FREAK SHOW

I came across one of those little kid beauty pageants on television the other day. You know the ones where all the children look like mutant adults stuffed in small bodies. I have to admit, this whole arena – or subculture of freakery, if you will - has always given me the creeps. I’m not sure if it is the fact that the little girls all look as if they are in their thirties, or the psychotic parents salivating in competitive lust as they look on from the sidelines as little Susie or Mary parades down the catwalk.

And don’t be fooled, this is not just a bunch of little girls playing dress up; this stuff is serious business. From the copious amounts of makeup plastered all over their faces, to the elaborate outfits and the hours of practicing to perform like a pre-pubescent circus monkey, this is not an arena for the faint at heart, or wallet for that matter. Some little girls are even known to wear fake teeth for the perfect smile, and if they are considered too large for their age group, they are often put on crash diets. Is it me or should these parents be rung up by social services? 

The most absurd thing is that when parents are asked, why do you enroll your children in such things, they retort that the children love it, as if they discovered it themselves and brought it up over dinner one night. “Mom, can you dress me up like Scarlet O’Hara on crack and enter me in a competition for money and prizes?” Fine, little girls do like dressing up; I’ll give you that. But little children are also heavily suggestible and aren’t about to tell mommy that they’re exhausted, fed up and they’re developing carpel tunnel from twirling that damn baton a hundred times. Then again, I think even if some of them did plead fatigue it would fall upon deaf ears. The parents just look too fame hungry to be rational.

Often sadly, all this business is for the parents, more than it is for the children. As if it somehow fills a void of Mommy’s who was never popular or pretty to live vicariously through her little girl. Either that, or Mommy is a sadistic drill sergeant that takes pleasure in grooming her little girl to look like Tammy Fae Baker. Seriously, what’s the hurry? One has years for their daughters to come home dressed like a call girl. Enjoy the years when your child is actually a child and you can put them in braids and sweaters with bears on them.

That said, I plan to enroll the King in pie eating contests. I hear the money is good and the boy does like to eat.