Cinderella Ate My Daughter (8 page)

At any rate, gender is a pretty weak predictor of a child’s potential gifts or challenges; the differences within each sex in any given realm (including math and verbal skills) tend to be far greater than the ones between them. Jay Giedd, the chief of brain imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, told
The New York Times
that assigning kids to classrooms based on gender differences would be like assigning them to locker rooms based on height: since males tend to be bigger, you’d send the tallest 50 percent of kids to the boys’ side and the shortest 50 percent to the girls’. You might end up with a better-than-random outcome, but not by much: there are simply too many exceptions to the rule. Nonetheless, the number of single-sex public schools and classrooms has skyrocketed since the mid-1990s, due largely to the influence of Sax and his colleagues. That made me rethink Lise Eliot’s comment about her work: the presumption that we, as a society, want to bring out the full potential in all of our children. What parent would disagree with that? Yet we are often reluctant to examine assumptions and actions that amplify gender differences—even if that means we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am not against single-sex schools in the private sphere (as long as they don’t justify their existence through half-baked “brain research”), but I would much rather have Daisy and her classmates, male and female, take part in something like the Sanford program. I hope Martin and Fabes are right and their work can, down the line, improve relationships between the sexes, both in the workplace and in the home (at least, as Fabes joked, “we can guarantee none of our research subjects will divorce in the next five years”). I hope it encourages kids to work together more effectively regardless of differences within or between the sexes—teaching them to appreciate the bumps in the playing field rather than trying to level it entirely. But it will be years before they know for sure, before the curriculum is fully in place, before they figure out how to evaluate its long-term efficacy.

I left Phoenix feeling less concerned that Daisy had suddenly gone femme on me—that now seemed both unavoidable and healthy. At the same time, if early experiences with mixed-sex play have a lifelong positive impact on kids’ behavior, aptitudes, and relationships, the segmentation of every possible childhood item by sex was more troubling than I had initially imagined—and for a whole new slew of reasons. I felt better educated as I headed home, better grounded in theory, but no closer to understanding how to put it into practice while raising a daughter: where was the point that exploration of femininity turned to exploitation of it, the line between frivolous fun and JonBenét? Maybe to stake out that middle ground, I needed to check out the extreme.

Chapter Five
-
Sparkle, Sweetie!

A
t six in the morning on a summer Saturday in Austin, Texas, Taralyn Eschberger was getting ready to sparkle. She was perched on a chair in the Hill Country Ballroom of a Radisson hotel, her blue eyes still bleary with sleep as a makeup artist fussed around her, plucking sponge rollers from her hair, teasing and combing out the curls, preparing to augment them with a cascading hairpiece whose strawberry blond shade precisely matched Taralyn’s own. Next, to bring out her features, came blush, candy pink lipstick, cerulean eye shadow, black liner and mascara; then press-on nails that simulated a French manicure. The makeup artist held up a hand mirror, and Taralyn nodded, satisfied. A little bronzer on her legs to even out her spray tan (which keeps her from looking washed out under harsh stage lights), and she would be ready to compete for the $2,000 Ultimate Supreme prize at the Universal Royalty Texas State Beauty Pageant.

Did I mention that Taralyn was five years old?

Taralyn’s mom, Traci, a former dancer turned medical sales rep, watched from a few feet away, smiling. She could well have been a beauty queen herself: tall and slim, with highlighted blond hair, enviably perky breasts, gleaming white teeth, and, even at this hour of the morning, her own makeup meticulously in place. She showed me the dress Taralyn would wear in the pageant, a two-piece off-the-shoulder turquoise number with a crystallized Swarovski rhinestone-encrusted bodice, a frothy, multitiered tutu skirt, and a detachable choker necklace. Serious contenders like the Eschbergers can pay up to $3,000 a pop for these hand-sewn “cupcake dresses,” though since the seamstress who made this one “just
loves
Taralyn” and uses the girl as a model, Traci got it at cost. Even so, the $16,000 Taralyn had won so far during her year in competition wouldn’t nearly cover her expenses: the dance coach, the makeup artist, the home tanning equipment, the head shots, the extravagant frocks and swimwear, not to mention the entry fees—which can run as high as $1,000—as well as travel, accommodations, and meals for the thirty pageants she’d attended in Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas. With that level of investment, Traci said, you had better bring your best game: you had better be prepared. You had better pay attention to every detail, and every detail had better be perfect. In addition to hair and makeup, girls in the tooth-losing phase famously wear “flippers”—custom-made dental prosthetics that cover any gaps to create a flawless smile. Taralyn had one but rarely used it. “When the judges are sitting further away from the stage, it does make their smile look bigger,” Traci said. “But it doesn’t look natural. It doesn’t look like her. I like her cute little smile.”

