Let your children live their own dreams

I think children are naturally beautiful and there’s no need for parents to doll them up or allow them to use cosmetics to enhance their looks. Watching a TV show on little kids being groomed by mothers to be fashionistas made me cringe. They are entered in beauty contests or pageants and coached by overanxious mums who literally bite their nails as their stars glide on to the stage.

Seeing make-up and spray tan slathered on girls as young as three and the expression on their faces as their hair was curled, ironed and teased and eyelashes glued on was an excruciating experience. Some of them were sleepy and winced as their hair was tugged at and their elaborate dresses were put on. There were several changes for different categories of the pageant, which only increased their discomfort.

A five-year-old with an engaging gap-toothed smile had to wear a plate to hide the ‘disfigurement’ and she was ostensibly uncomfortable as the plate kept slipping. Her hand would go into her mouth to adjust it even as her mother watched horrified and told her not to fiddle with it.

What was even more horrifying was the little ones mouthing words they must have heard their parents iterate time and again. So, many of them said they wanted to be crowned “so bad” and hoped they would get the big prize.

Once they went on stage, the mothers in the hall mimed actions they had meticulously taught their girls, preening gestures and flirtatious smiles et al. Often, the girl in the limelight would forget all her cues and do what she wanted to do, which was the only natural part of the proceedings. But one look at the mother’s face and she soon fell into line, sashaying and dimpling and posing as she had been taught.

When a girl didn’t win, you could hear a mother say she thought her child deserved the top prize and tiara. There was one mum who spoke of biased judges.

All girls love to dress up and they pester their mothers to paint their tiny toenails or apply lipstick on their cupid’s bow of a mouth. They are only imitating what they see. I see no harm in indulging them at home now and then. But to make them enter beauty shows and make them aware of the importance of winning a crown is quite ridiculous.

I do realise that parents these days indulge their children’s whims and fancies, unlike the parents of an older generation who frowned upon such attention to physical beauty. Being cute didn’t cut any ice with them. They never went ooh and aah over how wonderful their children were or how beautiful. Praise was never handed out, not even lightly.

Maybe a happy medium between fawning over one’s child and being a martinet is the right answer.

I meet so many parents who cannot stop telling everyone they meet about their children’s amazing qualities. We are treated to examples of their cleverness, spoken in such an indulgent tone that you wonder if they even realise how ridiculous they sound. As you listen to the monologue on this brilliant child, the parent’s words seem a reflection of their own frustrated hopes of fame or glory. I usually make reassuring noises to convince the narrator that I am hanging on to every word when, in fact, I have switched off mentally.

My sincere advice to doting parents is to allow their children to be children for as long as possible. Don’t let them sense that they are the centre of your world even if they obviously are.

‘Children aren’t colouring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favourite colours’ is a favourite saying of mine.