By the time I finished reading a story which appeared recently in London's The Daily Mail, I was almost nauseous. The story centered around an 11-year-old beauty queen and her mother who is transforming this innocent girl into a selfish little waif who will undoubtedly think the world revolves around her.
How can I say that about an 11-year-old? Read the article entitled "Mummy's Little Lolita" by clicking here.
The story describes a girl who got her first set of false eye lashes at 8, and whose parents spend $594 per month (£300 English pounds) on beauty treatments including hair extensions, fake tans and pedicures.
I agree with the article's author who wrote, "It seems that the main lesson learned was that her darling daughter could look like a plastic Barbie, and be rewarded with a sash to prove it."
Little Sasha's mother, Jayne, was once a beauty queen herself -- what a surprise. She's been parading her daughter all over England and America looking for model agencies and talent scouts wishing to help make her daughter "famous." She even forces her daughter to perform in restaurants, bus stops and wherever there is a crowd simply to "get noticed."
According to the article, one talent scout had enough common sense to lecture the mother about what she was doing to her daughter.
The model booker says a vehement 'no', horrified by her portfolio, and tells Jayne that clients want their child models to look like children, and that for this sort of career success she would have to stop bleaching Sasha's hair and encouraging her to wear plastic nails. Jayne refuses to comply.
It comes as no surprise that Jayne used to be a model herself, and one who worked in the 'glamour' side of the business. She started at 23 - which, she explains, was 'far too late' for real career success - and now believes that earlier is better, in order to maximize profit and notoriety.
One of her own happiest memories is of entering a beauty pageant and winning the coveted sash. 'I was on top of the world. One day I was an ordinary clerical worker, the next everyone was looking at me. It was wonderful.
There you have it, in a nutshell. The whole point of this nonsense is to get people looking at you. It's about making a little girl into someone she clearly is not -- a plastic-painted Barbie who derives her entire sense of self and self-worth from how others see her. It's a shallow existence for a young woman about to enter puberty where natural hormones will make her extremely self-conscious of her appearance anyway, without having a bunch of strange men ogling her as she prances across a stage strutting her stuff in ways her mother taught her to capture and hold a judge's attention.
Can you imagine what life will be like for Sasha's future husband? She will define the term "high maintenance."
Perhaps Sasha and her parents should look at God's standard for women. It can be found in 1 Peter 3:3-5, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful."
The root of this whole sorry episode can be found at the very end of the article. "What Sasha wants, Sasha clearly gets. Last Christmas, Jayne and her husband, Martin, a builder who works all over the UK and is barely at home, spent $51,560 (£26,000) on Sasha's presents, which included a swimming pool. Martin seems to exert no influence at all - 'I leave all that to Jayne,' he says."
Therein lies the problem -- an emasculated male not even trying to raise a daughter by leaving the job entirely in the hands of a self-centered beauty queen.
Has Jayne ever stopped Sasha doing anything?, the author asked. The answer -- never.
Sad. Very, very sad.