Babeland!
A skeptical father ventures deep inside the world of child beauty pageants -- and never makes it out

By Tom Bartlett
Sunday, July 22, 2007

WE WERE RUNNING LATE. OF COURSE WE WERE. When you have a 5-month-old, it's difficult to be anywhere on time. Especially if you have to wrestle that 5-month-old into miniature formalwear, including a tiny dress shirt, tiny slacks, tiny sport coat and tiny bow tie.

I parked the car and hurried inside the mall, leaving my wife, Kellie, to unfasten our sleepy and unsuspecting son from his car seat. I walked briskly through the food court, past Cinnabon and Chick-fil-A, weaving among the slow-moving shoppers, maneuvering around kiosks offering sunglasses and cellphone accessories, pausing only to check the mall directory before half-jogging toward the spot where the competition was to be held. When I arrived, a little wild-eyed and out of breath, I discovered to my relief that the festivities were not yet underway.

We had made it. Just barely.

This was our second attempt to enter Henry in a beauty contest. On our first try, we arrived minutes after registration had ended and were forced to watch from the sidelines as other babies soaked up all the glory. But, this time, the makeshift stage in front of the glass elevator was empty, and parents were still straightening fluffy dresses and chasing down errant shoes. I filled out the necessary paperwork.

Name: Henry Bartlett

Age: 5 months

Eyes: blue

Hair was a little trickier. He had some fuzz up there but only if the light was just right and you kind of squinted. I wrote "none." I also left his favorite color blank because, really, how would we know? For favorite toy, I put "green dinosaur," even though "empty water bottle" would have been equally accurate. Henry is a baby of simple tastes.

Then came the real stumper: hobbies. I didn't think Henry had any, unless "looking around" or "grabbing" qualified. I was tempted to put down "knitting" or "motocross," but I restrained myself. The judges might deduct points for my attempt at humor. Besides, this wasn't about me. This was about Henry.

Well, kind of. Here's my confession: I entered my son in a children's beauty contest because I thought it would make a good story. Why do seemingly rational adults doll up their children and parade them around in front of strangers? Is it creepy or silly or something else entirely? Entering Henry would give me a chance to see pageants in a way I never could as an outsider, to delve into the meaning of it all and, perhaps, to poke a little fun along the way.

At least that was the idea. By the end, though, I just wanted to win.

EVERY PARENT IS ANNOYING IN HIS OR HER OWN SPECIAL WAY, and Kellie and I are no exceptions. Henry is our first child, and so, naturally, we're convinced we invented this whole reproduction thing. We're granola-eating snobs, too. We put our kid in cloth diapers rather than disposables. We prefer wearing slings to pushing strollers. We believe in "attachment parenting" and take Henry, barnacle-like, everywhere. Don't you hate us already?

But, objectionable though we may be, we are not the kind of parents who seem likely to enter their kid in a beauty pageant. It's completely out of character. And, therefore, perversely appealing.

The pageant we entered, Sunburst USA, is not one of the many "glitz" competitions, in which parents are encouraged to go crazy with lipstick, sunless tanner and sequins. It's a "natural" pageant, so such embellishments are supposed to be kept to a minimum, but often they're not. There were plenty of little girls who appeared to have been mugged by Mary Kay.

Sunburst's most famous alumna, JonBenet Ramsey, is not mentioned on its Web site. She participated in several different pageant circuits, but the videos played again and again after her murder were from Sunburst. In the short term, the fallout hurt children's pageants. Some companies and publications had to close down. But the tragedy of JonBenet may have given the pageant industry a boost in the long run, according to Princeton sociologist Hilary Levey, who has studied children's pageants. There are more contests now than a decade ago, she says. Some parents apparently saw the JonBenet video and thought, "Hey, that could be my kid!"

Except for the whole getting murdered part.

Parents are more likely to enter their daughters in beauty pageants. When Levey asks why this is so, the response she usually gets is, "It's not a boy thing." But that attitude may be changing. A couple of years ago, a boy won the overall title at the international Sunburst pageant in Atlanta. And, anecdotally anyway, there has been a recent increase in the number of male contestants, a pageant official says. This is either (a) a shame because now boys will be taught that looks are what truly matter or (b) an important step toward breaking down gender barriers. Take your pick.

