Childrens Beauty Pageants

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It’s 7:OO A.M. on a Saturday, kids everywhere are just waking up ready to watch their favorite line up of Saturday morning cartoons. Marie, a four year old child, is preparing for her long weekend of make-up, hairspray, and gowns. Marie is one of many children who are forced by over-demanding parents who pressure their young and innocent children into many beauty pageants each year, and its wrong. Beauty pageants first originated in Atlantic City. It was a marketing tool to make tourists stay in town longer (Banet-Weiser). News struck about this beauty pageant and the local news paper headlined “The next Miss America”. As beauty pageants grew popular, a Little Miss America was started for parents who wanted their children in the contest. The average beauty pageant costs about $655 which includes the formal wear, sports wear and dance (A&E). The average cost does not include travel, hotel and food, which can be up to an extra two hundred dollars; and in some cases dresses for formal and sports wear can cost up to $12,000 with a minimum of $1500 (A&E). With the vast amount of expenses spent the pressure to win becomes more intense, leaving no room for mistakes. A four year old child should not have to go through the burden of a beauty pageant. Preparing for a pageant requires time and patience, hair lasting around an hour and forty-five minutes, make-up around an hour, and different performances that require some participants to practice for about seven hours a week (A&E). All of this is not healthy at a young age. During these pageants children are judged by the following: modeling sportswear and evening wear, how well they dance, and how much talent they have. They are also judged by their looks how well they perform, and how confident they appear. Approximately 250,000 children participate in pageants each year (Wolf). Mothers who have children in beauty pageants argue that their children gains a boost of confidence through performing in front of crowds. They are also more socially comfortable around other people, and their children mature at a younger age than “normal” children do. Isn’t seeing a child “growing old before my eyes” a bad thing. What parent wants to see their child grow up any... ... middle of paper ... ...m have finished with the first of three long days. She looks at her mom with teary eyes as she walks off stage empty handed. She feels that she has failed her mom and herself. Children at such a young age are very fragile, the do not have the experience to learn that they are still a worthy person even if they lose. Marie sees all of the other children leaving with trophies running towards their parents to give them a hug. As she walks of the stage with nothing and see the disappointment of her parents as they turn away. If that isn’t wrong…then what is? Works Cited A&E. Inside Story: Baby Beauty Queens Banet-Weiser, Sarah. ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity.” Berkley: University of California Press: 1999. Cawthorne, Andrew. ‘Miss World to emerge from the shadow of deaths,’ (website) http:/http://www.tiscali.co.uk. Date published: 5/12/2002 18:44 Lester, Time. Venzuela Beauty. Foreign Correspondent, (Dated aired) 03/16/2005. Wolf, Naomi. “The Beauty Myth. London: Vintage: 1990, pg. 288.

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