Child beauty pageants have been on my mind lately. I know some people that enroll their children in pageants, but I’ve never been to one myself. The most experience I have is some clips from pageant shows like Toddlers & Tiaras on TLC. Given that, I’m talking purely about my thoughts on pageants without any real first-hand experience. (Though I’d like to go to one just once to see what it’s all about.)
So what happens at a beauty pageant? What is it? Essentially a beauty pageant is a contest over physical attractiveness. Some contests have portions of that focus on talent and interview, but a majority of the points come from the beauty and grace of the contestants as well as their outfits. Contestants try to sway the judges by having the brightest smile, cutest clothes, and prettiest hair. Some pageants allow makeup, others don’t. Some contests are small, usually held at local community centers and fairs. Others a larger and part of a national circuit. Some are judged by a panel, others are open to public votes. Procedures differ from pageant to pageant, but essentially the point is to try to convince somebody else that your child is the prettiest.
Given that, I ask, why would somebody enter their child in a pageant? If a parent walked in on a group of kids fighting over who had the best dress or the prettiest face, most people would suggest that all the girls are pretty, or that everyone is different and the shouldn’t compare themselves to each other. So why does the involvement of a stage and judges make such a contest okay?
I can understand why parents enter their children in pageants. There’s a ton of reasons, both good and bad:
- Build confidence and self-esteem
- Learn social skills, poise, and public speaking
- Push children to be the best
- Win cash prizes and scholarships
- Have fun dressing up children in fantastic frocks, makeup, and hairdos
- Live through children to achieve goals not earned in life
- Encourage a talent
- Bragging rights among other parents
- Children enjoy performing
- Exposure for bigger gigs like modeling or acting
- Engage in competition
- Promote good behavior (winners can lose their crowns if found acting inappropriately, but that’s mostly older contestants)
Bad reasons aside, I don’t think it’s wrong to want many of the things listed above. But I don’t think one needs to enter a pageant to do so. Kids can learn healthy competition, explore talents, win scholarships, build social skills, perform, and gain confidence in numerous ways through physical, social, and academic activities. Even the fun of crazy outfits and hair can be met in a game of dress up. Children can do all of these things without being subjected to the scrutiny and value judgement given by a panel or audience.
I can imagine by this point that some would call a pageant healthy competition. There are winners and losers in sports and kids can handle that. What’s the difference with a pageant? Well, I think the major difference is that in sports or academic style competitions, children are judged on their talents and skills. If a child doesn’t win, they can refine their skills, work harder, and sometimes must accept that some are more talented. But what do you tell a child that doesn’t place at a pageant? She isn’t pretty enough? She should build her hair higher and her makeup thicker? Or she should accept that some girls are just prettier? I think in a beauty contest there isn’t room for action. Sure, you can always buy more clothes and work on a child’s talent, but it still boils down to who is the prettiest in the eyes of the judges. And I think that’s an unfair and pointless contest. At least in other competitions children are encouraged to improve athletic or academic skills when they fail. But pageants just promote more obsession over looks and how others perceive them. I think it cripples children into constantly working for the opinions of others, rather than themselves.
And I think that’s the heart of the evil of it. The whole aim of the pageant, from buying clothes to practicing smiles to putting on makeup for the event, is to persuade the judge to think that your child is the most beautiful. It’s all about the subjective opinion of somebody else. It sends the message that your child’s value rests not in herself, but in the hands of other people.
And while the placement in a pageant may not matter to most kids and may not have long standing effects, why would you put your child in that situation in the first place? I don’t think the arguments for child pageants have any legs to stand on. Whatever benefits there might be are not worth the means and can be achieved in more healthy ways.
If anyone has any further (respectful) comments, pro or con, I’d like to hear them.
The kinds of considerations that you raise are exactly why my mother refused to put me (or my two sisters) in “lead-line” classes at horse shows when we were young. Those classes were all about which kid and pony was the cutest. That involved no skills on the part of child (or pony), just the work of the parent in grooming them.
Instead, I started with the walk-trot class, and I did just that for what seemed like eons to me. (I was very young!)