I turned in the paperwork and Henry's entry fees. Pageants are not cheap. We paid $45 just to get into the competition. That covered the "beauty" category, but there are also side contests: "prettiest eyes," "best smile," etc. By the time we entered Henry in everything, we were out $100. And that's before you count the $40 we spent on his suit. Judging by the volume of tulle and crystals draped on some of the girls, other parents had paid much more.

But, expense-wise, the mall-level competition is nothing compared with the subsequent rounds. At the state and international levels, the basic fee rises to $95 and $100, respectively. That will get you in the door and into the beauty competition. But to have a shot at the top honors, you have to accumulate points in optional contests such as photo portfolio, day-care wear and swimwear. Enter all six at $40 each ($45 at international), some side competitions for $15, plus maybe the mail-in photo contest for $25, and you are quickly spending more than four times the now modest-seeming Benjamin you had to fork over at the mall. Contestants are also encouraged to sell advertising in the program book, much like all those "good luck" ads in the backs of yearbooks. If you can get friends and family members to pay $150 for a page with your kid's picture and/or their business cards on it, you'll receive a crown. Sell five or more pages, and you get a six-foot-tall trophy. The child who sells the most ads -- I wish I were making this up -- is featured as the program book's "centerfold."

This means that Sunburst is either (a) doing its best to wring every last dollar out of starry-eyed parents or (b) offering options that its customers want. Again, take your pick.

HENRY'S FIRST PAGEANT WAS AT MARLEY STATION MALL IN GLEN BURNIE. He was grouped with the under-1 boys -- although, at the younger ages, I'm not sure gender really means much. Slap a bow on Henry's head, and he could pass for a girl. In our category, there was only one other contestant. He was a couple of months older than Henry and already sported an impressive head of hair. This was a point in his favor. But the other boy was wearing a boring blue sweater, while Henry was more formally attired in a sport coat and bow tie. This was a point in our favor.

I lined up next to the mother of Blue-Sweatered Baby. We stood just a few inches from each other, our respective sons on our respective hips. I turned to say something to her, something like "Isn't this funny?" or "Nice sweater," but it seemed as if she was intentionally ignoring me. Maybe she was trying to psych me out.

Whatever, I thought. Bring it on.

They went first. The mother walked to the designated spot in front of the judges' table, squatted down and placed her baby's feet on the floor. She helped him balance as he stood there smiling shyly at the judges and, I feared, winning them over.

I had planned to simply hold Henry, but now I wondered if I should try a more theatrical approach. He enjoyed being dangled by his arms -- maybe we could do that. But we hadn't practiced, and there was the very real concern that he might spit up on himself. I decided to play it safe.

Then came the announcement: "Here's Henry Bartlett!"

"Showtime," I whispered in his ear.

The judges looked at Henry and made marks on their score cards. One of the judges, I noticed, shielded her card with her hand so I couldn't see what she was writing. Like maybe I would confront her about it later in the parking lot.

It was all over in a few seconds, and we returned to our seats. While we waited for the winner to be announced, I chatted with a mother and her 20-month-old son. She acknowledged that she hadn't told her husband she was entering their boy in a beauty contest. "He wouldn't approve," she said. "He thinks we're shopping."

Henry made a clean sweep. He won the title of "Baby King" and all the side competitions. We walked away from our first foray into pageantry with a crown, two trophies, five medals and a sash.

For a moment, I felt bad for Blue-Sweatered Baby. But that moment passed.

AFTERWARD, I CHATTED WITH SUNBURST ORGANIZER PAT WELCH. Pat lives in Upstate New York but is in charge of Sunburst for Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. She runs all the preliminary and state pageants, which means setting up chairs, hiring judges, ordering trophies and handling emcee duties. Her adult son, Lauren, staffs the registration table and deals with difficult parents. They spend nearly every weekend from September to March on the road.

Pat is well aware that some people dislike children's beauty pageants. She has been confronted by strangers who tell her what she does is wrong and harmful to the children's psyches. They tell her she should be ashamed of herself. Others accuse her of being a con artist, of preying on proud, gullible parents.

