<p>I hate to admit that I have even seen this train wreck of a show, but I encountered it again last night while looking for something to watch on TV. Why do these people do this to their kids?! These little girls look like middle-aged hookers after they put fake wigs, teeth, eyelashes, tans, etc. on them. What are they teaching these poor girls – that appearance is the most important thing for a female and it’s what they will be judged on? (I hate to put other women down, but most of the parents look awful themselves, despite their obsession with their daughters’ appearances.)</p>
<p>Despite the disservice they are doing to their kids, can’t these parents see what idiots they and their kids look like on this show? Surely this has to be scripted. And I am assuming they must be getting paid for being on the show, but I am certain it is not enough to pay for all the therapy their kids are going to need in the future.</p>
<p>Shows like this just prove to me that there are WAY to many channels on TV. Thus people have to invent crap like this to fill up the airwaves. The insanity continues…</p>
<p>It grosses me out to see little girls sexualized in this manner. Did anybody see the youtube segment of little girls doing incredible stuff in a dance competition (wiggling hips and doing other strip show like dance routines while dressed like strippers). And, none of the parents of these girls thought it was a problem - just like mothers who dress their little girls like middled aged hookers for a beauty pageant. </p>
<p>I think all this is a mild form of child molestation - sexual abuse of children.</p>
<p>whatever4, I have encountered this show while searching for something to watch, too. I am appalled with the people on the show and find it unconscionable that they do that to little girls. I have never watched an entire episode because I honestly find it painful to watch. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of very weird, and disfunctional, people out there. Not that that is such a big surprise but some of these ‘reality’ shows showcase parts of society that boggle the mind.</p>
<p>the only shows I watch are House, Bones, 30 Rock and occasionally Glee & Lie to me- but my IRL bookgroup keeps me ROFL with links to their favorite shows.</p>
<p>There is something very, very weird about this baby beauty pageant stuff. I find it incredible - at first I thought it was more of a southern culture thing but the pageants have been everywhere.</p>
<p>And I do wonder about the pedophile angle on this - Jon Benet Ramsey comes to mind and also, when my daughter was in 4th grade she had a classmate who had dozens of pageant crowns. The 4th grade pageant queen went to a lot of special counseling sessions in the front office according to my daughter (this didn’t surprise me as much of what my daughter described regarding this girl’s conversations with classmates revealed a very sexualized child). Second semester of 4th grade the father of beauty queen kid was arrested in front of the entire elementary school when he came to pick up his kid - handcuffs, squad cars with sirens and the whole nine yards. I guess that was the sure way to track him down. The girl transferred schools immediately. No one talked about it - I think everyone felt they knew more than they wanted to of what that was about. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s good that there are lots of cameras at some of these events - I hope the majority of those involved are just silly and misguided - for the others it’s probably a good thing that these little pageants aren’t all held in dark, quiet corridors of underbooked third tier resorts. Hopefully random camera crews roaming around are a deterrant to acting on any bad impulses for the sicko enthusiasts at these things.</p>
<p>Must have been nothing on TV last night, I saw this briefly, too. Are all the moms people who were not popular n HS and now living vicariously through their kids.</p>
<p>D and I were watching this last night too. We were shocked at the little girl (Alyssa?) who said she shot a turtle and it was cute and then it was bleeding. We need to shoot turtles? Really? And she wanted to win “money, money money”. What kinds of things are these people teaching their kids?</p>
<p>And wasn’t that one (male) judge just a little creepy?</p>
<p>You can NEVER convince these parents that what they are doing is sick. They always come back with “But she WANTS to do it!!! She loves it!!!”</p>
<p>Yes, small children like to make their parents happy. When Mommy goes crazy with love and affection when you shake your booty and bat your false eyelashes at the judges, it makes you feel good-and you’ll keep doing it because all young children crave that approval from Mommy and Daddy. When you don’t win or if you screw up your dance routine, Mommy gets really mad at you, so you really must do better next time. And when people criticize Mommy and make her mad, you need to tell the bad people how much you like the pageants…then Mommy gets happy again and loves you…</p>
<p>It’s scary, just really scary…These girls are programmed from the time they are toddlers to seek external validation for superficial qualities. I’m sure there are some who manage to keep their heads on straight, but I really doubt most of them can come out of that upbringing with solid values and a good foundation for character and a passion for meaningful pursuits.</p>
<p>It is really sick. I’m sure there are no shortage of people willing to do anything for a little notoriety (Kate anyone?). They keep Jerry Springer and others in business. </p>
