Tag Archives: Kids

‘I Don’t Understand Why There’s Such A Fuss’

Interview with Kathy Ward 25th October 2013

Kathy Ward and I had a lovely cuppa in her Dublin home to discuss children’s beauty pageants, how they are portrayed in the media and if they are different today than some years ago, when Kathy’s children competed in talent competitions of every kind (as did I!). 

 

Sharyn:           So I don’t know if the version of kid’s pageants we see on TV is an extreme, and that has people so up in arms? Or if that does really happen here in a beauty contest. I know I see boys and girls who do dancing competitions…

Kathy:             …especially ballroom…

S:         …especially ballroom

K:        …and the disco…

S:         …they’re very colourful, the costumes often have pieces cut out around the midriff and legs… So is that different to the pageants? I think people watch ‘Toddlers and Tiaras’ on TV and believe that’s exactly what happens all the time. That the parents are over-sexualising their kids and making them grow up too quickly. But what about the dance comps, or my putting my son into an ad on TV, is that the same? People don’t seem to think so.

K:        You see I said to you on the phone about a well-known Irish journalist. She has her kids constantly in the Sunday World. They’re also in adverts. But she wrote a massive anti-pageant piece in the paper. I know for a fact that if she had a daughter, that she would be in that. Wasn’t she a beauty queen? So she’s being two-faced.

S:         She doesn’t have a daughter so we don’t know. And I don’t have a daughter. So can either she or I say exactly that we know what we would do if the opportunity arose? And again, is there a difference between her kids being in an ad, and her kids being on stage, in make up and a dress, looking a bit older than they should….

K:        For example, when we were in Butlins, for the Tarzan competition, there were women who got gravy and smeared it on the boys to look like they’d just come out of the jungle. All the little boys wore was a tiny pair of swimming trunks. I went to the extreme with my son of getting a feather duster and pulling the feathers off so you couldn’t see he was wearing swimming trunks. He won it anyway. That was a little boy walking up and down. I don’t know if there were pedophiles watching him, but I know I was watching him.

S:         So do you think about that when your kids are up there doing their thing?

K:        Not then, not then. It was a different kind of a world then.

S:         It’s much more terrifying now isn’t it, with internet access and everything. And we never knew so much about child abuse and pedophilia as we do now. So what’s to stop a pedophile or pervert from coming in to watch a beauty pageant?

K:        Most people who are there are with kids and families. There was an Irish dancing competition, going back 24 years ago, and the organizer was made aware of a guy on his own. She flung him out. I mean to see a man, sitting on his own staring at kids dancing. You would notice a man – or a woman – sitting on their own. You would.

S:         And tell me why, in pageants, can’t the kids just be naturally on show as they are? Why are they so done up?

K:        People say if a little girl went in and she was pale, and had no spray in her hair and her dress wasn’t short, she’d win it – that’s crap.

S:         So where did it come from?

K:        You know the way Irish dancing has gone? They have wigs, special glue to hold their socks up, they’re completely spray tanned – that’s just the way it’s gone. So if you send in your kid who’s amazing and who looks dowdy compared to the rest of them, they won’t look at her.

S:         I’m just trying to figure out where it started. If every baby is born natural and beautiful, then when did we start saying that they’re not good enough as they are to be in this competition? Why do they need so much ‘improvement’?

K:        It’s American though, isn’t it? And also, the travellers. If you look at any of those programmes, there are little babies of three in buggies with boob tubes on them.

S:         Do you agree with that?

K:        No. To me, they’re like that 24/7, where with the pageants, it’s usually over in 2 hours. And little kids go home and get everything taken off them and go play in the garden. But that’s the way those travellers are dressing their kids. And the dancing they’re doing. Pedophiles would prefer them than the kids on the stage in my opinion.

S:         What about the pressure that is put on kids for these shows? I didn’t feel it when I was a kid, I really enjoyed being on stage. I enjoyed singing and dancing, so for me, I was doing because I was so into it. But then you see ‘Toddlers & Tiaras’ where some mothers are fighting with the kids, making them cry and putting them under pressure, making them constantly train – do you think there’s a lot of that?

K:        To be honest, I’d prefer to have my kids inside, practising and saying ‘Ok, do that catwalk, now the song’ – than sitting outside on the wall, annoying people.

S:         Oh I completely agree, I’m just wondering about the levels of pressure on kids now for shows, in comparison to when I was a kid.

K:        I think it’s the same pressure.  I don’t think the parents putting these kids into pageants are bad parents at all, but I do notice that a lot of the parents didn’t ever do pageants themselves.

S:         And were you a stage kid?

K:        I grew up in England and every day after school, I had some sort of activity to do. When I moved to Ireland, and had my first daughter, I had to find activities to do for her, which turned out to be singing classes, and dancing and drama. Then she had friends in school as well as her after school activities, and wasn’t outside smoking joints.

