Child beauty pageants

– It took the murder of his six-year-old beauty queen daughter for John Ramsey to see the harm in child beauty pageants. – I am here today because I do not want you to make the same mistake as John Ramsey did. – I am here today to protect the individuality and freedoms of our children. – I am here today to help you develop and cherish good, healthy relationships with your children. – Children who are involved with beauty pageants are much more likely to resent their parents later on, for forcing them to partake in a harmful event. – Child beauty queens are their parents’ pets–they don’t make their own decisions and they follow their parents’ demands. – Child beauty pageants are corrupting to children because they destroy the children’s individuality and creativity, and cause a great deal of harm to children. – The children are corrupted constantly, who are too young to understand the damage that is being done. – Harm corrupts the subconscious minds of pageant parents. – Harm corrupts the childhoods of pageant children and demolishes their individuality, forcing them into lives predetermined by their parents. – The sexualization of children, combined with monstrous amounts of stress and pressure, produces the ugliness that is the pageant world. – While parents might think it’s cute to dress up their child in sexy clothes, it sexualizes the children at a young age, and is mentally damaging. – Child beauty queens are their parents’ dolls–they get to dress them up and make the children “ beautiful. ” – Child psychologists say that child beauty queens can develop eating disorders at a young age. – Dolls model what child beauty queens aspire to be like and look like. – Dolls convince parents of what their children should be. – Dolls are what parents turn their children into. – They become deeply concerned with body image, causing bulimia and anorexia. – They are psychologically harmful in other ways as well. – Pageants teach children to look a certain way, to act a certain way, and to be perfect. – Pageants teach children that anything less than the “ whole package” is not good enough. – Pageants prevent children from developing healthy relationships with their friends and families. – Parents are forcing this career on their kids, who feel obliged to play along. – Child beauty queens see how happy it makes their parents, who are often more pleased than the children. – Child beauty queens are their parents’ puppets–they follow along as the parents run the show. – In TLC’s TV show “ Toddlers & Tiaras”, a majority of the beauty queens said that the only reason they participate in pageants is to please their mommies and daddies. – Selflessness replaces the children’s freedoms. – Children think it is their job to succumb to their parents’ demands – Because children want to do well in pageants for their parents’ sake, there is added pressure on the children. – Pageants put an absurd amount of stress and pressure on young children. – Child beauty queens often don’t get enough sleep because of the stress and excitement of pageants. – The lack of sleep prevents child beauty queens from developing like normal, healthy children. – There are other ways for parents to spend time with their children that aren’t physically or mentally harmful. – The side effects, both psychological and physical, of child beauty pageants are so horrifying that the mere idea of it should seem unthinkable. Treating children like dolls is inhumane. – While it might be fun to dress them up, how much damage are you willing to do to your child to make them your toy?