![Game, set, and match. Corbin Atchley, sophomore, high fives Sanam Sidhu, freshman, after a rally with other club members. “I just joined [the club],” Sidhu said. “[I heard about it] on Instagram, they always post about it, I’ve been wanting to come. My parents used to play [net sports] too and they taught us, and then I learned from my brother.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/MG_7715-2-1200x800.jpg)
![At the bottom of the third inning, the Lions are still scoreless. Rowe stands at home plate, preparing to bat, while Vandenbrink stands off to the side as the next batter up. Despite having the bases loaded, the team was unable to score any runs. “It’s just the beginning of the season. We’re just going to be playing out best by June, [and] that’s where champions are,” Rowe said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_3077-1200x900.jpg)
![The teams prepare to start another play with just a few minutes left in the first half. The Lions were in the lead at halftime with a score of 27-0. At half time, the team went back to the locker rooms. “[We ate] orange slices,” Malos said. “[Then] our team came out and got the win.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_2385-1200x800.jpg)
Adolesent girls covered in make up, bronzed with fake spray tan, and modeling artificial hair pieces walk across the runway stage as if they are airbrushed Barbies. Broadcasting over TLC, “Toddlers and Tiaras” airs beauty pageant shows of young girls, 1-18. As the show becomes more popular, some parents are urging their young children to become a pageant queen. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
By parents pushing their children into becoming obsessed glitz and glam royalty, it demonstrates that being greedy is perfectly fine. Most parents who involve their children in “Toddlers and Tiaras” don’t focus on the normal fundamentals of growing up, like what’s polite and impolite and discerning right from wrong. Pushing your child into participating in pageants forces them to grow up fast and miss important elements of childhood.
I have observed that many of the moms enroll their daughters in pageant shows so they can live through them. Caking on the fake tan lotion, mascara and lip-gloss may make a parent feel vicariously beautiful. While they watch their daughters and, on occasion, sons parade through the show and prove themselves to the judges, it seems to make the parents feel proud and fell better about themselves.
“It’s more for me than for my child,” a mom on the Jan. 17 episode, said.
Not only do beauty pageants encourage greed but they also tout physical beauty as a main value. Pageant girls have an unrealistic image in their minds of a perfect girl. They aspire to have marble smooth skin and a pristine Barbie doll face. Some will do anything to achieve this image leading to low self-esteem, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia and reliance on plastic surgery.
Becoming more spoiled with every crown they win and how much money they are rewarded with, this how teaches girls to worry only about themselves and to fight until they win the prize. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to feel beautiful and an amazing feeling to have all eyes on you, but there always other ways to feel beautiful than pageants.
The show “Toddlers and Tiaras” is entertaining but what it really shows is that pageants may force children into unhealthy competition.
