Children Beauty Pageants

Children's Beauty Pageants
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of putting on a sparkly dress and strutting under the bright lights of a stage. I wanted so badly to have an excuse to play dress up and perform. I had continually begged and pleaded with my mom to let me compete in beauty pageants. But, every time I looked at her with sad puppy-dog eyes the answer was the same - no. Little did I know that if she had agreed to let me complete at the ripe age of 6, my life today would be a wasteland of insecurity, negativity and regret. At the time, I had no clue why she was against the idea, pageants were just a fun way to get dressed up in a poofy dress and win money! Right? It wasn't until I was older before I began to discover that behind

Can you imagine how damaging this realization can be a little girl’s perception of self-worth? Heidi Gerkin, a stay-at-home mom and former Miss Sunburst Petite, Ohio Junior Miss and America's Junior Miss knows the lifelong damage pageants can bring first-hand. “More than anything, pageants shaped my relationships with women. You never knew who was really your friend. . . I always wondered why [the other girls] didn't like me — was it just because I was successful, or was I actually not worthy of being liked? Even now, whenever I meet somebody, I question whether they really like me. I'm extremely critical of myself . . . I have really high, sometimes unrealistic expectations, and I think a lot of that comes from pageants. I remember a pageant where I wore my hair up, and I won the pageant, but afterward a judge said, ‘Don't ever wear your hair up again, your ears stick out.’ And to this day, I'm uncomfortable wearing my hair up” (Goode). Being in pageants as a young girl has deeply impacted her entire adult life. Her being told as a five year old that her ears stuck in a bun has triggered a lifelong insecurity. Impressionable little girls such as Heidi shouldn’t be put in