Childhood Beauty Pageants - Right or Wrong?

I have a close friend. Her daughter, who I'll call Cathy, is in her late twenties and is the mother of a little girl. The little girl is about six. Cathy and her husband both work, but they don't have a lot of money. Every extra cent they make goes into entering the little girl in beauty pageants. These pageants cost hundreds of dollars and the family travels once or twice a month to them, staying in pricey hotels for whole weekends.

I know people need to be entertained and that isn't any of my business. What I am concerned about is that when the little girl is in the pageants, she wears full makeup, gets spray-tanned, and wears hairpieces. She takes all sorts of lessons for modeling, and the pressure she is under is just sad. Cathy forces her to practice walking, talking and everything associated with pageants to the point that she rarely gets to play.

I know there is nothing I can do about this, but I think it's cruel and selfish on the mother's part. Also, the money could be saved for the little girl's college, instead of being spent on something so artificial. What do you think? Are parents who enter kids in pageants doing it for the kids or are they doing it for themselves? Does anything good come out of these pageants?
By Dottie 14 years ago :: Parenting
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