Hello, I have returned! I made a post a few months back talking about all the cool/positive things I learned while competing in beauty pageants as a child, so I HEAVILY recommend you check that out before/after reading this! At the end of that post, I said I'd make another post about the negatives... so here we are.
As I mentioned, the worst thing about pageants were the pageant moms. To illustrate this, I have two stories for you. When I was five, I was sitting backstage with a girl in my division (so we were competing against each other). We had become fast friends, as five year olds tend to do, and we were discussing who might win. At one point, I said 'Maybe you or me will win!'. The little girl responded with, 'my Mommy says you're too fat to win.' I was a little sad, so I didn't respond. When I got back to my own Mother after the pageant, she saw my expression and asked what was wrong. Once I relayed the other girl's comment, my mother marched over to her mother and some VERY adult words were exchanged.
The other instance was when I was nine, at my very first national pageant. This was a pretty big deal, and I was up against 94 other little girls from all across America. Coincidentally, I happened to be in line next to the girl who ended up winning- We'll call her Felicity. So Felicity was REALLY sweet, but her mom was pretty harsh. at one point, when my mom asked Felicity an innocent question about what she was learning about in class, her mother cut her off and answered for her. After she won, my mother spoke with Felicity's aunt and realized her mother had lied about her age to get her into a younger division, 'so she would have a better shot at winning the title'. Basically, Felicity was a 11 year old competing against 6-9 year olds. Both of these incidents were at fault of the girl's own mothers, obviously. While you will certainly meet parents who are strict and harsh on their children, pageantry tends to attract mothers who want to live vicariously through their daughters. Coaching them on what to say, how to sit, how to model, and what they want to be when they grow up. That last one was really common- I constantly had girls tell me that they wanted to be a veterinarian when they grew up, but their moms told them to 'pick something interesting so they could stand out more', because 'every little girl wants to be a veterinarian'.
But if I was just talking about the bizarre parents in this industry, we'd be here all day, so I'll move on to something else I find important to mention. the word 'beauty' in beauty pageants. See, most pageants have moved away from the terms 'beauty pageant' or 'beauty contest', because these organizations want to reassure to the parents spending money on their system that they don't judge the girls on their looks. However... I don't think this is necessarily true for all organizations. Whenever my mom would hear from a new organization she could possibly enroll me in, she would look up their website and scroll to photos of previous winners. She would do this to make sure that there was diversity amongst their winners, because, in her words, 'I'd never want to give money to an organization where they give the crown to a skinny, white, blonde-haired blue-eyed girl every year.' and there are organizations that do that to this day, which sucks. I'm forever thankful that I have a mother who knew when an organization was not being honest on what was being judged. Pageants for teens and young women have an even WORSE issue with this, with the main offenses being lookism, colorism, and fatphobia. Again, I could make a whole seperate post about this in particular and my experiences in pageantry for young women, but I digress.
This final issue is likely the most well-known issue surrounding pageantry- money. This shit is expensive. like, really expensive. For example, attending your state's NAM (National American Miss) pageant, which is one of the biggest natural pageants for kids at the moment, costs around $1,500-$2,000. If you make it to nationals, it'd be another $5,000 to $7,000. Keep in mind- State competitions are usually held over a weekend, and the national is held for one week. This makes pageantry entirely inaccessible to those who cannot afford to drop up to thousands of dollars for one weekend of their child's life, not to mention the expenses going unaccounted for- commute, wardrobe, food, hair & makeup artists, and more. I was fortunate that, growing up, my mom never told us the cost of these things, and let us focus on having fun and enjoying the experience of the pageant. But I feel for all the little girls who always wanted to compete, but never got the opportunity to because of the cost.
Once again I ask, why say all of these things? I don't mean to dissuade people from competing in, or letting their children compete in pageants- overall, it was a really positive experience for me. But I also know that there are many issues with the industry as it is today, and that many other people who speak about pageantry online had a very unpleasant experience due to many different factors. As a social and outgoing child, I loved to sing and dance and talk to strangers, making pageants an amazing outlet for me- but not all kids are like that. If the child isn't enjoying the experience, they should never be forced to continue to compete.
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Author's Note- WOWZA bit of a harsh ending there huh. ANYWAYS like I said please go check out my other post if you haven't already! idk if I'll make another pageant post, tbh I'm considering talking about Miss America.... we'll see... (≖⩊≖)
as always, thx so much for reading!! cu next time lovelies (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
-C1oudvoyager
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