Soapbox

Painted Babies

   The other night I watched a show about little girl beauty pageants. It left me feeling more than a little nauseous.

   Somewhere in Florida 2 dozen three and four-year old girls were painted and teased and sprayed, strutting on stage in ruffles and sequins and shaking their little tushes that were barely out of diapers. Their adoring mothers and grandmothers were sitting on the sidelines, mouthing each word along with their child, weeping and nearly fainting with joy when they won-  and shouting and ranting bitterly when they lost.
     "How can they do that to these little girls?" one wept when she felt her child had been "robbed" by clearly biased judging.

   How can they do this? I wanted to reach through the television set and rap those mothers on the forehead and shout "Do you see what you're doing?"

   Actually, they do. They just don't see it as bad.
   There are people in this world who can eat coconut and say "Yum", and there are people who can look at one of those kiddy freak shows and think "How sweet!"  There's no accounting for taste! One mother watched her child deliver a fake beauty-queen smile and wave at an age when she should be learning how to share her Lincoln Logs and told the interviewer breathlessly, "Oh, I thought she looked just like a little Barbie doll! Don't you? Just exactly like a little Barbie doll!"

    Oh… so you mean that as a good thing, then.    Huh.
    Another said "There is no difference between this and putting football pads on a boy, or putting a little girl in a cheerleader skirt that barely covers her bottom."  Well, I agree with the last part of that sentence. The worst thing, the inexcusable thing for me is the false sexuality these girls are taught to convey.

    When I was a kid I remember the little kiddy pageants they had in little towns in southern Ohio and West Virginia: "Little Miss Parade of the Hills" , "Junior Miss Rutabaga Queen" and such. Tiny girls in ridiculous beehive hairdos and eleven petticoats squeaking out a rendition of "How you Gonna Get to Heaven if You Don't Read Your Bible Now?". They struck me, a gangly, dirty-kneed kid on a bike, as boring and dumb. Looking back, maybe they were silly, but they were also much more innocent than the competitions I saw on this show.

     These four-year-olds, winking, pouting their red shiny lips, swaying their hips, shimmying their non-existent boobs and singing "Sweet Nothings" about sexual pillow talk seem to be bordering on child pornography. One mother speculated, after her child didn't score well in the  Western Wear competition that perhaps they would change the outfit… something with cut-outs to show off her midriff, perhaps.
    This is a four year old we are talking about! A four year old who spent the first 2 hours that morning getting her hair done and false eyelashes applied, may I add.
    Another mother  explained that it is fine to put little children through hours of make-up and rehearsals instead of letting them finger-paint by saying,  "Oh, all little girls love dressing-up and putting on shows."  

    Truth be told, when I was 4, I did love dress up. I loved digging through our dress-up box and pretending to be a gypsy or a pirate or a princess. And I liked putting on a show. Tracy Foster and I used to write plays and perform them for our families.  
    At no point in the above scenario were we asked to "act sexy" for the overweight middle-aged men, former "Miss Avocado Queen" and transvestites who were judging us. At no point did our mothers spend thousands of dollars on outfits that made us look either like an over-decorated cupcake or a little pole dancer, outfits that we outgrew within a few months. At no point were there any winners or losers declared. And at no point was the ideal we were shooting for a Barbie doll: a grinning, vapid, bleached-haired, pointy-toed, sexual and yet sexless inanimate object with a body type no child could ever grow up to match.

    "These competitions are just great for the girls" one mother said. "But I guess you might not feel that way… if you have an ugly kid."  And then the pudgy, bleached suburban mom who was about to take her child to a professional tanning session before a big show smirked at the camera, no doubt feeling sorry for those of us whose  children cannot pull off a Marilyn Monroe routine complete with skirt blowing up.
 
    Ah. Now we come to the real reason for all the time and money spent on pageants. She might as well have said "I measure my self-worth by the trophies my child has won. I see myself as an extension of her." 

 Grow up, lady!  This issue isn't the moms of pretty girls being envied by the moms of the halt and the lame. Some of  us simply believe that the beauty of a child laughing and playing so far outshines the beauty of a child posing in makeup and a wig  that there is no comparison!

     When my daughter was 4 years old she was as beautiful as the day, with naturally platinum blonde ringlets and big blue eyes… and a smile that made me ache inside and a laugh that cheered up the worst day. She was not an object to show off like a stupid little purse chihuaua, nor was she a way to make up for my own short-comings. She just brought me unspeakable joy, and so I tried to give her joy in return.

    She had scabby knees because she spent the day learning to climb trees with her best friend, not getting a professional "Glitz" portfolio made. Her taste in clothes tended towards orange flowered shirts with purple striped shorts. If she had a million dollars, she once told me, her intention was to buy a pony and feed all the hungry dogs in the world, not "Spend it on shoes and purses" as one contestant told the emcee to delighted chuckles from the parents watching. She spent hours learning to read and to ride her bike and coloring pictures of the world that filled her imagination instead of sitting still for hair and make-up and learning how to hold a stage smile for 20 minutes and shake her bottom at grown men.

    And yet despite this horribly deprived childhood she endured, my daughter is poised, confident, smart and classy. Imagine that! Without a single beauty competition to prepare her! At 18 she is ready to take on the world and knows, I believe, that true happiness must come from within, not from external validation and superior false eyelashes. And yes, I am ridiculously proud of her. But I am who I am, and she is utterly, undeniably and forever her own person.

    Baby pageant mothers are living out their unfulfilled adult dreams of beauty and perfection vicariously through their innocent children. They are sad, sad creatures and are probably passing that sadness on to their daughters. After all, what 20 year old can possibly live up to the title of "Little Miss Perfect" gained at age five?

When Katie was about this age the whole Jon Benet Ramsey tragedy filled the news. I looked at beauty pageant photos of that poor little girl and looked at my child sprawled on the floor among her legos, and did what I often do when something upsets me- I wrote a song. I call it,

The Undeniable Lifetime Benefits of a Baby Beauty Queen.

My new baby girl is so precious and sweet
From the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
I've got dreams for her future to have a happy life:
She won't be a doctor or an engineer, but she'll make a lovely wife!

I’m gonna put my little princess in a baby beauty pageant
Cause I’m told it will make her proud to be
Judged entirely on her pretty face and on the clothes she wears
So she’ll know, all that counts is what the judges see!

Rock-a-bye baby, so sweet and so new,
Hold still while I put this mascara on you…

I'll spend eight hundred dollars on a scratchy, frilly dress
That doesn't cover her behind at all.
She'll learn how to toss her curls and give a sexy pout.
Her hero and role model will be- her Barbie doll!

Break out the eyeliner! Tease up her hair!
Moms, parade your girls like one-trick ponies!
A 5 year old's not pretty without lipstick and high heels.
Some say she's an object, I say that's a lot of baloney.

Hush little baby, don't fuss at me
Or you'll never win Miss Congeniality.

The beauty pageant life can be good for little girls.
It gives them poise and confidence, they say.
Of course, that self-esteem depends entirely on her looks.
They say competing's fun- but do the losers feel that way?

Put on her sequined western-wear! That make-up and hairdo
Cost a mint, but she looks like a star, Oh
It will all be worth it when she steps out on that stage
For the 23rd rendition of "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow"

And when she's grown too big for the kiddy beauty pageants
And if she thinks of college and career
I'll put her in a bathing suit and let her strut her stuff
And if she wins "Miss USA" that year,
The one with the best boobs will get a scholarship, I hear!