Toddlers and Tiaras

If you have been watching any television recently or been on the internet at all, chances are you have seen this image of a little 3 year old girl dressed up as Julia Roberts' prostitute character in Pretty Woman.  It has caused quite the controversy and you can imagine why.  

Beauty pageants have been around for quite some time but recently our obsession with reality t.v. has launched young girls like the one above who participate in toddler pageants, into stardom- all thanks to a show called Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC. 

Now I'm the first to admit that I used to watch the show.  It came out a few seasons ago I believe, and I was intrigued at first. I think I got through a few episodes until I started feeling so bad for these poor little girls that I was turned off by the show and stopped watching it.  The parents on the show clearly have some serious psychological issues going on and the torment these young girls endure was too much for me to watch. 

Yet people continue watching the show and TLC continues to profit off of the seeming exploitation of these toddlers.  

I don't think I need to get into the reasoning behind it, after all reality television programming has skyrocketed in popularity in the last few years and if anything, most people seem to enjoy watching on as reality stars' lives plummet into the ground.  Like a gory car accident we can't help but stare and criticize.  I have no problem with most reality shows that give us a glimpse into the lives of deranged adults, like Jersey Shore for example.  But the real problem for me is that the main characters of Toddlers and Tiaras are children, hardly more than babies.  These children have no choice but to participate in the pageants (despite what the parents may claim) and their further involvement in a grotesque reality television show is obviously not their choice either. 

Now many opponents of the show are quick to shout "CHILD ABUSE" and demand that the parents of these children be put in jail as a simple solution to the problem, but as an attorney I really have a problem with that too. 

People seem to not understand that enrolling your child in a beauty pageant really does not (usually) equal child abuse.  

For fun, let's explore what child abuse really is. The information below is gathered directly from The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's website here. 

First of all like anything else in this country you have to make a distinction between the federal and state level. 

At the federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) defines child abuse and neglect as:  

Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm. 

The CAPTA definition of sexual abuse includes: 

The employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of any child to engage in, or assist any other person to engage in, any sexually explicit conduct or simulation of such conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct; or The rape, and in cases of caretaker or interfamilial
relationships, statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children

Then from there most states make the distinctions between the different types of abuse like:

• physical abuse
• neglect
• sexual abuse/exploitation
• emotional abuse
• parental substance abuse
• abandonment

So basically, in order to figure out if a type of behavior is categorized as a crime you should look to your particular state's statutes.  The definitions of physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and exploitation, emotional abuse and abandonment for Illinois can be found here. 

1. Physical abuse:

-If you read through them it's pretty clear that physical abuse is probably not being committed by merely entering your toddler in one of these glitz pageants (despite the tanning and waxing that goes on).  What goes on behind closed doors and is not caught on film is another issue.

2. Neglect:

-The standards for neglect are fairly high too, requiring the child to be denied basic food, clothing and shelter. Unless these little girls are being starved on camera this seems hard to prove too.

3. Sexual abuse or exploitation:

-While it may seem to many that these girls are being exploited (and in fact I even used the term loosely in this blog), you have to basically be allowing some kind of sex offense to be committed against the child.  Here I think it's important to note the difference between the apparent over-sexualization of a child and an actual sex act being committed upon that child.  

4. Emotional abuse:

-Finally it seems that some of the behavior of these parents might actually fit into the offense of emotional abuse: which includes impairment or substantial risk of impairment to the child’s emotional health.  

5. Abandonment:

-probably N/A here.

So after all that research it appears the parents might be abusing their children emotionally, but of course there has to be enough probable cause to show that these children are suffering severe emotional abuse at the hands of their parents in order to charge the parents, then it has to be proven that a crime occurred.  

So instead of participating in the popularization of these type of shows that most people can agree are probably harming at least the emotions of young children, I urge you to change the channel and NOT watch these type of shows.  Instead participate in discussions about why these shows are detrimental to young children and spread the word!