Indianna seems fine now, but is this a psychological time bomb? Some American child beauty contestants have spoken as adults of the “haunting sense” they “have no face” when not made up for the stage, and “the need to be perfect at everything”.ĭrew’s daughter Lexi Nolan, 17, has some perspective on this. The experience seems completely outside a five-year-old’s normal life. The young ones play as the older girls sweep by in long gowns, some with sashes and tiaras. The girls climb back into their formal wear for the ceremony. It’s after 3pm now, nearly crowning time. My girls do fine without all that extra stuff.” Yes, there are mums who may go a bit overboard, but that’s okay, that’s their choice.
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“With the American TV shows, you think it is all about fake eyelashes and that sort of stuff. And Eshun is particularly impressed that the Follow Your Dreams pageants do not score girls on facial beauty. Like most mothers here, Eshun found a supportive, tight-knit community in the pageant world. And then Naa wanted her sister Marley to join her. Should Naa’s hair be up, down, or halfway up and down? Naa wants to model: “She’s a very humble young girl, but get her on the runway and she just turns into Naomi Campbell,” says Raelene Eshun. Edward, a drummer and dancer, sits quietly in the corner, offering advice when asked. Marley’s father Edward Eshun is from Ghana, and he and Raelene also care for his daughter Naa, 9, competing today. She has dreadlocks and works in child protection. This little girl is fine.Įshun is an unlikely pageant mother. Later in the day I’ll find myself confused, even disturbed, by other parts of the pageant experience, but not now. She’s one of the happiest, most delightful five-year-olds I’ve ever met. Yet sitting in Room 25, watching Indianna bouncing on the hotel bed, it is hard to see her as an exploited or troubled child. Collective Shout and psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, among others, have called on politicians to ban child pageants, arguing they create “sexualised dolls”, leading to negative body image, eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem. As dance schools face growing criticism of their skimpy outfits and suggestive moves, Drew says she offers a safe place, and a friendly community, for stage-obsessed kids to strut their stuff and gain confidence.Ĭan this really be so harmless? “The haters”, as Drew calls them – such as those behind Collective Shout, the campaign against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls – certainly don’t think so. And she says the parents are better behaved than those television “pageant moms”. Unlike the US, children are not judged on their facial beauty. The Australian culture, she says, is different.
Six years ago, she imported this particularly American subculture to Australia, setting up one of the country’s first child modelling pageants. Drew, multitasker extraordinaire and self-confessed control freak, has travelled extensively across the US. Melbourne entrepreneur Kylie Drew, 44, who runs the Follow Your Dreams competitions, knows what Toddlers & Tiaras is like she was once a guest judge on a pageant featured by the show. “I was one of those judgmental parents,” says Swift, who has her fiancé, an aspiring policeman called Guy Crane, 25, and her mother Raelene Berich, 48, by her side. And she certainly never imagined forking out $2500 on airfares, hotels, make-up and cupcake dresses for this one contest. Travelling to Melbourne for a national child beauty pageant is not something that the stage-averse Swift thought she would ever do. “It looked like she was ready to go on a drag queen show.” The make-up at the last pageant, she says, was ridiculous. It’s airbrush make-up, which has pleased Swift, because you can still see Indianna’s freckles. Earlier, a woman came by to do Indianna’s face.
Swift, a childcare group leader from Queensland, knows all about wiglets, and many other things besides, since joining the world of child beauty pageants in January. “That’s a wiglet,” says her mother Melita Swift, 25, pointing to the cascading brown curls pinned to her daughter’s head. Indianna, relaxed and smiling, is still in her nightwear – a pink onesie – but her hair looks ready for the red carpet. Inside this room is a beautiful, freckle-nosed five-year-old named Indianna Swift.
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