S:         I’ve always said if kids are involved in sports, or for me, in dancing, they have a sense of community. They want to stay healthy, fit, look well and they’re less likely to hang around street corners. There’s a focus on something else.

K:        For some parents, once their kids are out of the house, they don’t give a damn. For me, when my kids were out of the house, I knew they were doing the drama, dancing, singing or judo with so and so. It’s not like they were stuck in the house all the time.

S:         I completely agree with you. This subject obviously blew up because of that American pageant that wanted to hold a competition here, and were then shuffled around from venue to venue.

K:        Why was that cancelled from Balbriggan?

S:         I assume because of the bad publicity?

K:        I don’t understand that. I saw her on the Late Late with her daughter. She was a real pageant child, and I thought,  ‘So what?!’ I’d rather see her on telly than some scumbag guy talking about his ‘ma and da being on the coke…’ blah blah…

S:         People are just really worried about over sexualizing kids because of the outfits and being made to look so grown up. Because of how much we know about sex offenders now. But I think it’s great to look at it from this side – kids are really enjoying it, it keeps kids healthy, focused and out of trouble.

K:        I think the pageants are a very well run version of what goes on in halls every Saturday at the disco dancing. The parents are the same, the kids are the same. I don’t understand why there’s such a fuss. As I said before, if there is some random man who is not with any of the contestants, do as was done twenty years ago and tell him to get out!

 

 

[Click Here to read comedian Linda Meehan’s ANTI-pageant article]

 

 

 

What Do Kids Think About Love?

(This is an oldie but a goodie. Bobby’s answer is my favourite ;o) )

What Does Love Mean? See How 4-8 Year-Old Kids Describe Love

A group of professionals asked 4-8 year old children, “What does love mean?” Their answers were deeper than expected and amazing. Here are their answers:

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” ~ Rebecca- age 8  

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” ~ Billy – age 4  

“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” ~ Karl – age 5  

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.” ~ Chrissy – age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” ~ Terri – age 4  

“Love is when my mommy  makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to   make sure the taste is OK.” ~ Danny – age 7  

“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.” ~ Emily – age 8  

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” ~ Bobby – age 7

“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.” ~ Nikka – age 6  

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.” ~ Noelle – age 7  

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” ~Tommy – age 6

“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.” ~ Cindy – age 8 

“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.” ~ Claire – age 6  

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.” ~ Elaine-age 5  

“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt.” ~ Chris – age 7  

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” ~ Mary Ann – age 4  

“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.” ~Lauren – age 4  

“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” ~ Karen – age 7 

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” ~Jessica – age 8 

And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbour was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbour, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”

 

What did you think of their amazing answers?

 

No photographs, please!!

It was a New Year’s resolution that I actually got around to in late August (pretty good going I reckon)  -to print out all the pictures of my beautiful baby girl’s first year. She’s now 2 and a bit.

So off I trotted to print out all 477 photographs,and purchase 4 giant albums to house them. They look great.

But something struck me as we neared the end of the task at hand……… there’s little or no photographs of me in there! Now whilst I understand that the point of the exercise is to document the little one’s childhood and is not actually about me at all (!), the thoroughly annoying point is that DAD is prominent throughout!

There he is at every single momentous occasion – the first Halloween dress-up, the first feel of the Christmas tree, the first haircut, the first time feeding the ducks, the first time smiling at the monkeys in Dublin zoo, the first time blowing out the candles, the first shoe-fit – all being held by Dad. How annoying.

So it’s clear. I took the responsibility of capturing what are truly special moments, and The Aussie was more than happy to oblige by holding the child in position.  I of course highlighted the fact to said Aussie, and typically my observation was met by a one-eye-on-the-T.V. response of “Yea, I know, ah your right, yea..” (He speaks Dub now)

But something must have seeped through while he watched some obscure South Pacific rugby match or other, because last weekend – at a not particularly momentous trip to the playground – I pulled out the camera to take a few snaps (you know, because the child was looking particularly cute, or clean, or bruise-free), and The Aussie stepped in. He took the camera from me and said, “Here, let me take one of you and her”.

I’m appalled.

“Ah here what’s wrong with you? Are ye messin?! Sure I’ve no make-up on, the state of my hair and I’m in my tracksuit – have ye no cop on at all like?!”

“Fair enough” he shrugged, and returned to swing pushing duties. It was a good point. And it made me think.

Now that I don’t have my own mammy around anymore, the precious few photographs that I do have of her and I as a baby mean the world to me and I dearly wish there were more of them.

So what I’m saying is this: Mammy’s of Ireland – hand over the camera! To your husband, your partner in crime, your own mammy, your neighbor, your sister, the least weird looking stranger in the vicinity of whatever momentous occasion is happening – just relinquish control of the camera for one tiny glorious no make-up wearing, GHD absent, moment.

Your offspring will thank you for it.

See Nicola’s interview for Raising Ireland here: Chitter Chatter with Nicola Tarrant