Perspective: Do kiddie pageants border on child abuse?

[shill]

And what about those piano recitals? Making those kids practice the piano for hours on end and dressing them up in suits and formal dresses and making them perform in front of a strange audience.

And what about the Olsen twin's parents exploiting them on TV when the were just kids?
Look what happened to them, poor things are multimillionaires and have their own company and product lines and just keep raking in money.
Oh the humanity!

[Kerry from Maine]

I think it's awful that parents are exploiting their children in this manner. Come on, these little girls know nothing of pageants and if they do it's because they've heard their parents talk of them. Stop saying your little girls want this, they don't. I've watched a few episodes and these little girls are tired, cranky and just want to play like little girls their own age. You moms have your daughters on stage carrying on like strippers and the likes. If you only knew what you are doing to your little girls. The pedophiles that watch these pageants and are doing disturbing things while watching your babies strut across a stage and gyrate their innocent little bodies all in the name of a pageant that you want. When will it end, will it take one of these little girls to be brutally killed before you stop. I have a daughter and is nearly 17 and would never have dreamed of exploiting her in this manner. You moms are creating monsters so to speak, they're going to grow up thinking life is all about competition and beauty. There is more to life than that. These girls if they continue this path will end up with eating disorders, depression and more. Moms think of your daughters needs before your own. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

[candy]

Like millions of other Americans, I was thoroughly depressed seeing the train wreck that was the Premire episode tonight of Jon & Kate plus 8. Why I put this here is, what's Kate going to do if she can't patch up her shattered marriage? What kiddie pageants were to the 90's and 2000's pimp mamas like Kate and OctoMom are now exploiting their litter of kids for profit. Kate has no intention of going back to being a nurse to raise her eight kids. That's not why she's redone her image, to a sleeker look. She wants a talk show, and other things to keep exploiting her kids for her own profit. I predict Kate will FAIL in an attempt to have a Kate plus 8 show, and will then resort to pimping out her oldest twins, Maddy and Cara, as the next Olsen twins. That will fail too, as neither one are talented, and Maddy is already a seriously disturbed child. What a mess this whole situation is, and the fallout will be happening for decades from THIS DEBACLE.