Child Beauty Pageants: Excellent or Exploitive?

Haley Bubac

Professor Tetterton

English 1100-72

11 November 2012

Child Beauty Pageants: Excellent or Exploitive?

            Spray tans, acrylic nails, eyebrow waxing, and hair extensions are all things you would expect to hear from the Miss America Pageant, but that is no longer the case. These things are becoming more and more popular in beauty pageants for girls as early as six month old. Some say beauty pageants are truly great, but there are also many sources that believe otherwise for numerous amount of reasons. It’s five o’clock AM on a Saturday morning and nine-month-old Holly is being woken up by her mother. They are about to drive five hours so Holly can be in a beauty pageant where she will have long days of make-up, hairspray, and being judged every second of it. Holly is one of the thousands of children being forced into beauty pageants each year, and her mother is to blame. In the early 1960’s, child beauty pageants became very popular. The young kids are judged based on looks, poise, perfection, and confidence. Pageants consist of the following: modeling of sportswear, evening attire, the way they can dance, and their special talent (Nussbaum). Beauty pageants within children are very exploitive because they promote a materialistic belief to young girls, damaging self self-esteem, and encouragement to be “divas.” To me, being exploitive means to do something for a selfish or unethical reason. I believe you can do exploitive things both to yourself and others around you. For example, a teenager may buy a dress for herself with her money. Sure that’s fine, but add in her owing her older brother twenty dollars makes it a selfish act. The reason being because now she doesn’t have enough money to pay her brother back, all because she bought that dress. In these pageants, these exploitive acts can all easily be blamed on the parents that allow their offspring to go through such horrific situations such as the inappropriate outfits, the negative attention, and the way these young stars are pushed so far that result in them not knowing what to do and who to turn to. I believe pageants are corrupt because of the negative influence on young kids. Pageants can cause kids to have numerous issues growing up, and sometimes those issues the contestants face can be fatal. The materialistic belief and pressure from others aren’t good on children either and the pageants truly must be stopped.

            On the other hand, many parents of child beauty contestants believe that it’s a great idea for young kids to participate in beauty pageants. They say pageants can help influence healthy habits and promote proper self-esteem. Many parents with children in pageants say it’s a great way for them to gain confidence that will help them later in life and help them become socially acceptable. One parent stated, “I was trying to give Meaghan some exposure as far as public speaking,” Jones, of Garland, Texas, told Curry. “When she was young, she was really, really shy. I wanted her to develop her own type of personality and she did just that.” (Inbar) Some really believe pageants are a great way to get young kids comfortable being in front of crowds, especially strangers. The most important reason parents believe pageants are actually positive is because it is agreed it is a great way to make life long friends. Many young girls create friends behind the curtains and get to see them at each pageant! Friends they will have for their made-of-honor and to name their daughter after. Seven-year-old Allie said, “I like doing the pageants because they’re fun and I like making new friends. Sometimes I get to be in other pageants with my friends. And when my friends win, then I’m really happy for them” (Inbar).

Although within the pageant business, there is pressure everywhere for young girls for multiple of reasons. First, it is believed the contestants must act a certain way, dress a certain way, and look a certain way. Beauty Pageants have five major categories: casual wear, swimwear, holiday, and outfit of choice. To be clear, Pageant Beauty is an assemblage of girls or women at which judges select the most beautiful (Cartwright). How wrong is it to teach young girls to judge a book by its cover? After asking young girls to describe what they thought beauty was, 9 girls out of 10 described a person, the way they thought a “beautiful” girl looked. Not one of the girls matched the description they defined “beauty” as. It really makes you take a step back and think a bit. The girls were talking about the girls all tanned up, in beautiful dresses from the TLC’s hit show “Toddlers and Tiaras” and it was very disturbing to me. The shows materialistic belief was that you must be look this was and wear this size to be crowned. Young girls as young as four were getting their teeth whitened because that’s “the look”. Young contestant, Mackenzie, stated, “You have to look perfect for the judges to win… I want to win”.

