The Most Disturbing Show on Television

fter spending the morning taking a practice GRE exam -- once again confirming that I am completely math-stupid -- I decided to relax for a few moments by watching TV.  I still don't fully know what channels I have here in Canada so I had to flip through the channels to see what was on.  I stumbled upon a show I had heard about but had avoided --- Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC.  Out of morbid curiosity -- perhaps looking for the furthest thing from the GRE -- I tuned in.

Good Heavens.  What awaited me was perhaps the most disturbing show on television -- more than Dirtiest Jobs or Keeping up with the Kardashians, far more than Shark Week or Man vs. Wild, more upsetting than Celebrity Rehab or a Blue Collar Comedy Special -- Toddlers and Tiaras shocked and scarred me. 

The little girls stood in as personifications of their parents' neurosis.  Mothers attempts at living through their small children -- as they paraded them on stage with elaborate hair and makeup; fake smiles and copious amounts of glitter and taffeta.  When the children would have missteps -- forget their lines -- get fussy -- or, heaven forbid, act like children, the mothers would scream, shame and manipulate the girls into participating.  I only watched the last 10 minutes of the show -- and that was more than enough to get a good sense of the senseless and harmful nature of the pageants.  Each little girl became a JonBenet Ramsay from my perspective.  The sexual nature of the young performer's "talent" routines was offensive and inappropriate.  I watched in horror as one little seven year-old excitedly noted that she watched the male judge's eyes and smiles as he watched her routine -- revealing that she had been coached, in particular, to play up the sexuality for the male judges.  It was almost as offensive as the dance routine I saw once when I was teaching high school -- ten eight year-old girls from a neighborhood dance studio doing a performance to "Oops I did it Again" which included tearing off their dresses to reveal mini-skirts along with pelvic gyrations and rehearsed "come hither" looks.  I'm all for sexual liberation -- but, please -- at seven?!

Now, one of my not-so-well-kept secrets is that I was a judge for the Miss Utah Pageant.  Yes, it's true -- laugh if you want, mock, if you must -- but it is a much different jar of vaseline than these mini pageants.  While Miss Utah and Miss America pageants do serve to objectify women, the participants are not under the age of 10.  They have more agency -- more understanding of the consequences of their actions.  They go into the pageant with eyes wide open -- or at least there is a much greater chance of that being the case.  These little girls, though, were purely puppets of their parents.  Fulfilling dreams of their mothers -- transforming into elaborate cabbage patch dolls and poodles at a dog show.  After my ten minutes of horror, I am almost to the point of saying that it constitutes child abuse.

It's hard enough in our society -- in this day and age -- for kids to be kids.  Why would we rob them of the chance to be kids?  Is there no way to institute morality police -- big brother -- secret spies -- something to police parenting?  Okay, so maybe that is extreme, and maybe parents do the best they can amid the myriad defenses and life struggles.  Perhaps my anger and vitriol should be aimed instead at the pageant promoters and organizers.  Who are these people and in what realm can they possibly feel that it is a good idea?  Let's stick with spelling bees and pinewood derbies if we must have intense, potentially abusive competitions in childhood.  Let's leave the adult messiness to the adults.