I Really Want To Smack Pageant Moms.....

Dads too. I know that that is a really awful thing to say, but it's true! I wouldn't be so mad if pageant parents didn't take it so far... I mean, it's fine to have your child participate in  one or two here or there, as long as the children don't have to have 50 pounds of makeup on their faces, fake tans, fake teeth, and hair that's twice the size of their head. Don't even get me started on the atrocious (and often too provocative) outfits they dress them in, either. -_-; I feel that if they are going to enter their child in a pageant, they should have them look like children, and not like miniature adults. It's seriously disturbing.

Another thing I find to be wrong about these types of pageants is that they are conveying the wrong message to these kids. It seems as if they're trying to say that in order to be beautiful, you need to look a certain type of way and that if you have to drastically change your features by artificial means in order to fit that image, do it. It really is heartbreaking that some of these little girls are saying that without all of their pageant makeup, clothes, and wigs, they don't feel beautiful. Can't the parents see what kind of damage they are doing? There daughters already are starting to have warped views on how they think they should look. 

Not only that, but it also is teaching these children to value looks above all else. I remember watching these young girls fixated on their reflections in the mirror and sassing their mothers and fathers in the Toddlers and Tiaras commercials on TLC, and I was appalled that their parents had done NOTHING about their child's behavior. I know that when I was a little girl, I would not be able to get away with that attitude. My mother had always taught me that while looking good may be nice, it is much better to have a beautiful heart and to be kind and respectful. I didn't see many (if any at all) of those pageant parents teaching their kids that. And they wonder why their kids don't listen to them or why they act  like stuck-up divas... It's really unbelievable.

Above all else, I wish that they would just let their kids be kids. You know, let them run around and play in dirt.... They shouldn't have to worry about getting messy or ruining their hair or losing weight to fit in their stage clothing. I feel really bad for them, since it seems like their childhood is being taken away from them... It's unfortunate....