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Permalink Reply by Brent Feeney on June 6, 2011 at 8:08am

When are we gonna finally realize that these so-called "beauty pageants" need to be tossed into the scrap heap of history. We can start with Miss America, Miss USA and Miss Universe and go from there.

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Permalink Reply by Goz on June 9, 2011 at 12:37pm

I bloody wish I knew. I hate those things with a passion...But to do this to kids is just horrible!

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Permalink Reply by roland707 on June 6, 2011 at 9:10am

There's a movie called "Little Miss Sunshine". It's about a girl in one of those contests. What's funny is she is the only one who looks like just an ordinary little girl (not like a whored-up for glamor shots 19 year old). When she does her talent thing, she gets kicked out for doing a silly dance to the song "Superfreak". Like the judges thought it was too dirty and she was weird. The movie makes that whole industry seem really stupid.

I think those contests and the parents living through their kids is just awful. It's totally twisted, and I think, dangerous to manufacture sex appeal on a five year old. It's like freak bait. I'm surprised the Jon Benet situation doesn't happen more often.

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Permalink Reply by roland707 on June 7, 2011 at 8:51am

You're right about pedophiles. I just find it weird for a parent to make their little girl look that way. It looks like they're marketing sex. I'm sure a lot of them just think it's 'pretty.' There is a woman I work with who keeps putting up pics of her 10 year old in bikinis and stuff on facebook with captions like 'look at my beautiful girl'. I'm just thinking "What the hell are you doing?"

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Permalink Reply by Albert Terry on June 6, 2011 at 9:34am

These beauty pageants should be banned for any girl under 13. It is insane what these people put their small children through, often just to live out their own unaccomplished dreams. I recently heard on the news about a woman who was giving botox injections to her 8 year old child. Worse is the fact that she administered the shots herself and has no medical license (I think she does nursing work)! I've also heard that this story just might be a hoax, but who's to say there aren't hundreds of mothers all across the country mutilating their children and destroying their self esteem just for fame in the eyes of people who really don't give a fuck about them.

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Permalink Reply by Pat on June 6, 2011 at 11:00am

These pageants are, in my humble estimation, nothing more than legitimized child pornography.  Not only should they be banned, I am of the opinion they should be criminalized and the children removed from the custody of those who wish to publicly turn a 5 or 6 year old child into a sex object.

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Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 6, 2011 at 1:38pm

There is always the health of the individual to consider, as well as the individual liberties. If an adult wants to act like an idiot, then go for it. I don't care as much for the fact that children might be (negatively) influenced by skinny models as that I care about the complete inability of so many parents to provide context to their kids' experiences which leaves them vulnerable for pretty much anything.

 

I'm just disappointed that you only need a practical exam to be able to become a parent. 

 

Some parents seem to need help defending their kids against all kind of "bad" outside influences as if they form the majority of a child's experiences. Stop raising your kids with TV and take 'em out for a walk and a talk. Maybe I'll understand better when I'm a parent myself, but I seriously hope that I won't.

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Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 6, 2011 at 5:08pm

I love TV, cinema, videogames and whatnot and I would certainly not withhold that from my hypothetical future children. I would not let them be raised by TV though, which to me is a huge difference. Any form of stimulation can be beneficial to a child, if proper guidance is present, TV offers many different stimuli and often give a view into stuff you wouldn't normally see in real life. 

 

It's a great tool for children and adults, yet it does not remove the responsibility from the parents to provide their children with a proper frame of reference for their experiences.

 

I wouldn't want my kids to grow up thinking people are all noble and pure and any of that bullshit.

 

Hell no, we are just monkeys with shoes. We are as vile and brutal as any creation of nature with just a thin veneer of civility. If you've seen what good people are capable of because of authority and obedience you've only just opened a cesspit of human vileness. 

And don't get me started about my porn collection!

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Permalink Reply by Brent Feeney on June 7, 2011 at 9:21am

On a somewhat similar note, well-known YouTube vlogger/atheist Laci Green devoted one of her recent Saturday postings to the sexualization of children - in this case, a 12-year-old.

 

She was not happy, and I totally agree with her!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNzVn9d8o5U

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Permalink Reply by Richard K. Emms on June 9, 2011 at 1:37pm

Not much to say about this other than I couldn't agree more.  Creepy says it all.  It seems that If you believe enough, nothing bad could happen.  Creepy and stupid.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on June 9, 2011 at 4:03pm

My dh and I got stuck in a hotel in Tennessee with a toddler beauty pageants.  We actually met Jon Bennet Ramsey and ran into her with her mother several times.  You would have never have known that hotel was filled with little girls by the pool the night before.  It was us, two teenaged boys and a trucker and his son at the pool.  We saw little Jon Bennet on her balcony crying and begging to go swimming while her harpy of a mother screeched at her that she would get scratched and mar her beauty. 

 

The next morning, we saw a whole swarm of little girls decked out to the 9s with their mothers hitting the breakfast bar.  Rather the moms were hitting the food bar like there was no tomorrow and the girls where going foodless while being lectured about their weight. 

 

We had a very long (or at least it seemed really long) elevator ride with Jon Bennet and her mother.  I have never seen a mom go off on a kid about her looks like that woman.  It was horrible.  We could not wait to get away from that woman.  I felt so sorry for that kid.  I never saw such a sad little kid in my life.  She was sad enough that dh and I never forgot her and were not surprised at her final demise.  No kid should be that unhappy. 

 

I don't think all the mothers are this bad.  I don't know if they are living through their daughters.  I don't know if they are different from stage moms, because I never met a stage mom.  I do know, I didn't like what I saw and I would never do that to my kid.  A childhood without food and getting scratched is no fun at all.  It's no way to be a kid. Maybe some of them like it.  It's hard to tell in a child under the age of 6 or 7 whether they are doing things because they want to or their folks make them.

 

It seems to be a lot more popular in the South than anywhere else. 

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Permalink Reply by Brent Feeney on June 10, 2011 at 12:19pm

No doubt about it re: "beauty pageants" and the South.

 

When I was in South Carolina working for a newspaper near Clemson, any number of kiddie pageant mommies and their darlings came into the place for some pub. I took a few pictures - one mom kept telling her child "pageant smile" over and over when I took her pic. Never got mean or anything, but it really, really rubbed me the wrong way.

 

No surprise the late Patsy Ramsey was as like what you mention in your story. Thanks for sharing.

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