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Posted March 5, 2009 by Mary Dixon Lebeau

We were bundled up and sitting on the curb that cool October evening, watching the annual Fall Festival parade that welcomed autumn to our small hometown each year. 

Libby was excited -- and nothing made her eyes light up more than when she saw the string of shiny convertibles that carried the local royalty. She did her best version of a Miss America wave, her hand gliding through the evening air, as the young beauty queens waved back or threw Tootsie Rolls to their adoring fans. 

As the last car pulled by us, she turned to me with eyes shining and asked, "Mommy, can I be one of them? Please?"

It was, I must admit, a question I knew would come. When you have a daughter who's obsessed with everything princess -- and truly, truly believes she's one of them -- it was almost inevitable.

"We'll talk about it later," I said, turning her attention back to the Rotary float as it passed -- fortunately, without any crowned heads aboard. She scampered after a tossed Bit O'Honey, and I breathed a sigh of relief -- at least, for the moment. 

The question, of course, will come up again. And I thought about it long and hard. I know there are two sides to the pageant debate. One side advocates pageants as fun self-confidence boosters; the other denounces them as everything from too focused on appearances to a pedophile's dream come true.

And me? Well, I guess I'm firmly straddled in the middle. But I have a little experience under my belt that may make my viewpoint a bit unique. You see, I am firmly against Libby being in beauty pageants, but I also have a confession: my older daughter was once Little Miss West Deptford, a hometown queen who rode in the very parade that inspired this introspection. (In fact, at the time I was in the passenger seat.)

Back then, the debate still raged. In fact, it was right around the time that Jon Benet Ramsey was killed, which put the pageant world under even more scrutiny. But my daughter only entered a few pageants, and she never wore "flippers" (fake teeth that hide the gap children have when they lose baby teeth), never sported a spray-on tan and never "shook it" in front of a group of judges. She usually entered pageants because her friends were.

Sometimes she won, sometimes she lost. Either way, she and her friends would go to the diner afterwards, giggling about their mistakes and admiring each other's ensembles as they spooned up the last of their butterscotch sundaes.

Back then, I thought the whole problem came down to gatekeeping. Parents had to scrutinize what went on at each pageant and chose the ones that were best suited for their child.

But you know what? In the years between my daughters, I started seeing more of what went on at those other pageants, the ones that cost hefty entrance fees and encourage children to look like miniature Cosmopolitan models. Imagine being five or six and being told you need a wiglet, a fake tan, phony teeth, and a ton of make-up to be "pretty enough" to participate in an activity. How could the child think anything other than "just me isn't good enough"? 

Then, after all the money, all the preparation and all the makeover, there's (usually) only one winner. There's one banner, one tiara, one seat in the back of the Corvette. Even first runner up is simply the best of the losers. That must do wonders for a child's self-esteem.

So the next time Libby asks about pageants, I'm going to tell her no. She's a princess already -- daughter of the King of the universe, apple of her father's eye, my baby girl. I'll point out that real princesses aren't those who compete with each other wearing swimsuits and lipstick. We want to emphasize what she is on the inside, which can never be disguised with cosmetics or rhinestones.

After all, real princesses embody the studiousness of Belle, the work ethic of Snow White, the curiosity of Sleeping Beauty and the heart of Cinderella. Real princesses embody all we want for our little girl -- and that's a whole lot more than a tiara.