They just don't get it, Pat tells me. "People like to say this is a money game, that you're ripping them off," she says. "But they forget there's insurance to pay, mall fees, franchise fees -- it goes on and on." For a statewide event, she might spend $15,000 on trophies alone. Although, as Pat acknowledges, it's not as if she's ever come out in the red.

Pat tells me, more than once, that the purpose of pageants is for kids to have fun, not to get modeling contracts or commercial gigs. Still, the message is undermined by Sunburst's marketing. The entry form says "Be Discovered!" not "Have Fun!"

But Pat insists that it's the parents who give pageants a bad name. The worst of them yell at their kids and argue with the judges. One parent, Pat remembers, was asked to leave an event after viciously upbraiding her child in front of several shocked onlookers. The most troublesome of all, according to Pat, are people like me, the parents of babies: "Everybody thinks their baby is the prettiest baby in the world."

The mall pageant was just a warm-up. The real test would be state or, technically, tri-state. Sunburst combines Maryland, Virginia and Delaware into one regional mega-pageant. (There are no Sunburst pageants held in Washington.) Henry would be up against stiff competition now. This was the big time.

We had to buy Henry new outfits. He needed an all-black ensemble for the model search. For the swimsuit competition, we bought him red swim trunks and a matching red hat. Day-care wear required an outfit less formal than formalwear but more formal than, say, what he might actually wear to day care. We went with a sailor suit. Our total clothing bill came in just under $200. Which is ridiculous, considering that he will grow out of it all in, like, a month. At first we had been reluctant to tell friends we were entering Henry in a beauty contest. But it was a hard secret to keep. Once word got out, the reactions ranged from "Hmm" to "You are permanently damaging your child." One friend of mine was particularly insistent on this latter point.

I pointed out that it was extremely unlikely that Henry would remember any of this when he was older.

"But what will he think when he finds out?" she asked.

"Maybe I won't tell him."

"You're writing an article about it."

This was a valid point. He would almost certainly find out. And there was the possibility that this knowledge would be detrimental to his fragile sense of self. So, Henry, if you're reading this years from now, let me just say: I meant well. Also, suck it up.

We arrived at the Holiday Inn near Dulles Inter-national Airport on Friday afternoon. While I was checking in, a mother holding a toddler pushed in front of me.

"We're here for the Sunburst tri-state pageant," she declared. "Where do we go?"

The woman behind the counter pointed to the large Sunburst sign, not five feet away. After the mother hurried off, the woman behind the counter shook her head. "It's going to be a long weekend," she said.

She was right about that. I handed Kellie the key card so she could take Henry to the room while I stood in line to register. When it was my turn, I handed in our entry form.

"So, he's doing everything, right?"

"Everything except for hair," I replied. He had more by now, but there still wasn't enough to notice.

"That'll be $300 even."

This was, by the way, in addition to the $120 we had already mailed in. And on top of the $100 we had spent at the mall pageant. And there's the nearly $200 we spent on Henry's new outfits. For those scoring at home, that's about $720.

I counted out the 20s. Sunburst is an all-cash, no-receipt business. Three-hundred dollars, in my humble world, is not an insignificant sum. Handing it over genuinely hurt. But once you're standing there with all the other parents, you don't want to cheap out.

The pageant took place in the first-floor "ballroom," a big, generic meeting space with a dark red, ornately patterned carpet, the kind that looks the same no matter what you spill on it. At the front of the room was a long, narrow, knee-high stage with a lectern at one end. There were banks of bright lights and an expensive-looking video camera. Behind the stage hung a multicolored Sunburst banner, and, below that, hundreds of shiny, gold-colored trophies were lined up in neat rows on folding tables.

During orientation, we learned that no photography would be permitted in the ballroom. The reason given was that cameras interfere with the professional photographer's equipment. A suspicious parent might think that the ban had to do with charging $15 a pop for the official shots. Regardless, plenty of parents flouted this rule, to the extreme annoyance of the organizers.

Pat asked us all to be polite, to be on time and to go easy on the makeup. Despite this last bit of advice, I saw 5-year-old girls wearing lipstick and eye shadow. I watched a mother use what looked like a white marker to give her daughter a last-minute French manicure. Other girls seemed to have been dipped in sunless tanner. The effect on them was eerily doll-like.

