Spray tans and four year-olds do not usually go together. However, in the world of toddler pageants, they are nearly inseparable.
Toddlers and Tiaras, TLC’s show about the competitive toddler pageants, highlights the risky side of these baby beauty contests. By exposing young girls to judges of their perceived beauty, toddler pageants inspire a dangerous psychology in the mini-queens: a need to be perfect.
With shows like TLC’s, it is simply too easy to laugh at a precocious six-year-old beauty queen shrieking while her mom nearly shoves her into a fluffy, pink dress. Yet this behavior is not simply the attitude of a spoiled kindergartner, but rather a symptom of the pressure pageant participants face at a young age to be perfect-looking.
When a mom on the show pops her toddler daughter’s pimple or when a four year-old exclaims, “I’m like a dolly,” the toddler pageant queens reveal their infatuation with being doll-like and perfect in order to win.
ABC estimates that three million children from six months to 16 years old participate in pageants nationwide. These children spend hours preparing to look perfect for competition, giving them a skewed self-view.
In America, glorifying physical flawlessness can cause an obsession with perfection. When this obsession is forced upon preschoolers through makeup, doll-faces and airbrushed promo photos, it can cause results like those on Toddlers and Tiaras: angry toddlers and self-obsessed six year-olds.