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So I have been lucky enough to been given the week off, and as everyone knows, an extended stay at home during the day leads to bad TV. And TLC has been helping me fill this daytime gap with the most mindless television one could hope for.
Today, I have watched an embarrassing amount of Toddlers and Tiaras (I know, it’s awful. But every time I try to change the channel, something else on the show piques my interest and I’m sucked back in). I know that we have discussed this show before on ZL, but in watching the show today, I was thinking about the parenting skills highlighted by the show, and I thought it may be interesting to discuss that further.
I had never watched Toddlers and Tiaras prior to today. It’s one of those shows I have avoided in hopes the subjects would just go away without my contribution to ratings – sort of like how I am …
… convinced Sarah Palin will finally disappear if I don’t watch her show. I knew Toddlers and Tiaras would have some awful, shocking moments- like the kids getting spray tans, putting in fake teeth, and drinking RedBull (holy shit, a 6 year old kid was drinking multiple cans of RedBull. I cry inside for her). But it was the depiction of the parents which was most interesting. Because the faults exhibited by the pageant parents don’t seem all that different from the bad habits picked up by other parents; they are just put on display in the pageant process.
One of the overriding themes among the parents is competition. These parents are in it to win it, and I don’t think this attitude is exclusive to parents who are placing their children in competitions. From my experience, most parents, in some way or another, think their child is special and different. I don’t particularly think there is anything wrong with this view. There is something to be said for believing in the potential of your child; I think it’s important that children grow up to hold on to the idea that they can do anything (as long as they are willing to work for it). But I think the difficulties arise when the ‘specialness’ becomes about being more special than someone else. And outside of pageants, I see this all the time. My baby weighs more than most babies; my children learned to walk/talk/poop in a toilet before most babies; my child is at the top of their class. I think it can become problematic when value is based on a comparison scale, and this is exactly what is emphasised in the pageant atmosphere. Is it not enough that some of this kids are charming and adorable unless they are more charming and adorable than someone else? I understand the value of competition in enabling one to become a better self, but that doesn’t mean value doesn’t exist without some sort of defeat over another. And this what what these kids will walk away with, the idea that to be good at something, you must be better than someone else. I am very interested to see what sort of adults these kids to grow up to be, and how they have developed their own values.
Another one of the interesting behaviours to watch on the show is how the parents deal with their children misbehaving. There is a lot of bratty behaviour on the show, but I don’t think one should be so naive as to think this is exclusive to the show or to the ability of the parents. Sometimes, kids are brats, and that doesn’t make them bad kids. I completely understand that all children can get cranky, scream, and throw tantrums sometimes. I don’t necessarily think that is always a reflection on the parents. But where the actual parenting becomes apparent is how these parents deal with the tantrums. Some of them are completely passive: “Well, it’s just easier to let her scream, so we let her do what she wants,” and others are very aggressive and will grab their children or yell at them. I feel uncomfortable watching both reactions. I know how it feels to be walking down the grocery aisle holding the hand of a toddler screaming in a manner which might make others think they had just had a knife shoved in between their shoulder blades. It is all kinds of embarrassing, and the immediate thought is to do anything and everything to get them to stop. But from my experience, and what I am sure others could elaborate on, screaming at a child, or giving in to their every whim isn’t very effective at stopping a tantrum. So I feel bad for these parents because I know they are trying to do what they believe will make their children behave, but I also cringe at the extremity of their reactions. Again, these behaviours are not exclusive to pageant parents, but they are just exasperated by putting the children on display.
Although there is a great deal of what many would label poor parenting going on in the show (for example, right now some woman is throwing a fit because her son won ‘best personality’ instead of ‘best dressed.’ After all, she made her son’s outfits and she ALWAYS wins best dressed. And when she says she always wins, she means her son of course), I think a lot of it may be indicative of common parenting practices. I am certainly not in a position to declare best parenting practices (and I’d argue that not many people are in such a position), but I think it is worth analysing the causes and effects behind specific behaviours, in particular how they play out in specific environments.
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tl;dr. God, you people. Unless it’s Sarah don’t write more than six sentences. You all suck. Just give us a reason to have a discussion among ourselves.
I have watched a few episodes of this show, enough to notice that most of the parents are living vicariously through their children. It’s obvious that their children not winning is somehow an affront to them personally, which I think can have some harmful effects for the kid – because the kid feels guilty for not making the parent happy, and might keep doing the pageant thing long past the point of being interested in it, just because the kid realizes that this is the best way to get one-on-one attention. When I think back to what I did as a kid; soccer, and dance recitals, yes there was some competition but my parents didn’t really give a crap if I was in the first row, or if my team won or whatever. They were just happy to see me having fun and be involved in what I was doing. Over competitive parents seem to miss the forest for the trees when it comes to this, and I definitely saw it in some of my peers. They were embarrassed by their parent, or turned into insufferable brats who argued with the refs (with dad egging them on from the sidelines). I mean there’s nothing wrong with pushing your kid if he/she really loves what they’re doing and has natural talent, but there is a line and a lot of people don’t seem to realize where that is. Taking anything to an extreme is never good, and watching this TV show and all the money and time and weird sacrifices made, I just think it’s nuts. Spray tanning and $3,000 outfits for a three year old? Yikes.
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