Parents Pageants and Partiality

I went to a children’s beauty pageant this week. That’s because I had a beauty at the pageant - words spoken as a proud grandparent. 

I was happy to attend. However, I must go on record by saying that I’m not a fan of these things. There is an inherent cruelty that you just can’t hide.  

It was on full display when the winners in the kindergarten category were announced. It was kind of depressing because one girl garnered most of the awards, and the others stood and watched silently, sadly. I found it hard to watch. Two of the tiny contestants were in tears. Life is full of enough heartache - why start dumping it on them at the age of four?  

That said, I will be the first one to tell you I do not care for participation trophies, especially in team sports. The score is a measurable thing. You win or you lose. But in beauty pageants, there is lots of subjectivity. So, it could be that the girl with the nicest, most expensive dress and the nicest, most expensive hairdo is who wins the thing.

As the program progressed to the girls in their early teens, you could tell the difference between the contestants who are being pageant-groomed and the ones who are just happy to be wearing a pretty dress. But almost all of them had a canned, memorized statement, probably written by a parent who wanted to get things just right.  

They seemed like little robots dressed in chiffon - especially during the evening gown competition.  As each contestant was making their walk in front of the judges, the host recited a few personal tidbits about them, including where they went to relax. Predictably, the beach was a popular answer. However, some of them mentioned places like Cozumel, the Bahamas, and… Bora Bora. I thought, “Whata Whata?”  A few of these girls obviously grew up in a different zip code from me. When I was in the 6th grade, I couldn’t find the Bahamas on a map, and I thought that Cozumel was a car made by Pontiac. 

I was also baffled by the answers they gave when asked what they liked to do. Lots of reading, horseback riding, and family time. Not one of them said, “I like eating Ranch Flavored Doritos and playing on my iPad for sixteen hours a day.”

Maybe I’m just not used to seeing something like this. I suppose it’s a blessing that I had all boys. There were no beauty pageants for them, thank heavens. But if there was one, you can bet the questions and answers would’ve been markedly different. 

“So Steven, tell the audience what you enjoy doing.” 

“I like making fart noises under my arm, aggravating my little sister, and seeing how many days I can go without bathing until my mom smells me.”

Even if there were pageants for guys, none of my sons would’ve participated. They chose things that had a black and white outcome - a winner and a loser. Things like track, football, basketball, and scholars bowl. This is not to say there weren’t helicopter parents - there most certainly were. Any activity involving kids will have well-meaning parents who try to interfere. I think the correct term is favoritism. I even saw an assistant coach on my son’s high school football team blatantly practice it.   Unfortunately, my son was the victim.  

In as fine an example of nepotism as you will ever see this side of our state government, the coach chose his kid to start over mine.  Everyone with a pulse and pair of eyes knew my boy was a much better player. They could also see the why it happened.

Fortunately, some of the team leaders  went to the coach and told him in no uncertain terms that he was wrong, he wasn’t putting the team first, and he had better set things straight if he wanted to field a varsity football team. It was nice to see a problem solved without hostile parents. 

I suppose the ultimate example of a meddling parent is when one of them gets thrown out of a game for verbally abusing  coaches, kids, or the officials. I’ve seen that before.  Poor officiating  never bothered me much.  I always thought that if the refs were any better they wouldn’t be calling a ball game on Saturday morning in an elementary school gym. 

Fortunately, I’ve never heard of a mom or dad being tossed out of a beauty pageant.  

But I wouldn’t bet against it happening.