Beauty pageant participant, Kelsey Killeen said, “When I started going into pageants, it gave me so much self-confidence.” Pageant moms believe pageants are a good way to teach their daughters skills needed in life. Eight main skills mothers thought or hoped their children would learn from pageants were acquiring confidence, learning to be comfortable onstage and around strangers, gaining poise, determining the best way to present oneself, realizing the need for practice, learning good sportsmanship, becoming more outgoing and learning to listen (“Child Beauty”). Some parents have even said that they have placed their children in pageants because of a birth defect their child had (“Child Beauty”). These parents wanted to support the fact that their children are normal and beautiful no matter if they have birth defects (“Child Beauty”). In numerous pageants it is required that the contestant raise money for a local
Amy Tan tells of a mother's expectation for her daughter to be a child prodigy. Jamaica Kincaid tells of an unknown person describing to a girl how to be a "good" girl. Both essays illustrate an authority figure that has expectations for a young female and why and how those expectations will come about. As young children growing up without a care in the world, we cannot comprehend why authority figures dictate how we should behave. In "Two Kinds", the daughter is expected to be a child prodigy because her mother believes "you can be anything you want in America".
Beauty pageants are a needless aspect in society simply because they put a big emphasis on money, set unrealistic beauty standards for easily influenced young girls, and they encourage judging on appearance, rather than on a person's character. Child beauty pageants are fun to watch. The cute little girls all dressed up in their tiny gowns, dancing, singing, and prancing around. The pageants consist of modeling sportswear, evening attire, dance and talent. For most parents and their little girls it is just good fun.
Girls recently are found to be trying to get pregnant to get on the show. They girls from the first two seasons, and from “Teen Mom”, are getting famous from being on the show. They are being recognized as role models when they should be recognized for how hard their life was on the show. Teens are starting to glamorize their life and want toe same attention they get. On “16 and Pregnant”, it is hard for those girls to get by in life.
As a child, Walker believes that she can get whatever she wants or make people like her only by being a beautiful little girl. She shows that she is confident about this idea at the age of two and a half when she wants to go to the fair with her father and tells him "Take me daddy, I'm the prettiest” (Alice Walker, 150) while she parades around wearing a beautiful dress. As children, people often imitate the things they see, but they are not taken seriously, and many adults see these behaviors as being “child’s play”. Walker is imitating behaviors she has viewed from older women in her community and actresses in movies that she watched. The behavior that Walker showcases during the first stage of innocence is similar to the behaviors the character
TLC’s hit show “Toddlers & Tiaras” has captured the drama and exploitation in the world of child beauty pageants. Young girls are paraded around in expensive costumes, some in overly adult costumes complete with padded breasts. “….viewers and pageant skeptics have been expressing horror at an industry
Youthful Beauty In the world of spray-tanned nine year olds known as 'Child Beauty Pageants', spending thousands in an effort to win a simple tiara is a common--almost mandatory--act. Although, the tiara is not all that is won in these pageants; a sense of pride and supremacy is also at stake. What is risked when these pageant parents put all their emphasis on the outer beauty of their impressionable daughters? At such a young age, a child's future mentality depends on the morals and priorities they are brought up to have. To prevent the potential superficial women that may come from these pageants, there should be an age limit present in child beauty pageants.
Jing Mei’s mother forces her to try different things that the mother wants her to do to become a prodigy. Tan uses the elements of, character and plot to reinforce the theme of living through your child. Jing Mei wanted to be herself and her mother, who thinks differently, demanded her to become a prodigy. There were many reasons why Jing Mei’s mother wanted so much from her. She had worked really hard and taken lots of time trying to make Jing Mei a prodigy because Jing Mei was her last hope of becoming a “somebody” or famous.
In this article we are presented with two images, one depicts a young Balinese girl dressed up in all traditional styles of dress performing the local folklore dance as per tradition. While the other picture is of the US pageant start Eden Wood dressed up in a swimsuit with full hair and make up. Harmer presents her contention well; she explains that people shouldn’t be getting all up in arms about child beauty pageants because in reality everyone exploits their children at one time or another in their own way. Her contention is also introduced in the title of the article with the words “SO WHAT!” which sends the message that people really shouldn’t care as much as they are now. In Harmers opening sentence she makes reference to a personal experience that she had while she was holidaying at a hotel in Bali, she says she watched young Balinese girls with their “torsos wrapped in golden fabric, hair elaborately styled, nails painted, eyes fully made up and lips stained ruby red” while they performed alongside their big sisters and mothers, dancing with sheer talent.
But according to (Lalan Maliakal), she states that “the mothers pressurize their children to work their appearance to look like a Barbie doll.” Young Children forgo their improvement and childhood years for beauty pageants and pressure by their mothers to be the best, which for the most part is not good because the child’s virtuousness have been blemished and compress by false synthetic similes and counterfeit eyelashes and sophisticated appearance . Therefore the parents are stripping their children of being normal and not knowing how to interrelate with children their own age. As the children continue to develop their psychological mind set have altered where they feel that if they are not