Child Beauty Pageants: Are They Moral?

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March 12, 2011

Ron Tatum

Child Beauty Pageants: Are They Moral? They say that beauty comes from within but if this is true why do parents parade their young children around and make their five-year-olds dress, look, and act like they are 18 years old. Child beauty pageants are very upsetting. “It aggravates the average viewer because how can a parent put their child through that emotional roller coaster and get upset when they do not win; make up excuses on why their child did not win because heaven forbid their child has a flaw. Child beauty pageants are upsetting to the child also because if they do not win it is like the end of the world. They through fits act like complete brats, and they think that maybe their parents are lying to them because their parents tell them that they are beautiful but now the judges and other people who did not vote for them to win are saying in not so many words that they are ugly.” (Becky Adams, personal communication, March 12, 2011.) Something is wrong with this society that is absolutely frantic to the point of obsession about pedophilia so much so that it is to the point of parents passing their beliefs on to their children who most likely have no notion of it whatsoever and would rather be outside playing. Over half the population accepts this form of pedophilia as morally correct. They allow these children to prance around in barely anything at all and think that is cute. They think that it is cute when the child “flaunts” their body but yet the child is forced to in a way. An adult has the choice of wearing that provocative/reveling outfit and flaunt their body, but the child is “forced” to. They are only children and do not know any better. Why should they be paraded around like fools? The parent continues the idea that this false idea of beauty is important in order to make it in today’s society. It has to be emotionally damaging to these children. Children nowadays have enough social burdens that this is how they need to be in order to be a “winner”. It all comes down to the parent’s insecurities. Some of these parents are so forceful that it could be considered child abuse, like feeding a kid a bunch of sugar, energy drinks, or even caffeine to keep them awake, or having work done on nine and ten year olds’ teeth that most adults do not have done or won’t have done. These poor children are too young to understand what they are getting into. They think it is a fun game and go along with it. Most parents want people to think that their children love to get dressed up, and have so much fun while doing it. Most children can play dress up at home. Dressing up and having fun is playing princesses with your sister, best friend, or your mother, as well as wearing plastic jewelry and old high heels or going through all the old clothes in the trunk in the attic; spinning around the house in a game of make believe where one minute you are having a tea with the Queen and having a good old laugh fest with your friends and the next a fire breathing dragon is looking inside the castle at you trying to take you to his cave. Dressing up is not applying five pounds of make-up to girls, dying their hair, or putting in hair extensions. You see these flawless children, dolled up in globs of make-up to cover up their imperfections. Seriously, how many wrinkles can a four-year-old have? When the child is done with their make-up and hair, they look ten times their age. They are just babies. Things like beauty competitions powerfully tailor to self-centered, arrogant, and vain images of how someone should look. Getting a young child started in pageants at a very young age to pamper herself, match herself with others, or acquire an aggressive approach does not help a child’s demeanor one bit. It helps with the attitude to make their child feel like they are a winner and be proud, but that message stays in their heads and can easily continue to run even when they aren’t on stage. That means that sense of “I’m the best” will transpose itself into their school and other social gathering places, like school, work, and even marriage. It does not teach them the right lessons in life. I speak from my own knowledge on how my cousin and I were raised. Neither my cousin nor I were ever in pageants but my mother continuously told me that I was pretty; she however never told me that I was any prettier than anyone else. I grow up without any insecurity. My cousin on the other hand was told her whole life that she was attractive all the time and she grew up with the most horrible attitude I have ever seen. Although my cousin and I were never in pageants she grew up with the life style of a pageant contestant where as I never did. Pageants just make mean children who make mean adults pageants are manipulating these children and teaching them that being beautiful and lewd is normal. And it is not right at all no matter how it is put. These poor children are prancing around on stage looking older than the really are. The parents appear to be trying to live their lives through their children whether it is because they never got to do it or they are trying to hide something. I watched a show called toddlers in tiara’s one night and this little girl kept saying to her mother that she did not want to be in the pageants anymore and her mother was pulling the little girl down the stairs telling the little girl that she was doing it and that the mother did not care if she wanted to stop. All parents say it is their child’s choice but really it is not the child’s choice if the parents are making them do it when they do not want to continue with it. Most of the children just want to be at home and play outside in the mud. But the parents do not listen to their child they think they know what is best. Beauty pageants are not the best thing for children it just confuses them when they get older. The children are devastated when they do not win, they call themselves “useless” and “no good”, they judge others on appearance, they think decent looking individuals are good and less appealing people are bad. That is not a good attitude in this day and age. They are also taught to display themselves by wearing revealing clothing and flirting with the panel of judges that are mostly males by winking, wiggling their hips, and blowing kisses at them. The parents are not doing it for their child they are doing it for themselves. These children need to find their own way. They should not be told to go down the road their parent’s want them to go down, at such an early age. If it is their calling, as some parents claim, they will find a way to get into that type of career on their own. Another thing is the expense of these pageants. Some of the parents are using the money for the child’s outfits out of the household money and cutting very close when it comes to the things they need for their house. Some parents are spending their life savings to get these girls into these pageants and turning into slave drivers. These children are not the only ones suffering in all this. A lot of the times the fathers either do not want it to happen or they do not even know it is happening. But they never do anything about it when they find out. The rest of the family suffers when the parents take money from the household things for these dresses, make-up, hair appointments, shoes and other outfits for the child. Other family members might not be able to do what they would like to do because there is no money for it. Or maybe they might have to go without a mean or two. A bill might not get paid because the parent used the money for the pageant “supplies.” This brings questions to my mind like, is this morally right? Is this really building self-esteem or is it causing a premature unhealthy ego for the child. Does this teach these young girls who are in vulnerable learning ages that beauty is everything? Can this cause them to develop eating disorders or worse when they get older? So, are these pageants bad for children? They might not be if the parents set a good example for their daughter. It’s the same with boys and sports. For instance, some coaches take the game way too far, treating their kids like they are multi-million dollar players, hoping for a win in an important tournament. Heaven forbid they lose the game; it’s as if they lost the actual World Series. The point is, any social event, art, or sport is good if you teach your child well.
So in conclusion child beauty pageants should be banned and made illegal.

Reference page
Dowd, J. (2010). Child Beauty Pageants – Do They Go Too Far. The Expressionist. Retrieved from http://www.theexpressionist.com/2010/08/01/child-beauty-pageants-do-they-go-too-far/