I don't think you need to apologize. Being in these pageants is perhaps what has a child sitting in a corner on Christmas day feeling glum because she is worried that "she doesn't feel pretty." Enough said, as far as THIS case is concerned.gaia said:Watched a "special" on TV some time ago about child beauty pageants and it was very absorbing. Can't, for the life of me, remember the name of it now, but I'm sure some of you have seen it. It's been on several times, actually. I think I saw it on HBO, but also on A&E and maybe PBS, but just can't really remember now. At any rate, I saw a lot of unhappy little girls. They were tired and "over it" and just wanted to go to sleep or quit trying to remember what to say or stop having to do the dance steps. I saw this with several little girls. Now, there were older girls, probably in their early teens, who seemed to be "into" the pageants, so I have less problem with what I saw about them...except to say they looked very much like street-walkers to me...when they had on their pageant "look". I was kinda horrified!
I was struck by how many of the fathers were really participating with the mothers. They drove them to the pageants...especially when they were out of town, and sat there in the hotel room going through the routines and making suggestions. Many of these families did not appear to be wealthy at all, so this was costing them in rather important ways. If there was another child in the family, he/she was kinda in the corner while the "star" was catered to.
I saw little girls crying, being "threatened" by mom, and tired. I saw mothers barely able to sit in their seats, mouthing all the songs and mimicking the dance, while also looking like they were going to "die" before the judging was completed. I saw mothers looking like the world was over when their daughter lost. It just wasn't pretty. Yes, I did see the opposite, but not very much. There were some fairly happy kids and mothers, but most of the time it seemed to be because they won!
Just thinking about what I saw makes me wonder if there wasn't something else these families could have done with their time together that would have been so much more enriching than these pageants.
Just my opinion based on what I saw. I know there are those of you on here who feel the opposite about this and are sensitive to this subject. I'm not trying to pick fights or hurt feelings, so I apologize in advance if that's what I've done.
gaia
I don't want to pick fights either but I resent being told that my objections to these pageants stem from jealousy that my kids can't do this or that by people who know nothing about other people's kids and their accomplishments nor the parents for that matter.
JMO but what I consider to be an educated one.
Edited to add: It's true that most of these kids seem unhappy. IMO these are cases of mothers living their own fantasies through their kids and encouraging female traditions which have done little to advance the happiness of women
