Toddlers in Tiaras - Are These Parents For Real?

Thanks to the seemly endless amount of of snow days we've had so far this year, Lena has become best friends with our Netflix account. Usually I'm an advocate for limiting the amount of TV intake the kids are allowed. I'm one of those mean mom's that force their children to go out and play instead of sitting in the house rotting their brains away with hour after hour of electronic entertainment.

High five if you catch my reference!

However, the temperature has refused to budge above zero almost the entire freaking month for the last 4 days. There is no where to go and I don't have enough indoor activities up my sleeve to keep anyone entertained for the 64 waking hours of subzero temperatures we've just endured. So... I gave up... The brain melting-inator was all hers!

When I came home Monday evening though, Lena wasn't feeling her very best (despite not being allowed out in the frigged tundra) and all she wanted was to cuddle up with mommy and watch Netflix. Seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me... What I didn't know is that while I was away at work, she'd stumbled upon Toddlers in Tiaras and that I was about to be subjected to it for the reminder of my evening.

I have never watched an episode of this show prior to this and now I know exactly why. Those parents are absolutely nuts! While the princess phase is long gone in our household, I was certainly never opposed to letting Lena prance around in fluffy dresses under and atomic cloud of glitter. It made her happy and that's all that mattered to me.

But these parents have taken it to a whole other level! Personally speaking, I think pageants are just a little too much. Our daughters will already have to suffer through years of feeling bad about the way they look once they hit middle school anyway. So why in the hell are these parents putting their kids through that before they're even able to walk? It seems to me that they're setting them up for potentially a lifetime of low self-esteem and that's something that no girl needs help with!

I watched in absolute horror as one mom said that she takes her 6 year old spray tanning to help cover up "her imperfections." Excuse me, she's 6 years old! What imperfections could a little girl that age possibly have?

I wanted to reach through the screen when Pageant Dad said he needed to go talk to his toddler because she didn't do her best today. Seriously? When my kid was 2, I thanked my lucky stars when I made it passed the candy in the grocery store without a meltdown and you're disappointed because she didn't blow kisses at the judges??? If you ask me, someone has their priorities way out of whack!

I also have to mention that in this particular episode, the moms were also competing against their daughters. Evidently it wasn't bad enough to be teaching these children that their worth is in their looks, they felt the need to add in fiercely competitive adult women and have them face off their kids for whose prettier. I know that sick and twisted helps create better drama (I watch American Horror Story after all) but I don't think it should ever be at the expense of kids. Not now, not ever.

Miss Spray Tan My Imperfect 6 Year Old at least handled that part with some amount of grace, while another mom actually bet her 9 year old that she would do better. She told her daughter that if she scored higher then the daughter was going to have to make her bed for a week. Her logic behind this... because it makes her do a better job in the pageant!

I don't ever claim to be a perfect mom. In fact, I'm very far from it. You can find evidence of just a couple of my many parenting failure moments here and here if you're interested. But I truly feel these parents should have been / or should sterilized. There is no way they should be allowed to reproduce ever again and have the opportunity to torture their kids with makeup, fake nails, false eyelashes, hair extensions, and spray tanning just so they can capitalize financially on their child's looks.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box now... Please feel free to share your thoughts too.