Taralyn hopped off the chair, presented herself for Traci’s approval. “You look just like a princess!” the older woman exclaimed, and her daughter grinned. I recalled museum portraits I had seen of eighteenth-century European princesses—little girls in low-cut gowns, their hair piled high, their cheeks and lips rouged red—that were used to attract potential husbands, typically middle-aged men, who could strengthen the girls’ families’ political or financial positions. So, yes, I thought, I suppose she does look like a princess.

Any sane mother would find the pageant world appalling, right? They would feel queasy, as I did, at overhearing a woman advise her six-year-old that “one of the judges is a man, so be sure you wink at him!” or a father telling a TV reporter that he enjoys getting a sneak peek at what his four-year-old will look like when she’s sixteen. It would be easy pickin’s for me to attack parents who tart up their daughters in hopes of winning a few hundred bucks and a gilded plastic trophy; who train them to shake their tail feathers on command, to blow kisses at the judges and coyly twirl their index fingers into their dimpled cheeks.

But really, what would be the point? That story has been told, to great success and profit.
Toddlers & Tiaras
, which each week follows families through a different pageant, has been a megahit for TLC, and the more evil and clueless the “momsters” it covers, the better. Traci herself was once featured on the show, grabbing Taralyn’s arm and reprimanding her for flubbing a routine. (“They filmed two days of positive footage,” Traci told me, “then that was what they chose to air. We were stupid to fall for it. We were dumb.”) MTV, HBO,
The Tyra Banks Show
,
Good Morning America
,
Nightline
, and even England’s august BBC have all featured the “controversy” over baby beauty queens. The formula each of those followed was as clever as it was foolproof: a parade of preschoolers tricked out like Las Vegas showgirls was followed by commentary from psychologists who (with good reason) link self-objectification and sexualization to the host of ills previously mentioned—eating disorders, depression, low self-esteem, impaired academic performance. The moms defend their actions, the psychologists rebut, the moms get the last word, the girls take the stage again, and the piece is over. The shows purport to be exposés, but in truth they expose nothing, change nothing, challenge nothing. What they do is give viewers license, under the pretext of disapproval, to be titillated by the spectacle, to indulge in guilty-pleasure voyeurism. They also reassure parents of their own comparative superiority by smugly ignoring the harder questions: even if you agree that pageant moms are over the line in their sexualization of little girls—
way
over the line—where, exactly, is that line, and who draws it and how? What might those little princesses reveal about how the rest of us, we supposedly more enlightened parents, raise our own daughters?

A spangled blue curtain hung behind the stage of the Radisson’s ballroom. A row of glittering tiaras and banner-draped trophies—some up to five feet high—stood in front of it. A table off to one side was laden with smaller trophies, giant teddy bears, and “goodie bags” stuffed with candy and toys. Every contestant at a Universal pageant walks away with a prize; for that privilege, they pay a mandatory $295 general entry fee (which includes the Formal Wear competition), a $125 DVD fee, a $15-per-person admission fee, plus optional fees of $50 to $100 each for additional events such as the swimsuit competition, facial beauty, “Mini Supremes” (which carries a $200 cash prize), talent, and hair/makeup. It was easy to see how child pageants, which are the fastest-growing segment of the pageant market, have become a reported multibillion-dollar industry.

Universal Royalty had already been featured three times on
Toddlers & Tiaras
. It is the country’s largest “high-glitz” child pageant system, according to its owner, Annette Hill, a former child beauty queen herself, whose two grown daughters were also pageant vets. A tall African-American woman dressed simply in a black sheath, her hair swept into a French twist, Miss Annette, as she is known, was also the pageant’s mistress of ceremonies: she stood behind a lectern introducing contestants in each category, from infants on up. Her nonstop stage patter included the children’s names, their favorite foods (pizza for the older kids; “a big plate of mashed bananas” for the babies), TV shows (“
Hannah Montana
, of course”), hobbies (“swimming, talking on the phone, and shopping and shopping and shopping!”), as well as a detailed description of each outfit. The girls strutted across the stage in turn, pausing to wave at the judges or to pose with their chin on folded hands, jiggling their heads like baby dolls newly come to life. Surprisingly, few were classically pretty and several were on the chunky side—stripped of their glitz, I would never have pegged them for pageant queens. But beauty was not exactly what they were being judged on. It was more about how well they performed pageant conventions—the walk, the stage presence, the nonstop smile, the nymphet moves—and, of course, the flashy outfits and gaudy makeup. Judges and parents referred to this as “the total package.”

Taralyn was one of the front-runners in the pageant’s sweet spot, the four- to six-year-old division, in which competition was fiercest. Her chief rival, Eden Wood, was a chubby-cheeked, tow-headed four-year-old from Taylor, Arkansas (population 566), who had been on the pageant circuit since age one. Eden’s mother, Mickie (who, like many of the moms, was once a contestant herself), was notorious for her on-the-spot, uninhibited coaching. Most of the girls’ mothers used hand signals, similar to the kind you would see at high-end dog shows, to remind their daughters of where they were supposed to walk, when to stop, when to spin. But Mickie planted herself a few yards behind the judges, out of their sight lines but well within her daughter’s, and performed Eden’s routine exuberantly right along with the girl. Mickie was a big, busty woman, but she could still shake it. It was a mesmerizing sight—together mother and daughter bent their arms at the elbow, turned up their palms, and twirled. Together they blew kisses over their shoulders at the judges, together they vamped and waved, together they leaned forward and shimmied. Their movements were so synchronized that it seemed as if they were attached by an invisible string, marionette and puppeteer. Periodically Mickie punctuated their dance with encouraging shouts of “E. E.!” and “Go, baby!” and “Get it, girl!” Miss Annette, meanwhile, noted that Eden’s ambition was “to rule the world.”

