Cinderella Ate My Daughter

by Peggy Orenstein

  “Never mind, Mama,” she sobbed. “I don’t need it.” Then I started to cry, too, and bought her the damned Barbie.

  No wonder my kid is confused. So am I.

  By noon, the four- to six-year-old competition was over, and crowning would not begin until eight that evening. Taralyn, still full of energy, continued to perform her routines in a corner, just for her own pleasure, then, obligingly, several more times for the TV crews who descended on her. “I haven’t seen this many reporters outside of some kind of presidential press conference,” Traci joked.

  It was true: there were moments that day when it seemed as though there were more press than contestants. And the cameras all focused on Taralyn and Eden, though they were far from the only girls here. I wandered over to where Jamara Burmeister, age seven, was preparing for her first statewide contest, in the six- to seven-year-old division. Jamara was the only girl under eleven dressed in a floor-length gown: its full, Cinderella-style skirt was rose and white, decorated with bows and accessorized with elbow-length gloves and a strand of pearls. Her hair was swept up, a few tendrils escaping. She looked comparatively dignified, more like a flower girl than a high-glitz competitor. Which meant, essentially, that she was doomed.

  “We didn’t know,” explained Jamara’s mother, Tammi. “We’d never done this before.”

  Their only pageant experience was back home in south Texas, where contestants were more natural and, unlike in Universal pageants, were evaluated in part by how they handled interview questions both onstage and in unrehearsed private meetings with the judges.

  It was Jamara’s father who had originally pushed to put her into pageants, after seeing an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras. “He saw those girls and thought, ‘Jamara could do that,’ ” Tammi said. “Because she’s, well . . .” She paused and smiled. “Every parent thinks their child is beautiful. But Jamara has got ‘it,’ you know?” Jamara entered her town pageant earlier this year and won handily. “She was so enthusiastic,” Tammi said, “we decided to try this. It’s her thing, and we’re going to run with it.”

  Pageant families come from all walks of life. There are those, like the parents of JonBenét Ramsey, who are white and affluent, who spend thousands of dollars on dance classes, voice coaches, gowns, wigs, head shots. Eden Wood’s mother, Mickie, said she has spent about $70,000 on her daughter’s pageant career. Most of the folks competing in Austin, though, were of more modest means. Jamara, who like many contestants was Latina, raised money for her gown and entry fees by going door-to-door among the businesses in her small town asking for sponsorship. As Tammi adjusted the girl’s skirt and fussed with her hair, she told me that she and her husband could not afford the competition on their own. They run an answering service and, last year, in addition to their own five children, took in three more, those of an employee with a drug problem, to keep them out of the foster care system. “We prayed about it a lot,” she said of that decision. “It was the right thing to do.”

  Again I found myself looking at a pageant mom through a different, more compassionate lens. As with Traci, there was something else going on here. It seemed that, for a variety of reasons—a disabled child, the hope of upward mobility, an escape route from small-town life—these little girls had become the repository of their family’s ambitions. That made a certain kind of sense. Historically, girls’ bodies have often embodied families’ upwardly mobile dreams: flawless complexions, straight teeth, narrow waists—all have served as symbols of parental aspirations.

  A few days ago, I might have been appalled to see a seven-year-old decked out like Jamara, but after six hours of immersion in the world of pageants, my standards had begun to shift. I was starting to see the girls as their parents did—as engaging in a little healthy fun, merely playing an elaborate version of dress-up. Yet even pageants had not always promoted the Lolita look. Back in the 1960s, when children’s competitions began, all a contestant needed to enter was a party frock, a pair of Mary Janes, and a satin hair bow. The rest was introduced over time, as prize money escalated, competition intensified, and both contestants and pageants needed to distinguish themselves. “I thought it was bizarre, too, when we started,” Traci Eschberger had told me. “I didn’t think I’d ever do it. I do think all that makeup makes them look older. But we wash it off as soon as the pageant ends. As long as she’s having fun and it’s not hurting her.”