<p>I do agree that probably random camera crews roaming around do help keep the perverts at bay. </p>
<p>I, too, am always amazed at the parents, mostly mothers. For the most part, they do not look like they were ever attractive themselves, or felt so, or know how to dress attractively. JonBenet’s mother was a former contestant herself. While I think that it was just as bad to have JonBenet competing as any of these other little girls, she was not the same type of pageant mom.</p>
<p>While I did not see last night’s show, I happened upon one a couple of weeks ago while channel surfing. </p>
<p>A couple of the stories they told… one mom went on and on and on about how she had three boys and only tried again because she wanted a girl just so she could enter her in beauty pageants. That is a sick, sick mom. Then there was the clip of the maybe 7-year old girl who was screaming her head off because she didn’t want to get her eyebrows waxed. She’d had it done before and they tore some skin off that scabbed over. I think this is child abuse; these moms make Kate Gosselin and Octomom look like saints.</p>
<p>I also think that is child abuse. And as if it’s not bad enough that a parent would do that to a kid against her wishes for pageant purposes, the parent allowed it to be recorded and broadcast on TV.</p>
<p>The network that airs this – TLC – is obviously paying these families for their participation in the show. By doing so, it is supporting, encouraging and enabling this kind of abuse. I question whether they could find a single reputable child psychologist who would say that these types of pageants and this type of parental behavior is not harmful to young girls.</p>
<p>OMG…I watched this last night too…and I’ve seen it a couple of times before, too (my husband is so creeped out by this that he can’t stand to have it on even for a moment - but he was stuck in snow traffic last night!) I know I should turn the channel, but somehow I’m drawn in. I don’t get the pageant culture. What I find really appalling is that most of the contestants do not seem to be well off financially, yet they spend thousands on dresses, coaches, tanning (!!!), fake teeth, etc. Maybe it’d be better for them to save that money for college!
And, like someone else said, those moms are something else. I feel like they are trying to live vicariously through their children. I could go on forever on this topic! :-P</p>
<p>It’s a train wreck that fascinates me too. I end up turning the channel though because, after going through all that, I don’t want to see the look on the kids’ faces when they don’t win the really big ugly crown. Very scary that some of those moms are almost bankrupting their families over it. I heard one of them say something about a college scholarship and couldn’t help but think that a savings plan and skills other than eyelash batting and booty shaking would add more to the college coffer. Fools and their money, I guess.</p>
<p>I have to admit I watch the show every now and then–it’s got that can’t look, can’t not look quality of a car wreck. And there’s that self-congratulatory feeling from watching: I may not have been a perfect mom, but I wasn’t like that! These pageants existed long before TLC came along, and if anything, I think the network may be doing a public service by exposing this idiocy. What kills me is the thousands of dollars these deluded parents spend on costumes, fake hair, “flippers”, lessons by “coaches”, travel and fees, money that could be spent on worthwhile enrichment activities or, for heaven’s sake, saved for college! So many of the families are living in trailers or the equivalent, yet this is how they choose to manage their finances. It’s sad.</p>
<p>Not sure how Jon Benet Ramsay’s mom differed from the pageant moms on Toddlers & Tiaras other than being more affluent and better educated than most. She still covered her child in makeup and fake hair. The photos of Jon Benet do portray a more wholesome image than seen on the show, but I think the pageants back then were just less sexualized than they are today (like the rest of society). I remember that when Jon Benet was killed, most people were quite appalled by the view into the previously little known world of kiddie pageants, even though it was less skeevy than today’s.</p>
<p>Parents pushing kids to do things they don’t want to do, families spending thousands of dollars to ensure success, kids who want to make a lot of money, people hung up on titles . . . are you sure you weren’t watching “Kids and College Confidential”?</p>
<p>JK - I think the glitz pageants are a recipe for all kinds of disaster.</p>
<p>While I do agree that the vast majority of the families on this show seem a little scary, am I the only one that seems to think that a minority of the girls actually seem to be having a great time and genuinely enjoy doing pageants?</p>
<p>Specifically, the girl from the episode with the 15 month old with the super crazy mom and the girl getting her eyebrows waxed seemed to be genuinely having a good time. Also, her parents seemed thrilled with anything she got and she was proud of her tiara, etc. </p>
<p>I guess it doesn’t necessarily strike me as sexualized, though I do think that the swim suit stuff is creepy. I just can’t help but think of my niece and the fact that I’m sure she would have a great time getting her hair done up and wearing pretty dresses and the like. Where is the line between elaborate dress-up and creepy?</p>