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Trophies, tiaras, smiles, and controlling mothers are just a few components of Child beauty pageants. Child beauty pageants have been in America since 1921. They are very similar to normal beauty pageants such as Miss America. However, there is one large difference; many of the contestants competing in the pageants are under the age of twelve. These twelve-year old girls are competing against each other in categories such as talent, dress and an interview segment. These pageants cost the pageant children and their families a lot of money and time. Whether or not these pageants are ethical or not has been argued since the beginning. Child beauty pageants are unethical and leave a negative effect on the children who participate. Prior to these pageants, there were competitions called the Most Beautiful Child Contest. These contests were held in all major cities throughout America. Next was the idea of having a Little Miss America pageant which was in relation to the Miss American pageants. These started in the 1960’s at an amusement park in New Jersey called Palisades. This competition was open to any teenagers between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. This pageant became very popular and within just four years there were more than 35,000 participants. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s when the full concept of child beauty pageants came about. The first pageant took place in Miami, Florida and now, the industry consists of close to 25,000 different pageants. The pageant business is a very profitable business. It’s estimated to bring in close to a billion dollars every year. Pageants consist of two major components, time and money. The young contestants need to give up a vast amount of hours in their day for practicing, preparing, competing and traveling. To get their hair done it takes an average of forty-five minutes and an average of one hour to complete their makeup. If a child’s hair isn’t long enough for the desired look, extensions are added. These extensions are long, fake hair that is clipped in at the child’s roots. False teeth are also inserted to cover up any gaps that may be in the child’s original teeth. These teeth are called flippers. Before the pageant begins, all of the contestant’s outfits are laid out and ready to be used. As each segment is finished, a new outfit is quickly placed onto the child. The child has very little down time during these pageants causing an immense amount of stress and pressure. There are many expenses and factors that go into the cost of these pageants. Before even getting to the pageants, the families need to pay for both traveling and lodging. The entry fee for pageants can be anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars. Depending on the parent, often times a makeup artist and hair stylist are brought along which adds another large amount of money to the large total. Things such as accessories or spray tans are paid for as well. Specific clothing is needed for pageants such as sportswear, evening gowns and talent performance outfits. All of these cloths are very, expensive. Gowns cost between $1,500 and $12,000 depending on the dress. Due to the vast about of money being spent on the clothes it makes it apparent that the competition is based primarily off of physical appearance. If it were to be based off of character, there would be no need to purchase a thousand dollar pageant gown. Parents who are really out to win often times hire a pageants coach to teach their child poise. Due to the large expenses of entering a child into a child beauty pageant, there has been cases of families going into debt or losing their home. Sponsors are used many times in order to lighten the cost. Overall, it costs around $2070 to compete in one of these pageants. Losing all of this money can cause damage to the child’s living surroundings. People are forced to often time give up their homes or trailers because they cannot pay the price of competing in these pageants but do it anyway. One may wonder why a parent would even consider entering their child into one of these competitions after seeing the cost and amount of time that is required. The most common reason given by pageants mothers for entering their kids into the competition is to boost their self-esteem. Many pageant parents feel that putting their children in front of judges will make them less shy and give them the skills and lessons needed to compete in life. This has never been scientifically proven. Other parents who have children with birth defects will enter their kids in order to show them they still can be beautiful. Lastly, some mother’s are well, unexplainable. "My daughter looks like Barbie," one said. "I tell her to exploit it. This is your life; you take what you have and run with it" (The Whys and Woes of Beauty Pageants). These are all just excuses to justify something that is clearly unjustifiable. Entering a child into an environment of beauty pageants at such a young age is unjust. Children at these ages are so young and easily influenced. They are still learning how the world works and now have distorted views of life. Anna Wonderlich, Judith Henderson and Diann Ackard performed a study to compare women who competed in pageants as kids versus those who did not. They compared eleven women who used to compete with eleven women who had never competed in child pageants. The compared things such as their body mass index, age and body satisfaction. What they found were those who hadn’t competed were overall happier with their self image and had less trust issues. Those who have competed however, confessed to seeing issues in their flawless bodies and being unhappy with tiny, unnoticeable pieces of their appearance. Not only have pageants affected kid’s outlook on their appearance, but it puts them at risk of promoting sexuality. A book called “Risk and Sociocultural Theory” was written by Deborah Lupton and said that these pageants are promoting the idea of sexuality within these young, innocent children through the outfits worn and the overall physical appearance of the young girls. Parents tend to be blind to see how their daughter’s innocence is now being sexualized. It’s argued that if words in books and lyrics need to be censored, so should the children in theses competitions. The outfits they are wearing often times expose too much skin for girls of such a young, fragile age. Child beauty pageants have been referred to as “kiddie porn” for some. Mothers are often the ones who oversee their children during these pageants. The mother is considered to be an overall determining factor of how their child will do in the competition. Since the children competing in these competitions are so young, they aren’t capable of making many decisions. They tend to be indifferent in many situations and not show much of an opinion. What their mother says goes. Therefore it’s the parents that are putting them into the competitions, deciding what they will wear or perform, and telling their kids what to say and do. Many of the parents reward their kids for doing well and punish them for doing poorly. Parents seem to live through their children as they compete. They take failures personally and view their child’s success as a success of their own. Birth certificates were made mandatory after parents began lying about their daughter’s ages in order to enter them into a younger age group. By entering them in a lower age group they