Even as a kid, I took pride in that what mattered to my family was how well we rode, not how cute we looked. And if I had kids, I’d make exactly the same decision for the same reasons.
I was in three pageants when I was about 10-11 years old. They were so much fun! And while reading my account, keep in mind I was a very skinny, tomboyish type who would rather play football in the front yard with my dad and brother than play dolls with the girls.
Our next door neighbor’s kids had become involved in pageants when they were 7 and 9 years old and were quite successful. (They were great singers and dancers, and the youngest was particularly beautiful and charismatic.)
One Saturday, my mother and I went with them to one of their pageants. While their mother was getting them ready, my mother and I helped out by going to the registration table to check them in and pay the modest entry fees.
At the table, one of the women asked why I wasn’t going to participate. My mother and I laughed and said we were just there to watch our friends. The woman told us her daughter had won the pageant in my age group last year, so she was not eligible to compete in this year’s competition. She said her daughter was about my height and she had an extra dress in her car.
I had been playing around with my neighbor friends, helping them rehearse and I knew exactly what to do, so my mom asked me if I wanted to do it. She said I didn’t have to, but she thought it would be fun and she reminded me that I already knew what to do. I decided, sure, why not? So my mom paid the entry fee of about $20, the woman ran out to her car to get the dress and I was suddenly a contestant!
It was a very pretty red dress that went all the way to the floor. (Well, pretty for an 80s big, ol’ poofy dress.) I had no shoes but my tennis shoes, so I put on my mother’s white sandals (yes, white sandals with a red dress which fortunately, didn’t show since the dress went to the floor.) My mother curled my hair and put on a little bit of make up using our friend’s supplies and what was in her purse.
It was so fun! It was like playing dress-up with my friends, only it was with my mom! I had always admired my mother’s ability to style her hair and put on her make up in such a natural and beautiful way, and now she was sharing that with me!
I did not enter the talent or other portions of the contest since I was not prepared for that, but I went out there and won second runner up in the beauty contest. How about that?! I remember while on stage, I looked over my shoulder at my mother in the audience. She was smiling like she was so proud of me and having so much fun. I know it’s something we’ll never forget because we talk about how fun it was to this day.
We went to two more pageants over the next year or so and had a really great time. We had an affordable dress made for me by a local seamstress and I got some ballet slippers to wear underneath it. (Bye bye white sandals!) I won first place in one and didn’t place in the other, but both were fun and I got to spend more quality time with my mother. My dad and brother even came to one to cheer me on.
Then it was onto boys, music and other things that fill a teenage girls life, but I will never forget those pageants. Not only was it a fun way to spend time with my mother, it helped me learn how to fix myself up appropriately, have good posture and poise, be graceful under pressure and overcome the nerves of public speaking/performing.
Sure, we saw other mothers and children making themselves miserable at those pageants. Taking it way too seriously, spending way too much money, succumbing to pressure (that they put on themselves), wearing way too much awful makeup, caring too much what everyone else thought, etc., but me and my mother didn’t do those things. We loved spending time together, we loved being beautiful (not just looking that way) and most importantly, we had fun!
And one more thing, if you haven’t seen the movie Little Miss Sunshine, I highly recommend it. It’s quirky, funny and that last scene just kills me!
they would be i ight if natural
i belive pageants can be good for a girl if the parents raise them correctly,the pageant have a 1/100 part in their behavior/personality. to me,its teaching kids that the best way to live life is go out there and know that whatever happens,they did there best. and not just pageants,in school,colledge,job search,ect. please think this over
Well it is a good thing because it isn’t all fake and if a child didn’t want to do it they would refuse no matter what and the positives are many. It’s not like they are learning how to rob a bank it’s creative and making the child know that they have inner and putter beauty! What is so wrong with feeling graceful and beautiful and getting s reward for it. Whoever invented pageants was a beautiful genius
beauty pageants are bad BAN them now.
um all aint that bad i know
hey im doing a dabte in my claas about are beauty pangents and i dont what to do
can some one help??
no
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