The sad thing is that I know people who are actually involved in stuff like this. One of my employees got herself suckered into the Mrs. Wisconsin contest about 15 years ago. She was already Mrs. South Milwaukee. What a racket, and you should have seen the amount of money she spent competing.
A former business partner’s wife is deeply involved in the Jr. Miss and Miss Arkansas Teen pageants with 2 of her granddaughters. It’s a whole way of life. IMHO, a sick way of life, but it is not for me to judge.
Another employee got suckered into a most beautiful baby contest about 10 years ago where she had to buy very expensive portfolios of pictures of her 1 year old to get her “modeling” jobs. She played along for about 3 years and never got her kid a job, as far as I know.
The most that can be said in favor of this is that the young woman learns comfort in front of an audience which might help her in later life. But, I’d rather see a kid take tennis or piano lessons.
I helped judge a beauty contest once because a friend of mine asked me to help her out. NEVER, EVER AGAIN! Talk about dishonest, manipulative crap..I’Il vote for your pick if you will vote for mine...HELL NO, I didn’t play that game and never will. They don’t like or want judges who don’t play the game.
I can’t believe how expensive it is to participate in these pageants either. Those little girl’s parents spend thousands for those dresses, not just hundreds but thousands. And the pure torture they put those kids through is nothing but child abuse.
A child should actually enjoy being a child, not some dumbass parent’s trophy. Most of the mothers couldn’t win a ribbon at a 4H fair competing against the cows.