Sure we get the wrong idea of materialism from magazines, the Internet, and TV too. The idea of social media screams materialist, or nonrealistic things. But with kids, it is extremely easy to strive them away from things such as TV and the Internet. I don’t know a four year old that chooses they way they dress because Vogue Magazine told them too, but beauty pageants do exactly that. There is a certain look judges are looking for, and if you have that look you will win the prize everyone is fighting for. The question I would like answered is when do we start teaching kids that beauty is only accomplished by fake materialistic things? What ever happened to teaching them that beauty comes from the inside and shines its way out? There is a television show called Little Miss Perfect (Cartwright). With the name, it starts off with the cutest girls at home playing and preparing for the beauty show that day. In the end of the show, when it is show day, the girls go from the cute age of five to looking 17 with their spray tan and inappropriate attire. Again, is that the image we want for our girls, the materialistic view of life? What happens when they grow up and can no longer obtain that lifestyle that everything is like it seems on television? It is almost like we are setting up kids for failure by doing pageants. When I say failure, I mean just that. The overall consequences of pageants are really not worth being involved with them for any reason at all. The behavioral issues, tempers, and since of life being “perfect”.

When the materialistic view, or perfect view, is no longer obtainable to the young girls, it is easy to say everything can fall apart pretty quickly. Pageants can damage the self-esteem of a young girl when things do not go as she would hope (Nussbaum). Sure there is no problem if they win the pageant, the lucky winner gets a beautiful crown and has a great prize to take home as well. They get to look at themselves and say they are the most beautiful person and have the best talents. Unfortunately, only about 25% of the girls at pageants get to be some kind of winner.  (McDaniel) Some may win but not the title they wanted. The ones with no prize leave the pageant feeling upset, ugly, not good enough, and sometimes even in trouble with their parents. What are you suppose to say to a four year-old when they come up to you and say they lost because they were not pretty enough? A good number of girls have life long issues because of pageants: poor self-esteem, anorexia, depression, and countless number of more issues (Cartwright).

Parents need to be aware of the way they act towards their daughters. Sometimes I wish there could be an undercover camera recording the negative things. Maybe it would bring attention to the parents. But really it is sad; sometimes mothers push their daughters too far. Is the damaging effect really worth the prize? Little Mia who regularly participates in pageants said, "I practice for mommy and poppy because I want them love me so much, they really love me so much, because when I do good they love me." How sad is it when a four year old says her mommy and poppy only love her when she wins pageants? She reportedly also has a favorite stuffed animal that she only gets to have when she wins the pageant she’s in, or else no bear for little Mia. (McDaniel) This makes you think the pageant is not even for the “positive” effects for Mia, but just for the prize for her self-centered parents.

Beauty Pageants encourages young girls to act like “divas”.  The show “Toddlers and Tiaras” is an excellent example of how girls act so negatively. On one episode, a little girl name Maddie disappeared for an entire hour because she was angry with her mother. This is the same seven year old that screams at the top of her lungs until she gets what she wants. This behavior ties into the self-esteem issues and materialistic lifestyle some are allowing for their children.  The spray tans, acrylic nails, eyebrow waxing, hair extensions, and flippers are all things that can be avoided for our young kids. These are things adults can look forward too and we do not need to push our young girls to grow up; this isn’t 13 going on 30 now. Beauty pageants within children are very exploitive and they do promote a materialistic belief to young girls, damaging self self-esteem, and encouragement to be “divas.” I think pageants are a great thing for adults, or older teenagers who can make their own decisions. But for those girls not old enough to even make their own lunch, I think its best to stick to play dough and the playground.

Works Cited

Cartwright, Martina. “Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls?.”

Psychologytoday.com. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.

Inbar, Michael. “Parents defend putting their kids in beauty pageants.” NBCNews.com 

            Msnbc, 27 Jan. 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.

 McDaniel, Julie. “Children Beauty Pageants How far is to far.” JulieMcdaniel.

            Hubpages.com, 29 May. 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2012

Nussbaum, Kareen. "Children and Beauty Pageants." minorcon.org

            Dec.1998. 30. Web. Sept. 2012.