http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/11/08/high_glitz_child_pageant_slideshow?source=newsletter

I also did many pageants in my teens and I am an educated, well rounded person myself with a great career, wonderful husband and healthy relationships. I’m sorry to say I have none of the issues that you are projecting these girls may have. Pageants were a definitive and positive experience in my life that opened many, many doors an opportunities for me. I am grateful to have done them and I’m certain my own daughter will have similar experiences.
Next time, please do an article on actual research (there are several, university based psychological studies that have been done on the long term impacts of pageantry on the women who participate) instead of your own opinion.

As you can see, I’m not yelling or berating you, nor am I calling you names. This is because responding to an argument without emotion, and with solid facts is one of the many things that pageantry taught me.

Afterall, it is her doing the public speaking, writing the essays, performing the talent, the community service projects, etc. Well, you just sit back and relish in yours being a pretty scientist, and I will sit back for years and relish in knowing mine grew up being a pretty, smart national queen, who was involved in hundreds of community service projects and things, with super enhanced public speaking skills and things she learned while she chose to partcipate in pageants which helped her a long the way in her career choices of being a pretty, smart CSI Investigator or Teacher, whichever of the she choses to be. Afterall, it is her choice if she wants to partcipate or not, just like her path in life will be what she wants, not what anyone else wants.

Cheerleaders also have the reputation of being pretty and dumb while what they do is in fact quite a tough sport that requires a lot of discipline. Anyway, I have no real clue, I don’t know any cheerleaders.

I still would not want my daughter to participate in any beauty contest though, and certainly not at that young age. I think I’d rather want her to be a pretty scientist than a smart beauty queen. The focus is different.

First of all partcipating in a Pageant is NOT LIFE anyone has chosen for their daughter or children. Children do grow up and set their dreams and goals for their life no differently than their parents, sibilings, grandparents, whatever family member does. Participation is NOT Forced it is offered, discussed and chosen as just that, a partcipation, not a LIFE Chosen Career. Partcipation is simply a chosen extra curricular activity chosen to partcipate the same as if they chose, Ballet, Tumbling, Soccer, Pom Poms or Band. If anything is being produced in a rather upset and angry position, it is for the mere fact that Erich as well as now yourself is saying our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, sisters, cousins, whatever the family relationship is being forced into participation in pageants as their life career. Maybe there are some who do force and chose, however, Not everyone does, it is not a life or death matter, it is simply an extra curricular activity that their child likes to do, nothing more and nothing less. Children always say when they are old enough to speak and start understanding jobs and positions during play, if a little girl, all want to be a princess or a queen, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a doctor, little boys, want to be firemen, policemen, soldiers, astronauts etc. By purchasing them certain toys to play with, are parents chosing and forcing them into those careers/fields by purchasing those toys for birthdays, christmas etc. Instead of just throwing everyone into the same pot and saying this is how it is for everyone and anyone who partcipates in any way, shape or form for a pageant, that people are trying to live through their children, or force them into a Miss America Career path,Erich should do a lot more research into the subject as to actually sitting down and talking with different groups of parents and girls involved. As I stated before, my grandchild won her National Queen Title when she was 4 yrs old, she showed no skin, she wore no make-up, fake hair, fake teeth anything in that fashion whatsoever, she was 100% real and nothing more than a 4 yr old who likes to dress up in frilly little dresses and be a princess like Disney’s Princesses. She clocks a lot of hours doing community service, visiting with elderly, collecting money to help fight Alzheimers, Cancer, Diabetes and for the American Heart Association. She saves her piggy bank money to sponsor a little girl her same age out of Africa with Aids every month, she collects money as a Jr Spokesperson for a National Organization that helps Children of Natural Disasters, she supports the Military by doing collections and donations to them, she is constantly donating time and food to local food banks to help less fortunate people, she collected, purchased and donated christmas toys to less fortunate children this past christmas out of her own birthday money and christmas money, she helps at Animal Shelters, she pretty much does everything and besides being taught these great values to help others by her family, she learned to respect them and love them from her partcipation in the pageant program she has been invollved in. She learns a dual education weekly, she is taught in both english and japanese to read, write and speak, she gets great grades, has tons of friends and is proud of what she is learning and accomplishing from helping others. She is not conceited, she is not forced or made to do anything that is not appropriate for her. She is a care-free souled child who just simply likes to do what she likes to do. She is very out-spoken and taught by her NaNa to keep it real and say what she thinks and mean what she says, and if she ever said, I do not want to partcipate in a pageant again, or win titles again, it would be the end of it. No-one would force her to continue, and it clearly is not going to be her life career, it simply is an extra curricular event she enjoys partcipating in, in her youth. What she as well as so many other of her sister queens will carry with them into their adulthood is nothing more than great friendships that will never die and great memories of achievements and awards they received and a great and pure soul and heart in a very shady society that they live in now in their youth, that they did hours of community service to help others achieve things they need. Once again, I say Thank God for Dream Girls USA, Thank God for all of the great and outstanding famillies we have met invovled with Dream Girls USA and Thank God for my Beautiful, Little National Dream Girls USA Queen.

And I’m sorry—this is about Glamour, is it not? And Glamour is nothing with the implicit sexuality of the thing glamourized. This is like saying that cheerleaders aren’t out there to pump the guys up sexually. That’s nonsense and we all know it—otherwise there would still be male cheerleaders, which at one time there were.

If that’s what you’re okay with, then fine, don’t get all defensive. But be real. This is tuning the little girls up for Miss America pageants, and despite the protests, we all know that the most anticipated and watched part of that pageant is the swimsuit part. (If they could get away with it, there would be a nude component.)

Given the length of the angry responses to Erich’s piece, I’d say “thou doest protest too much.”