Toddlers in Tiaras
Moriah Gates 5/3/12 CPC Research paper Beauty, Money, “Sexy” Too Soon! Young girls are like a sponge, they soak up anything they see or hear. They are vulnerable and young. Mothers are hurting their children by putting them through beauty pageants--they are setting them up for life’s insecurities like, self esteem issues and eating disorders. “Mommy please no…. Mommy no it hurts. I don’t want to do this…NOO mommy! ” “I don’t wanna dance, I’m not doing that! ” These cries come from young girls who compete in beauty pageants.
The most recent pageant that has caused a lot fuss with some parents and others is the TV show TLC Toddlers in Tiaras. Toddlers in Tiaras is a show that is centered on beauty and wining the crown. Beauty, clothes, makeup, hair, pretty dresses, long eyelashes, spray tans, Botox, waxing, the list goes on. It’s just the beginning of many of the girl’s list they must fallow become “pretty enough” to compete. Pageants are where young girls are primped and primed to look pretty and much older than they really are, and are made to dance and parade around on stage.
Girls as young as two are being put into these competitions learning how to dance and act and look like a teenager. These pageants are teaching girls at a very young age to dress, look and be “sexy” the way to win. Parents also start doing pageants for money, and the beauty. When girls start dressing in “grown up” looking clothes, it is taking away their chance to be a child. Children should be allowed to play in the mud and on the play grounds not made to wear loads of makeup, fake hair, and flippers for their smile, and act like a grown up.
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Mothers express their desire for their daughters to win, and to be the best. One mother said in an interview, how her daughter is on stage. “My daughter is the Triple F, five, fearless, and ferocious. Her daughter also chimed with an answer to her mother’s question, asking her about how she like money and modeling. The daughter says she loves money, and money is her favorite thing! With pageants pushed to the side this mother and daughter have been doing modeling and the mother said has made $30,000 in modeling her daughter.
The little girl said, “With modeling, you have to take pictures, be on commercials, and get paid, that’s my favorite part, it’s all about the money! ” CNN article wrote, they interviewed a Toddlers in Tiaras, mother who flat out said, “I love living vicariously through my three year old daughter, Paisley”. That seems to be the common answer for why these mothers are putting their daughters through these pageants. When watching some of the shows, a majority of the mothers of the girls are overweight, don’t have a good job, and have health problems.
The mothers use their young vulnerable daughters, to live their dreams of fame and recognition. Some mothers say they will do anything to put their daughter in to competition, some mothers’ say they will take out a second lone if it means having her daughter win. The family somehow finds the money to make the pageant happen for their girls, yet really they see themselves up there in the spotlight doing all the moves not their four year old daughter. What are we doing to our children when we teach them that they have to be “sexy” to be pretty, and have to look like x,y and z to be pretty.
Mothers are putting four year olds into stripper outfits, they dress their girls up as famous actresses like Julia Roberts in the move “Pretty Woman. ” Julia wore a stripper outfit in the movie, and the mother dressed her three year old to be her look alike. ” An article, by Fox News says: "As a treatment of professional sex offenders as well as victims of sexual abuse, I would like the parents of these little girls to assume responsibility for their choices. They are sexualizing their young children.
Do not be surprised if your child is preyed upon as a result of this high degree of visibility,” said Dr. Nancy Irwin, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist. “Men can pose as agents/managers and track you/your girl down through the show. Further, know that they will be pleasuring themselves while looking at your daughter’s YouTube clip. " We are grossed out by pedophiles and people who take advantage of our kids, yet we are ok letting our kids run around in out fits that are very sexual.
Some say that it’s just a title ‘child beauty pageant’ but it’s much more! It’s a sexualization pageant. Young girls are put in skimpy clothes and taught to do dance moves like bumps and grinds, this not looking at beauty, its teaching girls that beauty is highly sexualized and they have to be sexual to be beautiful. Just thinking about the pressure that is put on the girls is hard to imagine, they are four and younger, they should not be worried about how their hair is or how “pretty” they look, yet mothers stress the very factor of beauty.
They get professional photographers to take model pictures and when they get the pictures back the girls are modified so much they look like a china doll. They are photo-shopped to the point where the child begins to like they way they look in photos. When the pictures young girls see are photo-shopped selves, they don’t see their true beauty. Girls already have pressure on them to look a certain way and then, when they start pageants, they are pressured into having beauty treatments done. With pageant shows, there is only one winner, and they are the only ones who get the crown.
The others are not rewarded and not recognized for their hard work. The pageant girls grow up with attention fully on her, all the time and then, when it goes away, what happens? These girls are going to grow up with eating disorders and self esteem problems. They are going to feel like they are never good enough, or pretty enough to get the judge’s approval. The judges, judge and score the girls physical features and talent, looking for something that stands out from the rest of the girls. They are not looking at the girl, or how young and venerable she is.
Nor do they think of the effects that this pageant will have on her. For example, when the girls forget the dance move and mess up, the mother might berate the child for her forgetting her part. The girls feel hurt and broken because they didn’t do well enough for their mother. Most parents in the show Toddlers in Tiaras tell their children “If you do really good in this pageant what will this mean? The child, Mommy and daddy will be happy cause I will bring home lots of money. ” “That’s right, mommy and daddy will be proud if you win because it means lots of money! Money is what parents push on them and that they must win. What is it doing to their children when the pressure is money, if they do not the child doesn’t feel love or important to their parents and they feel worthless. Children pick up on things and can read their parents actions; if the parents are not happy with them then the child feels afraid. They soak up anything they hear and see. We should be protecting our children not endanger them by our carless wants. Bibliography (I forgot to do the right way to do the bibliography, I will fix it next essay)
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