Yes! A lot of pageants are about girls being spokespersons and role models, so a great deal of attention is focused on intelligence and verbal communication skills. These are skills that I polished during my pageants years that have helped me ace job interviews, and become a well rounded, confident woman.

From what I've seen, only the freakazoid moms who have no self-worth use their children to satisfy their sense of worth. Those moms need extensive counseling that probably wouldn't work anyway, they're so gone.

I don't care to speculate on individuals' reasons for choosing to participate in such activities. However, it's been my family's experience that long-term consideration be carefully weighed prior to making a decision.

Judges for my county's annual fair beauty pageant weren't shy in their recruitment, using the lure of a $1,000 college scholarship as a come-on. My family was approached several times at various public locations whenever traveling with our baby girl.

My husband and I discussed the matter a few times, but we never really had any intention of entering our daughter. Still, we were curious, so we studied the pageant's entry rules. We were aghast to learn how easy it would be for a potential contestant to be entered every year. Once a child's age disqualifies them from a younger bracket, they simply advance to the next higher one. Logic would seem to dictate that this could easily perpetuate an unhealthy pattern.

Pageant prizes, public adulation, and other fleeting benefits seem to overshadow some glaring realities. There are monetary costs involved in pageant participation which aren't limited to entry fees. Public exposure of one's children- not just beauty pageants- can draw unwanted attention and associated risks. Parental behaviors which overtly promote aesthetics above education, ethics, mastering practical life skills, and more, are a gross disservice to the child.

not as a contestant. Only if some other thing she was DOING (dance, vocal, theatre) was part of the entertainment. Even then the ewww factor would be hard to take, but hey, it is their life.

Depends on the pageant, the rules, and the parents. Some pageants and rules are ok. It's the parents that scare me. Some parents are NUTS when they get their kid involved. They even had that reality show where they followed the lives of families whose kids were involved in pageants. Some parents freak out if the kid eats a little ice cream because they think they will get fat immediately. I feel bad for the kid if they want to quit and their mother gets furious at them. That is ridiculous.