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Date Posted: 22:33:58 07/18/05 Mon
Child psychologists differ on lessons contestants learn in competitions
By CLIFFORD PUGH
Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle
With only a few minutes to go before the start of the Little Miss Mardi Gras pageant, the Holiday Inn in La Marque is a frenzy of curling irons and costumes.
In the hallway, 12-year-old Shanelle Ecrette is practicing her runway walk under the watchful eye of her coach, D'Juana Oxford, and her mother, Yoli.
Cherie Rosenauer can only practice her crawl, since she's only 11 months old and hasn't learned to walk yet. But that hasn't deterred her mom, Barbara, from entering her.
"She's so cute in my eyes," Barbara says. "I want to see if it's only my eyes or someone else's."
Most participants are excited because a CNN camera crew is covering the pageant, which was held on Sunday. But there's also an undercurrent of anger among these "pageant moms," who feel besieged by intense media coverage of the phenomenon.
The murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado has cast kids' beauty pageants into the spotlight and sparked a national debate about whether such pageants benefit or exploit children.
Proponents insist it's all good, clean fun. They say mothers spend a lot of time with their daughters planning and participating in such contests. And they claim the youngsters learn valuable lessons about manners, grooming and how to win and lose gracefully.
"It's irritating to say we're exploiting our children. My daughter is up there dressing up, showing off and having fun," says Carolyn Johnson, whose 3-year-old daughter, Catarina, is a contestant. "These kids play dress-up at home. Why not on stage?"
But provocative contest photos showing Ramsey dressed like a Las Vegas showgirl and shown in other sultry poses have unsettled many parents and child psychologists. Some experts contend little girls are being oversexualized and not allowed to develop normally by participating in such pageants.
"It's as if they're put in a little time capsule and had 10 or 15 years added on," says Houston child psychologist Elizabeth Dybell. "It's not dress-up pretending to go to work like mommy does or vacuum the house like mommy does. It's a very sexualized, sensual model of someone who's trying to get attention."
Children's beauty pageants make up a large part of the multimillion dollar pageant industry. Hundreds of children's beauty pageants are staged each year throughout the nation. In Houston, there's at least one such pageant going on in the area almost every weekend.
Within the next month, such contests as Miss Holiday Doll, American Royalty Supreme Queen, Little Miss Texas Rodeo, Stars Over Texas Beginner Westernwear, and Little Miss Sunburst will take place in the Houston area.
Most of the local pageants have entry fees ranging from $20 to $150 and feature appearances at events like Mardi Gras in Galveston or the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for the winners.
Other pageants are the first step to competing on the state and national levels, where entry fees are higher ($300 or more) and prizes include hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars in savings bonds and cash.
In most pageants, the tiny contestants compete in three categories: sportswear, costume and party dress, often interpreted as evening gowns.
Rosenauer spent $85 for a pink satin party dress with matching bow for her infant's debut in the Little Miss Mardi Gras pageant. Other contestants in the 6-through-11 age group wear long, sequined gowns.
At the national level, costumes easily cost hundreds of dollars, says Pamela Garey, organizer of America's Sophisticated Miss and Mr. Beauty and Talent Extravaganza, to be held in Houston in March.
Her 5-year-old daughter, Sahara, has been competing in pageants since she was 8 months old. The child, who is the current Miss Southern Star National Beauty Queen, has won more than 200 pageants.
She has been so successful on the children's pageant scene that she no longer appears in local pageants like Little Miss Mardi Gras. Instead she concentrates on eight to 10 national pageants a year.
To prepare for these, Sahara regularly visits two pageant trainers in Alabama who work on her hair and makeup and go over her runway routines. A seamstress in Missouri sews her pageant outfits.
"It can be very expensive, but she's my only daughter. She's worth it," Garey says.
In fact, says Garey, her daughter has reached the level where pageant participation pays for itself. Last year, the child earned between $5,000 and $6,000 in cash and prizes, her mother says.
"She is one of the few minorities to compete," says Garey, who is African-American. "A lot of time, minorities think it's a waste of time and money. I don't. I think if you keep them busy when they're young, they don't have time to dwell on negative things."
