This Horrifies Me

No. I'm not talking about wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Or drinking soy milk at the June Dairy Days parade in Wisconsin.

I'm flipping channels tonight while working and I landed on "Toddlers & Tiaras". It's a truly awful look at child beauty pageants. I'm horrified to see that these little girls use more makeup and beauty products in a pageant than I've used my entire adult life. I'm horrified that they try to dress them up like adult women and make them walk with a sway in their non-existent hips. I'm horrified that they've turned little girls who should be worried about tea parties and barbies and princesses into the next generation of neurotics, psychotics, and anorexics.

I saw a little girl cry because she got "Queen" instead of "Grand Supreme".

I saw a little girl cry because she wanted her hair "crimped" and they didn't have time.

I saw a little girl tell the camera man she was sure that she would win because she had blonde hair and blue eyes. I saw her mother say she didn't care if the other girls were going to be natural - her daughter was going to go "glitz."

I saw the reasons I'm glad I have sons . . . and while I've decided to keep them from dating until they are 40.

Thank heaven for little girls . . . and heaven help little girls whose mothers dress them and parade then around like anything but little girls.

Respectfully submitted,

The Wife