A Rant: Child Pagent Edition

This adorable picture got Miss Delaney 7th place in the Parents magazine photo search. (Which I chose not to dispute, even tho she was #3 every day until the end results) I know my kids are the cutest things around, but Ive been known to be biased. :)


I havent entered any more pictures to any contests since, but that doesnt mean I never will. While I am open to entering pictures of my children to verified contests, I would never enter them in any child beauty pagents.


I understand how hypocritical this is of me, and I understand that some parents put their children in pagents. I wont judge them for it. What bothers me are the crazy people it shows on shows like Toddlers In Tiaras that force their children to grow up and dress them up like college age girls heading to a club.


There were 2 stories in the news recently regarding controversy in child pagents. One involved a mother who used a butt enhancer and fake c-cup breasts on her 4 year old (Read the story here) and another mother who dressed her 3 year old as the prostitute Julia Roberts played in Pretty Woman (Read the story here).


Now... in a land where sex offenders roam and pedophiles search for kiddie pictures online every day, why are these parents offering their children as "bait"??


I know not all of you will agree with me, and thats fine. And I probably should have made this a HBT (Go back a few posts to learn more about HBTs), but I had to rant about this. And again, i may seem like a hypocrite after entering photos of my child in a contest, but we all know these 2 things arent the same at all.


In closing, I know Im not alone in what I think of these pagents. But what do YOU think?