Filling That Big Ugly Hole Inside Of You

I watched an episode of something, I think it was called Toddlers in Tiaras. It showed a dad who was obsessed with making his TWO-year-old daughter a beauty queen.

Look here, Bub: your kid – and this may come as a shock to you – is a flipping KID. No kid should ever be entered into these competitions. Ever.

I understand some teenage girl looking for validation or maybe someone looking to prove they still have it or maybe even someone looking for scholarship money, but the difference here is that these people CHOOSE to enter the competition. Their mommies and daddies didn’t choose for them.

This behavior, I’m not even kidding, is absolutely revolting to me.

My daughter is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been more proud, and to me (I’m sure others feel the same way about their own kids) she’s the prettiest, smartest, most awesome little person out there. She’s God to me and I’d do anything to help her and benefit her and I will not hesitate to die for her. I know this with such a certainty that frankly, I think it’s shocking. I am completely willing to lay down my life for that of my daughter’s and there’s not even a question to it. Just pure instinct.

And I’d do anything to protect her too.

That’s my job as a father, you know. To protect my kid(s). When they’re six or seven and want to watch a scary movie, it’s my job to say no way, Jose. It’s my job to give a good once-over to any date that comes to the door and scare the hell out of him with various means to guarantee nothing happens to my little girl that would make me take a lifetime trip to jail.

Parading her in front of judges for some sort of validation on MY part is NOT in the job description. I’m not entirely satisfied with myself as a person – I don’t think anyone is – but the holes inside me will never be filled by having my daughter judged in anything.

Anything.

And to think that there are parents out there who do this literally sickens me. They should have their parent-cards taken away from them and their kids should be given to people who want to have kids that they love and that will be good parents to them.

Fake and bake tans should never be ANYWHERE near a kid. Fake nails should never be near them. I take that back. I remember being a kid and knowing girls who used those press-on nails but that’s a little different than getting a professional nail job done, right? Styling your kid’s hair is something that does come with the territory, but hair should never be dyed, it should never be painfully teased and manipulated to make it bigger, prettier, and more cute in the eyes of judges at the expense of your kid.

That’s the big thing here: I can’t shake the feeling that this is ALL at the flat-out EXPENSE of your kid. That’s the worst part.

If my sweet little girl comes up to me at, let’s say age twelve and says she wants to enter a beauty contest, she can. She asked and she can enter it BUT there will be no dieting and a lot of the rules will still apply here. I don’t want her changing herself to try to be more desirable to someone else.

EVER.

That’s the biggest flaw with these contests, I think. These girls are out there trying to impress someone else and as a result they’re changing themselves to some preconceived notion of how THEY think I want them to look. I’d much rather have a beauty contest with girls who just get dressed up like they’re going to dinner. I’ve never gone to the Olive Garden and seen a sparkle-dress with a huge V cut down the front or back of it with a train unless it was prom night.

I don’t like beauty contests in general (I don’t know if that was obvious or not) but it’s one thing to see adults entering their flipping kids into contests. Oooohhh, and then freaking out about results? Telling your kid they LOST when they got a trophy? Isn’t that going to be the most confusing thing you’ll ever have to explain? “Yes sweetie, angel of mine at the age of only two, they DID give you a trophy as big as you are but it’s a pity trophy. Because you sucked.”

Awful people.

And the BEST thing about it is it seems to be a community unto itself. I have NEVER met ANYONE who would think it’s cool to do anything like this.

So many people say it is NOT OK AT ALL to do this, that I kind of want to go to a contest and ask the parents of these kids just who dropped them on the head or what exact phrase DIDN’T Daddy say to them as a kid. Something had to have happened.

Disgusting.