will appear to be more talented and poised. Pageant Mothers are blind to see all of the risks they are setting their child up for and the harm these pageants can do. The mother’s are so hungry for attention and spotlight that they are willing to exploit their own child without considering the negative consequences it could have on their child. A member of the Gazette staff, William Gomie, was doing an article on child beauty pageants. In his article he tells the story of a girl in a pink sequined dress. “One girl in a pink sequined dress began to cry. The tears carried streaks of mascara down her face. Her mother grabbed her and tried to get the girl to stop crying. When she didn’t stop, her mother dragged her off the stage by the hand. Meanwhile, an unfazed announcer told the audience that the girl was 2 years old, from Massachusetts, and her life’s ambition is to bring happiness to all who come into contact with her. The girl stopped crying and began to eat Cheerios with the other beauty-pageant contestants. Her mother began laying out her rhinestone-studded jeans for the next phase of the competition – modeling” (The Whys and Woes of Beauty Pageants). This demonstrates how focused these mothers are on winning, and how unfocused they are on their child’s need. This demonstrated behavior is both superficial and unacceptable. It’s embarrassing for both the mother and the child and it needs to stop. What scares Gomie is that this behavior has been seen to repeat itself generation to generation. Pageants are what these individuals perceive as fun and acceptable because it’s what their mother’s lived by and passed on. Child beauty pageants all have different rules, criteria and events for which to be judged. Events can include sports and eveningwear, talent, writing, modeling and interviewing. Prizes such as toys, money, tiaras, sashes and trophies are awarded for doing well in these events. Often times the winning trophies are taller than the contestants. Trophies can be up to five or six feet tall in the Little Miss pageants. Put that next to a twelve year old and you will see a big difference in height. What would a young child do with a trophy too big to hold? The driving parties and sponsors of Pageants strive to do whatever it takes to make their contestants feel like winners in efforts to keep them coming back. Even though the overall winner gets the best prize, a prize is rewarded to all contestants. “Most girls her age were still playing with dolls. Instead, Jon Benet //was// a doll—a living, breathing Barbie—with which her parents were playing” (Child Beauty Pageants Should be Eliminated). This quote is referencing Jon Benet Ramsey, a child beauty pageant queen whose name was known worldwide in 1996 after she had been murdered. She was only six-years old when she was first entered into these types of contests. She was dressed up to appear much older than she was and more appealing that her true self. The mother of Jon Benet was a former beauty queen herself who was trying to relive these moments through her innocent child. This case helped persuade society that child beauty pageants are unethical. People were shocked at the way these types of parents were exploiting their children. . It’s said that after the Jon Benet case, the industry began to stress more natural looking contestants and more appropriate clothing. They also suggested that makeup should not be worn on girls under the age of thirteen. Even though all these changes are “said” to take place, if you watch any of the three TV shows, “Little Miss Perfect”, “Little Beauties”, and “Toddlers in Tiaras” which follow these contests guidelines, you will see that very little has been done to enforce the idea of a more natural beauty. The TV viewers of these three programs are for the majority, the complete opposite of what you would expect. You would expect pageant lovers to make up the majority of the viewership. However, majority of viewers are people who have never been to a pageant and have very little to no desire to do so. Instead, they are watching because they are so taken back by the fake tans and false teeth inserted onto these innocent little children. What keeps people viewing these programs is the discomfort that comes off as a result of knowing and seeing how wrong these pageants are for children. These programs serve as humorous entertainment to viewers rather than serious reality television shows displaying the ins and outs of beauty pageants. For viewers who don’t understand how unreal the appearance of these girls on TV is, it can be very harmful. It is easy for viewers to compare themselves to these contestants and begin to view themselves as flawed. It makes viewers worry and stress too much about their own weight or appearance at a young age. They begin to wonder why they don’t or can’t look like those girls on the television. Statistics show that forty percent of fourth graders said they were once on a diet. Half of the girls between the ages of eight and ten are unhappy with their size and more than half the girls between the ages of nine and fifteen have exercised in order to lose weight. These pageants shows are enforcing unrealistic and unhealthy standards for a girl’s body. Younger teens aren’t able to recognize how fake and exaggerated these young girl’s appearances are. In closing, Child pageants should be banned and only people over the age of eighteen should be allowed to participate. It is absurd for children to legally be allowed to enter these pageants. Sadly, there is no current law that could prevent this from happening. These young kids have to sit through countless hours of makeup and hair, practice their talent portions in their free time, and travel all over for different competitions. All of this is done for a cash prize, if they are considered a winner. While people have questioned whether or not it goes against the child labor laws, these laws don’t hold up because the girls are not considered to be technically working. Another reason it’s hard to legally stop these pageants is because every pageant is different. It would be very difficult to pass a law that would be applicable for every pageant. Some states don’t have any laws regulating the competition are New York, Vermont, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, and California. Putting children through these pageants is a form of undeclared child abuse. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Reform Act states that child abuse is “the physical or mental injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, of a child under circumstances which indicated the child’s health or welfare is threatened or harmed” (“Child Pageants Should be Eliminated). By entering a child into the pageant, they are doing just that. These pageants can damage contestant’s self-esteem and cause a development of eating disorders later on in the contestant’s life, in efforts to stay a suitable weight. The sexuality introduced by these pageants also produces a higher risk of being a victim of a pedophile. Overall, child pageants are unethical and cause negative long-term effects on children. Child Beauty Pageants cause harm to children on a physical, mental, and emotional level. Pageant Parent’s must be stopped because they are the instigators and motivators. A light must be shined on this problem at a nation level. It will take a collaboration of the media, justice system and society to stop this exploitation of children but together I believe it could be done.