  Maybe that’s what happens to us in the “real” world, too. Our tolerance for hypersexualization rises without our realizing it. Moxie Girlz seem subdued after our exposure to Bratz. We get used to seeing twelve-year-olds in lip gloss, low-slung jeans, and crop tops that say BAD GIRL, and soon the same outfit seems unremarkable on an eight-year-old. A woman who did not get her first manicure until she was twenty-five finds herself throwing a “primping” birthday party for her seven-year-old at a nail salon in Brooklyn. Parents in San Francisco send kids whose ages are still in the single digits to a spa summer camp where they “de-stress” by creating their own makeup and moisturizer (as if third-graders are in danger of developing wrinkles?). It is easy to become impervious to shock, to adjust to each new normal. Also, as mentioned earlier, even brief exposure to stereotypes—in advertisements, television shows, and the like—unconsciously increases women’s and girls’ acceptance of them. At one point, looking around the ballroom, I actually caught myself thinking, Hell, my daughter could do this, too.

  By nine that night, an hour into the crowning ceremony, the girls were exhausted. One four-year-old lay splayed across three chairs, arms akimbo, asleep, still wearing her cupcake gown, snoring sweetly, small bubbles of spit gathering at the corner of her mouth. The rest of the girls had become a blur of sequins, fake tans, and big hair. I could hardly tell one from another. According to Miss Annette, Taralyn and Eden were in a dead heat for the top prize. “The judges are looking at personality,” she said. “They’re looking at facial beauty. They’re looking at expressions, the overall appearance of the dress, the modeling ability. So it’s a very, very hard competition, very stressful.”

  When the lesser awards for the four- and five-year-olds were announced, Taralyn cleaned up, winning trophies for most beautiful, most photogenic, best swimsuit, and best personality. But it was Eden who took the division crown. I assumed that was a loss, but Traci’s smile as she clapped for her daughter’s rival looked too real. She explained that if you win the division, which carries no cash prize, you’re done: out of the running for everything else. So this result was actually a good thing, what they wanted.

  Jamara, meanwhile, did not win a single trophy in her division. Her parents didn’t know that should give them hope for the bigger prizes until I told them. A few minutes later, she took the crown for Little Miss Sweetheart. No cash came with the title, but she and her family seemed pleased. “I don’t feel bad that she didn’t win something bigger,” said her father, Jason, who had dressed in a suit and tie for the occasion. “I don’t want her to alter herself like these other girls. I just want her to feel comfortable with her looks and feel good about her natural beauty. That’s what’s important to us.”

  “This was definitely out of our league,” added Tammi, Jamara’s mother. “It’s not what we’re used to. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to buy one of those tutus. But we’re just starting out. It was a learning experience. Next time we’ll know. And we’ll be back.”

  Across the room, Taralyn sat on the floor near her mother, surrounded by her trophies. She had dumped out the contents of her goodie bag and was busily gobbling up the candy and twisting the Play-Doh into pretend rings and bracelets. She did not much seem to care about what was happening onstage, though when the Grand Talent winner was about to be announced she squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth in anticipation. When the name called was not hers, she relaxed. “Yes!” she said happily, then went back to playing. She was still in it.

  Finally, all the sets of “ice crystal rhinestone” crowns, gilt trophies, and monogrammed sashes
had been handed out except one, as had all the smaller cash prizes for the “Mini Supremes.” Miss Annette milked the final, suspenseful moment like a pro. “And the winner of the Universal Royalty Texas State Pageant Overall Grand Supreme and a two-thousand-dollar cash prize is . . .” She waved the money, twenty crisp hundred-dollar bills which, as is typical in pageants, had been spread out and stapled into a double-decker fan. “Miss . . .” Another wave of the cash. “TARALYN ESCHBERGER!!!” Taralyn let out a war whoop as Todd hoisted her aloft and Traci leapt to her feet, clapping wildly. The girl ran to the stage, accepted the fan of money, then displayed it to the crowd, remembering first to place her feet in perfect third position and paste her best beauty queen smile on her face. TV cameras rolled and flashbulbs popped: in child pageants, the money shot is the money shot.

  The evening’s other winners joined Taralyn onstage for a photo session. Partway through, she stifled a yawn—it was nearly ten o’clock, long past her bedtime—but before anyone noticed, she put that trouper smile right back on, pulled back her shoulders, and . . . sparkled.

