Reality Show Robs ‘small kids of their childhood’

If you have any doubts that our world is seriously disturbed, just flip on the television for some reassurance. We are turning 16-year-olds into celebrities for having unprotected sex on 16 and Pregnant and, the recent spin off, Teen Mom. It’s as if families compete to see who can have the most children in order to make it on basic cable (How many kids and counting is it now?).

Reality shows often act at the expense of someone else’s experience as a means of escape for the viewer. As ridiculous as I find some reality shows, sometimes I can’t help but give in to the guilty pleasure of watching someone else’s problems at the end of a hard day instead of dealing with my own.

While watching TLC, the show Toddlers and Tiaras caught my attention for all the wrong reasons.
Girls as young as two paraded around a stage wearing a small amount of clothing and huge amount of make-up. Fake tans (and what must have been the entire contents of a bottle of hairspray) glimmered in the make-shift spotlights that filled a two-star hotel ballroom. The only sounds that echoed through the room were tacky show-tunes, children crying and insane mother’s cheering on the daughters that they were certainly living through vicariously.
It looked like someone was auctioning off mini hookers.
I watched in disgust as the television crew explored the lives of these families, the ones who devoted exorbitant amounts of time and money to their daughter’s “dream” of being a pageant queen.
The contestants’ days are filled with rehearsals for their dancing, gymnastics or whatever else their talent may be. They are sprayed to unnatural shades of bronze, their false lashes extended to great lengths and finally outfitted with something minimal and covered in sequins.
Many of the mothers commented on how much their daughters love it, how much they want the crown. But it’s hard to believe such statements when the child in question can’t even read yet, or throws a tantrum before getting on stage.
“As a person who has done pageants in the past,” said junior Alex Poirier, “I think it’s repulsive that parents are forcing their children to do something when they aren’t even old enough to make the choice for themselves.”
In the particular episode I watched, a mother dressed her daughter as Dolly Parton for a pageant—complete with fake boobs and a butt. Apparently there was “sentimental value” behind it because the mother wore the same dress when she did pageants. How quaint.
I thought that was bad until I did some further research and found an even more disturbing incident in which a young girl on Toddlers and Tiaras did an act dressed up as Julia Robert’s character from Pretty Woman. In case you forgot, her character was a hooker. And the child wasn’t dressed as the cleaned-up version. She was wearing black leather thigh-high boots and a skimpy dress.
This sparked a livid response from the Parents Television Council, who claimed “TV executives are complicit in robbing these small kids of their childhood.”
I can’t disagree. Last time I checked, four-year-olds were not supposed to be sexualized. Any incidents in which they are presented as a sex symbol usually involves someone going to prison, as it should be.
So why are mothers whoring up their toddlers for the sake of pageants that they might not even remember?
Kids are being exposed to sexual images at younger ages. Television and the Internet, even with parental controls and cautions, are bursting with sexual images and content that cannot be restrained.
The fact that some parents are encouraging to shorten their kid’s childhood is alarming—almost as alarming as the producers profiting from this display.

Children are already forced by society to grow up faster than ever intended. Shows like this should incite outrage rather than approval for the tendency to squander already limited innocence.

Recent segments of reality show "Toddlers and Tiaras" have been depicting children in ever increasing amounts of sexual maturity. While the parents are not troubled, viewers are. | Nathaniel St. Amour/The Minaret