People Magazine Cover: Toddlers & Tiaras Has Gone “Too Far”
September 14, 2011 by Hollywoodite
Pretty much.
Anyone who’s been reading around this month, even if they don’t watch the show itself, probably has a fair idea of the ludicrous premise of Toddlers & Tiaras. Mothers with crushed dreams and no perspective force babies too small to resist to dress up and act out their failed childhood ambitions. Well, that’s it in a nutshell. When asked, the mothers insist that months to four-year-old babies are desperate to be dressed in short dresses, swimwear and make-up. Because who wouldn’t live in that as a toddler with a mother who has no boundaries.
This season has become worse, with one child dressing as a prostitute and another dressing in fake breasts and a padded butt in a Dolly Parton costume. Those mothers, of two different girls, claimed the clothing was harmless fun.
Well, the new season covers People. This is Paisley Dickey whose mother, Wendy Dickey, dressed her as the Julia Roberts hooker from Pretty Woman in two costumes… the before and after looking like a hooker. She wore little PVC booties and a mini skirt and everything.
For nearly three years, the hit TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras has captured the drama behind the scenes in the world of child beauty pageants. The tantrums were extreme, and the pre-show prep of spray tanning and eyebrow waxing seemed perhaps premature for little kids.
But in the last few weeks, as footage of 3- and 4-year-olds dressed in overly adult costumes (like Dolly Parton, complete with padded breasts, or Julia Roberts’s streetwalker from Pretty Woman hit the airwaves, viewers and pageant skeptics have been expressing horror at an industry that is now accused of “sexualizing” young girls.
“Little girls are supposed to play with dolls, not be dolls,” New York-based licensed clinical social worker Mark Sichel tells PEOPLE in its new issue, on newsstands now.
He adds that the extremes parents go to in order to prepare their children for competition – using padding, fake hair, flippers (faux teeth) and spray tans – “causes the children tremendous confusion, wondering why they are not okay without those things.”
Now devoted pageant moms are speaking out in their own defense. Wendy Dickey, who dressed her daughter Paisley, 3, as Julia Roberts, tells PEOPLE the look was “tasteful and funny.” Still, “If I knew there would be a reaction like this, I never would have used it,” Dickey says. “Next time, she’ll be dressed as an angel.”
And Juana Myers, whose daughter MaKenzie has been featured on Tiaras, says unfair scrutiny has been placed on the pageant industry. “If this were a sport, no one would question it,” she says. “This is her sport.” – via People.
IMAGE CREDIT – PEOPLE MAGAZINE
