Dressing up and
wearing mommy’s high heels are a favorite pastime for young girls, but when
does it cross the line? In the popular T.V. show, Toddlers & Tiaras, dressing up is taken to the next level.
Pageants in their best form should be for showing off a girl’s natural beauty,
their knowledge, and accomplishments but in today’s world, pageants have been
going off course. In the show, these young girls are made up so much; there is
hardly anything natural about them left. Not only do they have to wear fancy
dresses costing thousands of dollars, but they also are made up with spray
tans, false eyelashes, wigs and dentures to cover up their missing teeth. Being
that these girls are so young, how will they be able to accept themselves as
they grow older? In an article from People Magazine, a social worker describes
the effects that this show could have on these girls:
"Little
girls are supposed to play with dolls, not be dolls," says Mark Sichel, a
New York-based licensed clinical social worker, who calls the extreme grooming
common at pageants "a form of child abuse." Playing dress-up "is
normal and healthy, but when it's demanded, it leaves the child not knowing
what they want," he says. Accentuating their appearance with such
accoutrements as fake hair, teeth, spray tans and breast padding "causes
the children tremendous confusion, wondering why they are not okay without
those things."
Knowing this, why
aren’t producers taking these kinds of shows off air? It’s the millions of people tuning into the show that are
supporting it to continue. To see a change, we must stop watching these types
of shows, write in letters to producers and realize the large effects on the
girls. Young girls should be stumbling around in their mom’s high heels with
their friends instead of in front of millions of people judging their every
move.
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