  Maybe someday Taralyn will wash off her pageant mask forever, rebel against it. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she will even put her own child into pageants, either because she loved the experience or because she is trying to recapture the attention and adoration she received on nights like this. Maybe the affirmation of her beauty will indeed build her confidence—given how important girls, all girls, learn beauty is, why wouldn’t it?—or maybe being judged as if she were an object will eventually undermine it. Maybe one day Taralyn will come to believe she is loved only for her beauty, loved only if she can stay beautiful—thin and unblemished, with the right breasts and teeth—if she can be perfect, if she does not let her parents down. One prominent former child beauty queen, nineteen-year-old Brooke Breedwell, who at age five was featured in the BBC documentary “Painted Babies,” has attributed her poise as an adult to her pageant experience. She has also said that pageants damaged her relationship with her mother and instilled a crippling need to be perfect at anything she tries. Who knows whether the same will be true for Taralyn?

  As the stagehands struck the set, they offered bouquets of helium balloons to the children who were straggling out. Taralyn was ecstatic with hers. She was only five, after all. Two thousand dollars meant nothing to her, but twenty balloons—now, that was a prize. “I could have just gone down to the party store and saved a lot of money,” her father, Todd, said to me, and smiled.

  We both watched as Taralyn zoomed across the room with her balloons, laughing. Just like an ordinary five-year-old. Just a little girl having fun.

  Chapter Six - Guns and (Briar) Roses

  Mama, can I have this for Chanukah?” I was standing in Mr. Mopp’s, our charmingly dilapidated neighborhood toy shop, looking for a birthday present for a friend’s toddler. Although Daisy was barely five at the time, I could not, for the life of me, remember what bestirred the three-year-old heart. The changes kids go through are so quick, so intense, and you are so bloody exhausted when they’re happening. It feels as though you’ll never forget, but you always do. All I could recall about three was that it was the age when kids supposedly stop shoving pennies up their noses. So how to celebrate that blessed milestone, the safety of small parts: A Playmobil set, perhaps? Marbles? I admit I felt a certain pressure: the child in question was a princess-loving female, but her mother (and all of the other moms who would be at the party) knew how I felt about that. They would be watching, skeptical and bemused, to see if I could come up with a viable alternative.

  While I mulled over the options, Daisy hit the dress-up rack and promptly became mesmerized by a pair of purple plastic mules festooned with faux ostrich feathers accompanied by a string of cheap, glittery beads that wouldn’t hold together for five seconds. Tawdry and badly made—what a bargain! She pretty much expected the “no” she got when she showed me that one. A few minutes later, though, she was back, brandishing something else: a die-cast silver cap gun with a shiny pink grip and matching vinyl holster cunningly embellished with a cowgirl on a horse.

  How many ways could that toy blow the modern mommy’s mind? But rather than being appalled, I found myself sinking into reverie. I have two older brothers, and as a girl I had loved playing with their hand-me-down pistols: the feel of the grip in my hand, the shiny muzzle, the satisfying snap when the hammer released, the acrid sulfur smell rising from a roll of red caps, the thrilling possibility of burning a finger (did that ever really happen?). I was not a violent kid. Nor am I a violent adult: I road-tripped from rural Ohio to New York City in the 1980s to march against nuclear proliferation. I took to the streets in San Francisco during the first invasion of Iraq. (At the time of the second, Daisy’s nap time conflicted with the protests. Priorities change . . . ) In fact, I am already against the next war. In other words, playing with guns did not make me a sociopath. On the other hand, there was no industry trying to convince me that violence was the cornerstone of my femininity, no pressure to define myself by my bullets.

  Daisy already owned a cowgirl hat, woven of straw and trimmed in red. I had bought it when she was around four years old, because I thought it was adorable—and because I hoped it might offset the princess stuff.

  “But what do cowgirls do, Mama?” she asked when I placed it on her head.

  I was at a bit of a loss. Among my peers, cowboy play had ridden off into the sunset when we realized that the Indians were not necessarily the bad guys. So what was left? Judging by TV shows about the Wild West, such as David Milch’s Deadwood, the answer was cussing, whoring, and getting stinking drunk.