Dressed in a lavender silk party dress and wearing an oversize crown, Sahara takes a walk down the runway during the Little Miss Mardi Gras pageant but, afterward, plops on the floor with a friend to play for most of the afternoon.
"She loves doing the pageants,"says Garey. "When she says no, I'll stay away."
Much of the nation believes that such "pageant moms" couldn't step away so easily. In a recent poll for the television show Dateline NBC, 62 percent of those questioned said parents benefit the most from children's beauty pageants. Only 3 percent of those polled said the children were benefiting the most.
Sylviane Sydney Kitchen, organizer of the Little Miss Mardi Gras pageant, maintains that all of the kids come away as winners. She points out that her pageant gives prizes and crowns to all contestants and that they make visits to senior citizens homes and other community events.
"You have a little girl, 2 or 3, where is she going to socialize? They bring toys and they play and they socialize and see each other. It's like a social event for these little kids," says Kitchen.
While Houston psychologist Carol Brady wouldn't recommend this path for her daughters, she says she has known some instances in which pageants have served as a family event, similar to participation in a stage play or drum and bugle corps.
She also questions the double standard that seems to apply to girls and not boys. "I wonder why we don't think it's so obnoxious when it's little boys looking like little athletes," she says.
Bunny Bennett, who has a daughter and two nieces participating in the Mardi Gras pageant, believes it teaches them poise, grace and how to be in the public eye.
"Those are things they can't learn in school," Bennett says. "Every one of them has a dream. They're not just little Barbie dolls we're trying to dress up."
Her daughter, Heather, age 10, says she hopes to compete in the Miss USA or Miss America pageants when she grows older. "I have a lot of fun," she says.
Houston child psychologist Joan Anderson, however, believes the children are just doing what their mothers want them to do. "I've been in practice for 25 years, and I've never seen a child say, `I really want to be in a beauty contest'," she says.
She adds it's not unusual for a child to be caught up in the hoopla when she has the full attention of a crowd, an adoring mom and beautiful costumes.
"If you put them in a candy store and say, `Go for it,' they're going to say, `This is great fun.' But it isn't in their best interests. They're too young to make a decision," says Anderson.
Child psychologist Dybell also worries that, by participating in such pageants at an early age, the child won't have an opportunity to experience such rites of passage as getting her first makeup set or wearing her first strapless ball gown at a normal time.
"You lose the opportunity to have that innocence," Dybell says. "A 5-year-old can't say, `Ten years down the road I won't have anything to look forward to'."
While several of the youngsters at the pageant say they aspire to be models, Page Parkes-Eveleth, owner of Page Parkes School of Modeling and Intermedia modeling agency, says she would never consider a 6-year-old in lipstick for a modeling career.
"Any mother who sent me a photo of her child with makeup and curled hair would be instantly sent a `no' letter," Parkes-Eveleth says. "Most girls who have been successful are tomboyish."
There are no tomboys on the stage of the Little Miss Mardi Gras Pageant. Even the toddlers wear some makeup, and some contestants look far older than their age.
Some contestants do act like kids, however. One 3-year-old seems bewildered by the attention and won't walk down the makeshift runway.
But a more practiced veteran of children's beauty pageants, introduced as Skye with no last name, evokes laughter when asked, "What did your mommy tell you not do?"The 4-year-old, who has won hundreds of pageant titles, replies, "Not to put my finger in my nose."
By the end of a long afternoon, many of the smaller children are asleep on their parents' shoulders as they await the contest results. Some children have to be roused to go up and claim their crowns.
On this day, the winners are those girls with the fanciest costumes and most makeup and who look the most like young adults. Several moms scrutinize the judges' scorecards like the racing form afterward to see where low marks came.
But at least one mother new to the scene, Barbara Rosenauer, is happy with the outcome, even though her 11-month-old daughter placed second in her age group.
"She'll turn 1 in a month, and then we'll see," says Rosenauer about her daughter's future in pageants. "At least she didn't cry."
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