But tonight I watched some of the "adult season" on BBC Three... (something which probably needs clarifying as a season of shows looking at teenagers living adult lives, teen pregnancy and all that... rather than Adult in a very different way, I think Bruno filled my life quota of exposure to that for me!) Anyway, i was reminded of a blog i'd written on here a few years ago about how sick beauty pageants are after watching little miss sunshine.
Tonight's programme was all about british child beauty pageants and followed 3 little girls (two aged 9 and one aged 7) and their mothers as they entered britain's first american style competition for kids.
It breaks my heart to see these children, already consumed by the idea that they are imperfect, ugly and with a need to try and prove themselves and how this quest for acceptance always leaves them in a place of rejection and insecurity when their (or should i say their mothers!) dream isn't fulfilled. When another kid is decided to be "more" beautiful, talented, wanted, acceptable than they are.
But what really angered me in this programme was not just the horrendous idea of these pageants, or even watching a child cling onto her teddy bear as she cries with the pain of her mother plucking her eyebrows, but was the fact that the mother in question was a Christian.
In my head, I always justify the crazy southern american families who do these pageant things and talk about Jesus as southern baptist kooks... the stereotypical republican, bible belt, gun owning fake blondes, who still believe that Obama is a terrorist because it sounds rather like Osama.... the people who if i'm honest, are at the back of the queue of people I want to meet when we get to heaven.
But this family were British, evangelicals... singing the same songs we sing, in a church who's website advertises some great ministries and projects- and it annoyed me more that these people could honestly go on and on about how much God supported them because of the dodgy prosperity gospel that they had somehow inhaled.
What kind of God are they presenting to a 9 year old by getting her up the front of church to talk about how pretty she is and to pray for her success in a beauty contest? And what kind of God is she depending on when she doesn't win and is obviously crushed? To bring a 9 year old up believing that she must enter beauty pageants because God's gifts to her are her "pretty face and attitude" rather than building on a real foundation that she is a cherished and loved child of God... ahh it makes me sick.
1 peter 3 says...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.
This is one of my favourite scriptures, not because i'm anti- make up and pretty clothes, of course not, but because it talks about that not being where our worth is found- and I really pray that both that little girl, and her mum and sister come to understand this in the fullness of God's amazing grace.
It made me think about how the church is and I automatically was so critical of this church who would get a child out in front of 500 odd people to pray for her success in a beauty pageant, but it made me then wonder actually, how often do we stand up and say "THATS NOT RIGHT"?? I wondered how a church could do that without understanding the false values it was reinforcing in a child, and it convicted me of my own lack of speaking up.
Recently one of my own young people entered a beauty contest (albeit at 18 and with more knowledge of what she's doing) and i felt quite caught in what to say when she asked me to vote for her... as someone who is so heavily against beauty pageants and what they stand for, the idea of financing and encouraging this was something i knew i would never do... but this programme makes me realise that just not supporting it isn't enough. Without investing alternative wisdom, I could see the same situation happening in my church... where no one is prepared to say, "no we're not going to corporately pray for that, it's not right". And so maybe this all challenges me some more, maybe God is pushing me to say something, and to invest real truth into young, beautiful women of God, rather than false hopes and agendas that the world sets.
1 comment:
woo hoo - I found your blog! ugh that programme made me SO mad! And you're dead right about those contests - I dont think I was so dead set against them until I saw that... its just putting terrible values in little girls heads - whats the point
I've started a new blog today - its going to be a 365 so that I can get motivated to sort out my financial crapness - thought adding a gimmick just for myself might make discipline fun!
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