Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Confession...

Okay, here goes. I love TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras." This show absolutely kills me. I think my favorite part is the realization that I was blessed with enough common sense not to put my child through this nonsense.

It is so completely fascinating, though, to watch these overzealous mothers put all of their energy (not to mention money) into these crazy pageants. Most of them are middle-aged, hideously ugly (it's my blog, and I'll say what I want), and clearly living vicariously through their daughters. I love it when they talk about being in it only for fun, when it's very obvious that the children are not enjoying themselves at all.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't have any problems with baby beauty pageants, or even mothers who have a decent grasp of reality, and truly enjoy pageants for the self-confidence and poise that it can teach their daughters. Unfortunately, those women are few and far between. But tonight's episode had a great example of the hypocrisy of it all. One mom was clearly extremely competitive. She made no bones about the fact that she wanted her daughter to win, and no expense was spared to get her daughter to the top. Her daughter, by the way, clearly did NOT want to be there. But in one part of the interview, the same mom talked about always feeling judged by other people, and nothing ever being good enough to win. What kind of message is that to send your daughter at 5 years old? Lady, may I suggest working out your issues through therapy and let your daughter go play outside, where she wants to be.

Well, enough of this rant...I have to go watch the crowning ceremony. Judge me if you will...they're not my daughters. :)

Side note - The crowning is over, and I just had to share this one satisfying little tidbit. The same mother I mentioned above proved her ignorance during crowning. Her daughter was crowned "Ambassador," and the mother was so excited and proud, gushing over what a great title she had received. Meanwhile, during her speech, they flashed to a black screen which stated that the title of Ambassador was given to the girl who sold the most ad space in the pageant program booklet. Gotta love it.

1 comments:

Ashalee said...

So I must say I have watched the show it was a bit of an addiction for me. I totally agree I will watch the whole show but the things these women go through and put the children through is ridiculous. It should really be Thirties in Tiaras. The flippers they use to cover their actual teeth makes me mad. Uh hello they are little missing teeth is perfectly normal at that age. It makes me mad but I still watch and I feel bad for some of the girls that lose I fear what the mom may do to them. The dads seem to not agree with it but rarely tell the wife how he feels. Geez LOL