parents than about the kids) and will continue to be so.
Should the state ban them? I’d have to say no, it does cross a line on state involvement in personal lives IMO. However, we the people should create enough antagonism to these pageants to discourage the practice.
uh…the natural beauty of a child should be considered, not “makeup” and trained so called “beauty”. This should never be legally allowed. This is child abuse.
If the natural beauty of children were measured, there would be no contest to judge any differences because children are all naturally beautifull in equal measure. All that these pagent children are, is a platform for their selfish, self absorbed parents to stroke their own egos with.
Wow!
An opportunity to totally agree with the post, the poster, the original author and all the commenters.
Perhaps the predicted Mayan 2012 period of reflection has started early…
What Dorian said. And Allen’s comment about all kids being beautiful in equal measure is so true.
To which I will add a personal experience. I received several offers for my four-year-old son — a drop-dead gorgeous towhead — to model children’s clothing in Philadelphia and he did a photo shoot for a prospective portfolio. Then I came to my senses. I was not going to exploit him, let alone expose him to prospective sickos.
This is evil in my opinion to EXPLOIT a child I would never want to see a child of mine on a cover of a tabloid which caters to perverse stories and headlines of the most hidious and vile kind and mostly to just sell the damne magazine. It suggest that child is almost ready for the adult stuff if you get my drift. It should most definitely be Banned. That Ramsey child that was murdered should come to mind to the parents of a child that they put in danger and is in the catagory of a sports.
Wrong Wrong Wrong, a child is put out there against their innocence.
Ras
Even at the most base level, that looks sickening. She looks like she was photoshopped. Not the picture, mind you, but her.
OF course any person possessed of what most of us consider to be healthy sensibilities has to frown on this sort of exploitation, and what could be worse than the exploitation of innocents? The other commenters have said it well.
Unfortunately, this rather horrble business is not unrelated to greater and more common (but less obvious) problems with a society that is passive and accepting of a shallow and mediocre (but highly profitable) popular culture.
Just ban the parents of these sick pageants from having any more children. The rabid soccer moms and Little League dads who act more immature than their kids playing children’s games are just as bad. Why not hire a hit-man to insure your child wins…