This Makes Me Sick

I'm relaxing at home this evening, in anticipation of a very long, and most likely rough, week. I've been flipping channels and came across a show on TLC that's making me want to vomit. No, it's not a medical show, or even a show about snakes. It's worse. Much worse. It's about child beauty pageants.

This is disgusting! Women have babies -- and I mean babies, some of whom are probably not even 18 months old yet -- made up like two dollar hookers, wearing huge hair pieces, and wearing swimsuits that might, just might, be appropriate for teenagers; yes, there are slightly older little girls participating, too.

One little girl was crying because she didn't want to go on stage. Her mother dragged her backstage and basically threatened her. She forced the child on stage and then was pissed beyond belief when the child wouldn't "perform" to her expectations. The poor little girl stood there on stage, looking horrendously upset and scared out of her mind.

What on god's green earth are we teaching children by parading them on stage like this - covered in pancake make-up, sprayed down with spray tan, and even wearing false teeth "flippers"? We're teaching them that they have to try to be something that they are not. We're teaching them that they have to conform to someone elses idea of "beauty". In fact, I just heard one mother, as she was pinning a giant hairpiece into her daughter's hair, claim, "Sit still. We have to make you beautiful." Seriously, hef own mother doesn't think that she's already beautiful?

This disgusts me. You truly can't tell me that most of these little girls enjoy being on stage. The mothers, most of whom appear to be overweight middle aged women, seem to living their fantasies through their children. Some of them claim to have been "pageant girls" when they were children and they talked about how much the loved it. Whatever.

This is sick. Whatever happended to letting kids be kids? Sure, when I was a little girl I played dress up, which included wearing "fancy" dresses and even playing in make-up sometimes, but this is just wrong. Let kids be kids. Quit forcing them to grow up before they're ready. Children should be innocent and care-free, not worried about upsetting Mom by not performing up to her expectations on stage.