THE FIRST EVENT WAS THE MODEL SEARCH. Minutes before we were scheduled to go onstage, I felt, for the first time, kind of nervous. Nothing serious, just low-grade apprehension. Which was silly. All I had to do was say Henry's name and age into the microphone. Oh, and his height.

Wait. How tall was he?

"Twenty-seven inches," Kellie said.

"You just know that off the top of your head? Are you sure?"

She gave me a Look.

When it was our turn, I climbed onto the stage, walked to the taped X and pivoted to face the judges. I then squatted down so Henry's feet could rest on the stage. He stood, staring blankly at the judges, no doubt dazed by the lights. The judges stared back, just as blankly. When the staring contest ended, we exited stage left and returned to our seats.

"How did we do?" I asked Kellie, anxious for reassurance.

"You did great."

"Really? I worried he didn't look happy enough."

"No, you did fine."

"Fine?"

"I said great."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

I wasn't. Even though we would spend the whole weekend here, the only time that mattered were those few seconds onstage. That would separate the kings and queens from the commoners. If you had asked me, I would have told you I didn't care how it ended. But I'm not sure that would have been the truth.

I HAD THOUGHT, GOING INTO THE SWIMSUIT COMPETITION, that Henry's hat would set him apart. I was wrong. There were babies with hats and sunglasses and flip-flops. One little boy carried a miniature surfboard. Another donned a set of child-size scuba gear. Pat had us all parade in front of the audience while techno music blared over the fuzzy hotel speakers. When the musical prancing concluded, I tried to start a conversation with the father standing next to me.

"How did you get dragged into this?"

"I just do what I'm told," he said.

A word about dads and pageants: While the moms definitely outnumber the dads, there were more men at the contest than I would have thought. The half-dozen or so I talked to all gave me some version of "My wife made me do it." One guy, referring to his wife, told me that pageants were "her hobby" and that he was just along for the ride. "She has him until he's 5," the dad said. "Then he's mine." He listed some of the manly activities his son would later be encouraged to pursue, including karate and competitive paintball. "No more beauty stuff," he said. He paused. "Unless some modeling agency really wants him. But they have to call us."

THE NEXT MORNING, WE BEGAN AT 8 WITH THE INTERVIEW. When I saw "interview" on the schedule, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would they ask Henry questions? Would they ask me questions? Would they expect me to answer as if I were Henry?

Actually none of the above. Pre-verbal children don't have to submit to an interrogation. But they do, for some reason, have to show up. Older children answer simple questions about their favorite classes or TV shows. During the interview, all children (including the babies) are required to wear the official, brightly colored Sunburst T-shirt featuring the words "Model Search" against a pink-and-purple background.

Between events, I watched parents coaching their children in the hallway. "Hand to cheek! Hand to cheek!" one mother reminded her daughter. The girl, who appeared to be about 7 and was dressed in a sparkly green dress, put her hand to her cheek as instructed, tilted her head and flashed a saccharine smile. My favorite was a pudgy-cheeked 4-year-old who tilted her head, put her hand on her hip, blew a kiss and spun around. That takes practice.

WHY?

That was the question I kept coming back to. Why had we become so invested? Why were we and all these other parents willing to spend all this money and put our kids through this craziness? What was the point?

I asked the mother of a 3-year-old boy why she entered him. "The savings bond," she told me. "For college." The most you can hope to win from Sunburst at the state level is a $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond, which can be purchased for $500. We spent that in entry fees alone. While you can win more at national competitions (Sunburst's top prize is a $10,000 savings bond), if you're in it for the money, you might want to recheck your math.

Another mom was more straightforward. For her, it was about fame and money. Her 8-year-old daughter already had an agent. This agent, the mother informed me, had another client who stars in Welch's grape juice commercials.

"Do you know how much they paid her?" she whispered.

"No," I whispered back. "How much?"

"Seventy-five thousand."

"Really?"

She nodded.

The story seemed bogus to me; it was also revealing. Other parents told me that "it seemed like it would be fun" and, "I thought we'd try it" and, "Her cousin does pageants, so we figured, why not?"

