Pageant Girl

Okay, this is just tweaky. It's just strange to me that parents would doll their kids up, put them out there and let them be judged by their looks, talent and charisma. Now don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm not talking the teenage/and up pageants, I'm talking about the little kid ones. Today I did a shoot for the Miss Jr Washington. She is 10 years old. My youngest client yet. She was an ABSOLUTE delight to work with. I've never met anyone so young and so sincerely sweet and charming. You can tell that so far, she is untainted by all that goes on around her. And her mother was very nice too, adamant against too much makeup or "doing her up" too much. I appreciate that. I truly believe a child can be so incredibly beautiful with just their naturalness about them. It's just the THOUGHT of what these children are thrown into at such a young age that repells me. Now I'm sure that there are many of you that might be angry at me for saying so, or feeling that you have to defend the idea of pageants. I am not trying to slap you in the face, or the parents of the girls in these pageants. I'm just putting out MY feelings on the subject, and having never been in a pageant or anyone in my family, I have no idea all that goes on with it. I know its scholarship program, and that is all well and good! I just get weirded out by the psychological effects that will inevitably be introduced to this girls at such an impressionable age.

Such as the sweet little girl I had today....she looked at herself in the mirror after I had done some light beauty makeup for her, and her eyes shone and said "I look SO much better with makeup on!" I impressed on her that she was even more beautiful without it, and that what she was seeing was only that the makeup was defining her naturally pretty eyes, lips and cheeks so that the camera would be better able to capture them. I said our eyes are like the camera eye but so much better, because we can see all the aspects of you inside and out that make you beautiful. She was quiet for a while and thought about that. And as I was leaning over in front of her to comb the hair from her face, she leaned forward and hugged me with her little arms and said, "I'm so happy that you were able to come and get me ready today." If I can protect one little girl from feeling insecure about herself because of what society tells us, then I feel I've been able to do something truly important today.