  “Um,” I said, reaching for another option, “I guess they keep track of all the cows?”

  So much for the romance of the Old West. She never wore the hat again.

  But a gun. Should I let her have a gun?

  Thinking quickly, I told her we were not there to buy a present for her, but if she wanted, she could put the gun on her birthday list. Then, when we got home, I asked Steven what he thought. He shook his head. “I don’t see any reason to have war toys in the house,” he said.

  But, I pressed, didn’t you love your guns as a child?

  “Sure,” he admitted. “But that was a different time.”

  I also polled my friends. “No way,” said the one with five children. Then she paused. “Well, if one of the girls wanted one it would be okay, that would be defying stereotypes. But not the boys. Never the boys.” This from a woman whose house was awash with light sabers, Transformers, and swords.

  “Do you also refuse the girls makeup and Barbies but let the boys have them?” I asked.

  At this point she began to get annoyed, so I let the subject drop.

  And honestly, let’s be realistic. Playing with a toy gun—even yelling “Bang! Bang! You’re dead”—was not going to turn my kid (or hers) into Hannibal Lecter. In addition to my beloved pistols, I watched stupefying amounts of Tom and Jerry and Road Runner cartoons (probably while hopped up on Froot Loops followed by a Pixy Stix chaser), though, admittedly, I found them as excruciating as I do the recent craze for Larry David–style “cringe humor.”

  The truth is, there is virtually no research on the impact of violent images or play on girls. For whatever reason—biological, environmental, developmental—girls are not as drawn to bashing one another as boys are. Their aggression tends to be more interpersonal than physical. It is worth considering, though, that adults tend to ignore behavior that doesn’t fit our beliefs about gender and seize upon that which does. So when boys point their fingers like pistols, we chalk it up to nature; when girls do it (and I have seen Daisy draw her “hand guns” on friends a number of times), it goes unnoticed. Either way, violent play is not by definition bad or harmful for kids. Any child shrink worth her sand table will tell you it can help them learn about impulse control, work out the difference between fantasy and reality, cope with fear. But there is a catch: according to Diane Levin, a professor of education and coa
uthor of The War Play Dilemma, violent play is useful only if it is truly play, if kids control the narratives, if they are using their imaginations to create the story lines, props, outcomes. That is what has changed since my own cap gun days, she explained. Beginning in the 1980s, children’s television advertising was deregulated; the number of commercials instantly doubled—you could run the same cereal ad three times in a row if you wanted. Programs themselves essentially became vehicles to sell toys. My Little Pony. Rainbow Brite. Care Bears. Girls were flooded with a resurgence of sweet and pretty. Boys were deluged with action figures: Masters of the Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers. In surveys of parents and teachers across the country, Levin found that, rather than engaging in creative play, children began imitating what they saw on-screen, reenacting rote scripts with licensed products. Whether in Portland, Maine, or Portland, Oregon, their play became homogenized. Nor was there evidence that their stories were evolving, that they were making the kind of inner meaning out of their dramas that would provide psychological resolution, as they once had.

  So to an extent, then, my husband was right: times had indeed changed. As for guns that are not “really” guns, Levin told me, “We’re fooling ourselves if we think those are better. When you give kids a light saber, you know exactly what they are going to do with it, and every kid who has one will do the exact same thing. There is no creativity there.” Like princess play, then, boys’ gunplay may resonate with parents’ own childhood memories, but, given the marketing culture in which they are immersed, their relationship to those toys and images, as well as the impact on them, may be different.

  I will leave the world of boys for someone else to explore, but it is clear that children of both sexes crave larger-than-life heroes. They need fantasy. They also, it seems, need a certain amount of violent play. I’m not talking Resident Evil 4, where within minutes gamers confront a female corpse pinned to a wall with a pitchfork through her face, but something that allows them to triumph in their own way over this thing we call death, to work out their day-to-day frustrations; to feel large, powerful, and safe. Because as much as we want to believe that children are innocent, by the time they enter the dog-eat-dog jungle of preschool, they have realized that everyone is capable of senseless cruelty and spite. Even their parents. Even themselves. The Big Bad Wolf is out there, baby, and Mom and Dad may not be able to stop him.