Pageant parents are surely not the only ones who could be accused of living through their children. Think about gymnastics, ice skating, ballet, competitive cheerleading, acting, soccer, spelling bees, concerto contests, math meets. A number of those, while requiring more specialized skills, can be as potentially objectifying of girls as pageants. And for each, I suspect, you’d hear the same justifications as the ones I heard from every single pageant mom I spoke with, almost as if they had memorized a script: Pageants build a child’s confidence, give her a kind of poise that will someday be useful in job interviews and professional presentations. Their daughters do plenty of things that have nothing to do with beauty or body (Eden Wood drives a miniature pink 4×4 all-terrain vehicle back in Arkansas). Pageants are about old-fashioned Hollywood-style glamour, not sexualization—if you think a five-year-old looks sexy, then
you
are the sick one. What’s more, their girls
choose
to compete: “If she didn’t want to do this, there’s no way I could make her,” I was repeatedly assured, and “The second she says she doesn’t want to do it, we’ll stop.” Hearing that reminded me of the classic marketers’ defense: “We just gave the girls what they wanted.” But once again the questions arose: Where does desire end and coercion begin? When does “get to” become “have to”? I’m not sure parents who are that deeply invested in their children’s success are able to tell. And if love, however subtly, seems conditional on performance—whether on the playing field, in the classroom, or onstage—how can a child truly say no?

“Did you see how she watched her mother?” Traci Eschberger asked when Eden’s routine was over.

I nodded. “It was amazing,” I replied, still in awe of the display.

Traci smiled tightly—that was not the response she was going for. “Eden has been doing this for years,” she explained, “and she
still
has to watch her mother for every move? Taralyn never had to do that.”

Case in point: when Taralyn hit the stage, Traci offered her no direction, though she did stand where her daughter could see her and occasionally called out, “Sparkle, sweetie!” which, as it happens, is precisely what Shirley Temple’s mother used to say before the cameras rolled. Taralyn sauntered across the stage, threw the requisite kisses, then, in a move all her own, skipped along the front edge, pointing to each judge in turn and winking. She was so light on her feet, she almost floated. It was clear she had inherited her mother’s grace and athleticism. I mentioned this to Traci, who nodded, pleased, then added, “You can’t force that. She loves to perform. She
wants
to be onstage.”

After a break, the swimsuit competition began. Taralyn’s father, Todd, an affable redhead in a maroon polo shirt, entered the ballroom with their nine-year-old son, Tallon, also a strawberry blond and, like Taralyn, a handsome kid. Or he would have been, if circumstances had been different. Tallon was born with severe mental and physical disabilities: his brain, for reasons that were never determined, had not developed past infancy, leaving him unable to hear, talk, walk, or even sit up on his own. He was gripping an electronic plastic Simon game, its lights flashing in random patterns that users are supposed to memorize and replicate. Although he couldn’t play, he seemed fascinated by the blinking colors. Todd parked Tallon’s wheelchair on an aisle and took a seat next to him, stroking the boy’s arm as he watched the girls onstage. Occasionally, Tallon banged his toy too loudly against his wheelchair tray; Todd gently extracted it, then handed it back a few minutes later. His patience never wavered, nor did Traci’s. Their devotion to their son was both rock-solid and devoid of self-pity. I might question what they were doing to their daughter, but I admired how they cared for their son.

After Tallon was born, his doctors had advised the Eschbergers against having any more children. They didn’t listen. “I said, ‘You know what?’ ” Traci recalled. “ ‘We have to have faith that we’ll have a normal, happy child.’ And now I think God is blessing us on the other end of the spectrum because Taralyn’s very bright and talented. So we have both ends. We have one child who will not, unfortunately, be able to do a whole lot. But we’re just thankful he’s still with us.”

I glanced from Tallon to Taralyn, with her wide smile and supple body. Her brother’s health crises had been hard on her. That’s part of why the family had been so gung ho about the pageants. “I feel guilty because she lost the first two years of her life because of Tallon,” Traci told me. “At that point, we couldn’t leave the house. It was that debilitating.” Pageants became a way for Taralyn to escape, a “special time” when the focus was solely on her. Often, she and her mother would go to competitions alone and enjoy a bit of girl bonding. “We cherish these weekends,” Traci said. “We really do. We get to stay at the hotel, and Taralyn gets to go swimming and jump on the bed.”