Tuesday, March 30, 2010

TODDLERS AND TIARAS MAKES MY TEETH HURT

I think these pageants for "littles" should be banned! Have you seen the show, TODDLERS AND TIARAS on TLC? It is very sad. Look at these pictures:

I can definitely see that they have a beautiful child, BUT....the eyes look so hollow...empty...no emotion...FAKE!

This is a million dollar business, especially in the south. The fake nails, fake teeth, airbrushing, fake eyelashes, fake hair, spray tans and $2000 dresses are perpetuating outer beauty not inner beauty. These contest venues must be a pedophiles dream.

I've seen how these little girls behave when they are not on stage. They are rude, spoiled, poor losers and down right divas. In defending these pageants the mom's will tell you that their daughters "love" the attention of being on stage (as they sit crying in the background....) are learning poise, confidence and have high self esteem, when in reality their childhood has been stolen from them and all they have to show for it is a few ribbons and a warped sense of what is really important in life.

One mom was bragging about the 39 crowns and $5,000 that her 5 year old daughter had won over her 3 years of competing, while admitting that they are spending $30,000 a month on acting classes, ballet lessons, photographs, hair pieces, fake teeth, spray tans, modeling classes, travel expenses, dresses, and dance lessons, but have nothing in the bank for her education and they're credit cards are maxed out! Really?!?! This is what you want to be teaching your daughter.

6 comments:

BNM said...

I think that is just horrible.. kids should be able to be kids.. these little girls look like grown women in an itty body! its sad

Bri said...

I HATE this show. I only watched it once for about 3 minutes but it is repulsive!!

Kris said...

Honestly, they don't look like real people, they look like fake photos. I have caught a few minutes of the show (we don't have cable or dish) and I thought it was very disturbing. And honestly, it seemed like the parents I saw (as I recall) are pretty low class...in many ways. Very sad that these moms (who often looked pretty below average) are living vicariously through their little children. The number of counseling sessions these kids will need to be in just to process their experiences is pretty gosh darn high, I'm afraid.

Camille said...

Those picture are just absolutely FREAKY! I can't even get my daugther to take a dance class let alone drag her through all that! And to think we had to have a "home study" performed before we could become parents....

:) Camille

Connie said...

I didn't even want my daughters' toenails to get painted! I can't imagine putting my child through this twisted circus. Camille's point about the irony of having so much scrutiny to adopt when biological parents do things like THIS is dead on.

Weltha said...

Just saw this, Tracey. I have long said that these "kiddy" Beauty Pageants are just one more way of sexualizing, objectifying and commodifying human beings--and "future women" at a time that they should be developing the real esteem that comes from committment and accomplishment of reasonable goals. You're absolutely right that these are a pedophile's dream--but more than that, they teach little girls that the goal of life is to spend your time and money grooming yourself and "looking" like something instead of "doing" and "being." And you hit it on the head in terms of a waste of childhood and an increase of focus on "being looked at." Laura Mulvey's excellent 1975 essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" discusses putting women in the position of "to be looked at." And women are more than that. Much more. We are not objects to be "looked at"--we are beings created to know God and to make Him known. These pageants are so terribly denigrating to any healthy view of womanhood and personhood. Thanks for posting it. Oh, those pictures are airbrushed themselves...to create images of lifeless little dolls. And then we wonder why so many woman grow up to see themselves as only an image or as something to be "admired" and "looked at" by men (and not in a good way...) I am convinced that these pageants are a form of child abuse.

Bless you today and every day,

Weltha