None of these answers seemed quite right. I'm not saying they were lies, exactly. They just weren't the truth.

NEXT CAME DAY-CARE WEAR. The boys were dressed in sweaters and jackets, button-down shirts and shiny leather shoes. One 2-year-old wore a golfing get-up, as if he might be hitting the links later. By this point, we had the stage drill down. I was no longer nervous. Henry, ever adaptable, seemed to be used to the routine, too. We were old pros.

The girls took the stage to the ABBA song "Dancing Queen," with its chorus about "having the time of your life." The boys followed, to another song. "You know, this is kind of fun," Kellie said at one point after taking Henry for a spin onstage. I agreed. It was fun.

When Henry wasn't competing, I would place mental bets on which children would suffer an onstage meltdown. The look on the face of a parent who realizes that an ill-timed tantrum has torpedoed any shot at the crown is both pitiful and (I'm sorry) hilarious. One little girl, during her moment in the spotlight, crammed an index finger up her nose. Her mother quickly pulled it out. It went right back in. Another kid literally fell on his face. His mother, in a single, swift motion, grabbed the boy by one arm and carried him, dangling, off the stage and out of the ballroom.

When roaming around the hotel, I always wore my pageant button and number, identifying me as the parent of a contestant. I felt less conspicuous that way. Without the button, I was just some guy hanging out at a children's beauty contest. And no one wants to be that guy.

Minutes before the formalwear competition, we noticed a red mark on Henry's left cheek. It was nothing serious; he had probably slept on his hand or bonked himself with a toy. In an hour, it would be gone. But, for the moment, it was clearly visible and, given Sunburst's emphasis on facial beauty, a possible handicap.

"There's nothing we can do about it now," Kellie said.

"Maybe I can turn him to one side or something."

"I don't know. It's pretty obvious."

It was also obvious that we both cared about the outcome. We were pageant parents, whether we liked it or not.

THE AWARDS WERE HANDED OUT SUNDAY MORNING. Unlike the previous events, the crowning ceremony required a ticket (in the form of a Sunburst button). We had received one button as part of our welcome packet but had to spend 10 bucks on another button so that both Kellie and I could attend. After shelling out a fortune in fees, spending more just to see if Henry had won was, to put it mildly, irksome.

The ceremony was even more packed than the formalwear competition. It was standing room only, with onlookers spilling into the hallways. Pat tried desperately, and with limited success, to quiet down the raucous crowd. Once underway, the ceremony went by so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what happened. Henry won in his age and gender group for best photo collage and best photo portfolio, but somehow managed not to win most photogenic. He didn't even place in the swimsuit competition (an outrage!), and I think he was runner-up in model search and day-care wear, but I wouldn't swear to it. Overall in his or her group, he came in fourth. Pat later told me that each judge devises his or her own criteria -- beauty, the beholder's eye and so forth. I was disappointed. When I saw the father of the winning boy hoist his son into the air and let out a triumphant "Whoop!" I felt only envy.

And that, I think, may be the answer to the "why" question. Pat was right: Every parent does believe his or her baby is the most beautiful in the world. And we want that belief to be validated. We want it to be true. The pageant may be shallow and silly, but the feeling is genuine. We want to whoop.

A couple of weeks after the pageant, I called Pat. She was on her way to Florida to assist in another beauty contest. She told me that one of the judges was "completely in love with Henry" and thought that, when he's a little older, he'd have a shot at winning it all.

If she was trying to make me feel better, it worked. And it got me thinking: By the time the international finals rolled around, Henry would be nearly a year old. He would have more personality by then and probably more hair. Perhaps even a tooth or two. Even though he hadn't won state, we could still compete in internationals, provided we coughed up the entry fees. What was a few hundred more dollars anyway?

As I was mulling this over, Henry was in my lap, happily chewing on my cellphone.

"What do you think, little dude?" I asked. "Should we go for it?"

Henry stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

"Buh," he said.

While I can't be sure, I'm taking that as a no.

Tom Bartlett, a writer who lives in Mount Rainier, last wrote for the Magazine about raw milk. He can be reached at www.minortweaks.com.