1/26/2011 What Are They Thinking????

As a rule I’m not much of a TV watcher. A lot of the times its on if for no other reason than the noise it provides.

When I went to bed last night I turned the TV on and started channel surfing. I came to The Learning Channel (TLC) and stopped to watch this new show called My Strange Addiction. It should be called, I’m an Idiot, Somebody Shoot Me….NOW!

There was a woman on this show who eats furniture cushions. Actually the foam cushion itself. She can’t stop she says. Another eats laundry detergent. By the handful! Yet another eats toilet paper! Where do they find these people? Why would anyone go on national TV and tell the world they eat furniture cushions?

As if that show wasn’t bad enough the next one on was Toddlers and Tiaras which should be changed to My Kid is a Bigger Brat Than Yours. In real life I have never been to children’s beauty pageant. After watching this show its something I should never go to because those kids would learn a whole new language as I told their parents what jerks they are for doing this to these little girls.

These children are judged on beauty, their dress, their specialty dress and stage presence.

Of course the 6 to 12 months old are carried out by their moms and held up for all to see in their little party dresses and the announcer is giving the name and then says something about the child like, “LIttle Susie’s favorite pastime is sucking her thumb and her favorite food is smashed bananas.” Oh please.

Oh wait, it gets worse. when get old enough to walk on stage by themselves they turn into little terrors,,,thanks to mommy and daddy. I have never seen so many three year olds with so much makeup on that they look like little hookers. We’re talkin’ fake eyelashes, eye shadow up the wazoo, and hairdo’s that Dolly Parton would die for. Of course the hair is all extensions because no three year old has that much hair yet. One little four year old had her EYEBROWS WAXED earlier in the day. They are taken to the dentist to get flippers made. Its a set of teeth that fits over their own but of course they are perfect pearly whites. Their party dresses? BIG BUCKS! Hundreds of dollars per dress. They wear them ONCE!

As they walk the runway they have their music playing and they have these little routines that they do and of course the mom’s and sometimes the dad’s are in the audience leading them with very exaggerated movements. They look ridiculous. Some of the routines these little girls do can be viewed as provocative,,,thank heavens they don’t know what their doing.

I said earlier they were terrors. Oh. My. They rule the roost that’s for sure and all the parents admitted it. What the kid says, goes. One little girl was getting ready to go on stage and she wasn’t smiling the way the parents wanted her to. Her dad pulled out a hundred dollar bill for this five year old and told her that if she smiled pretty she would get it. Well, she got off that stage and marched over to her dad and said, “Gimme the money”.

There is big money in the pageant going. I had no idea. Clothing, make-up, coaches, travel, entry fees, props, hotels, meals out and the list goes on….thousands and thousands of dollars per year. I took notice most of the dad’s were in the dark about how much pageant going costs. And let’s not forget the spa days for the little girls. Oh yeah, one mom said her 4 year old’s spa treatments run about $500.00 per month. she gets manicures, pedicures, FACIALS, massages,,,,the works. Four years old. can someone tell me why a four year old needs a facial???? Or any spa treatment for that matter.

I feel they are doing these little kids a great disservice. These children are constantly told they are beautiful and so much attention is on getting the sashes and crowns. I saw one mom yell at her little girl because she her music stopped in the middle of the routine and she didn’t know what to do so she just stood there. She got an earful from mom about that!

So by the time this show was over I was so angry at what this whole thing stands for I couldn’t go to sleep.

The icing on the cake for me, the one thing that would have caused me to throw a shoe at the TV would have been………

ANNOUNCER: Here we have beautiful little Tiffany. Tiffany is three years old, her favorite color is yellow and she like to watch Sponge Bob Squarepants on TV. And little Tiffany wants world peace.

I hope I never come across this show again, its not good for my blood pressure.