Up there with Samantha Cameron and Alexa Chung, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter is rated number 21 – ahead of Lady Gaga and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Suri Cruise is 5 years old. This little ‘fashion icon’ still needs help dressing herself and uses a dummy. She is not a woman and Glamour UK shouldn’t have included her in the list. Doing so contributes to the unremitting adultification of celebrity children (and non-celebrity children). It invites us to see Suri Cruise as much older than she really is, which is dangerous to her.
Here’s what I had to say about it on Channel 7’s Morning Show last week. Journalist Melissa Hoyer and parenting commentator Yvette Vignando felt the same way.
In the latest installment of ‘horrors inflicted on small girls in the name of child beauty pageants’ comes this story, about an 8 year old in the US who undergoes Botox to keep up with the other girls in the tough world of pageants.
Kerry Campbell has admitted that she regularly injects daughter Britney with Botox. Apparently Britney had complained about the wrinkles on her face – after they were pointed out by other pageant children- so her mum thought it a good idea to administer Botox. “Kids are harsh and being confident is something she has to be with them,” Campbell said.
You can watch her interview with Good Morning America here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzvSkIk7xg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
In my view mother and daughter are both victims of beauty culture, and especially of child beauty pageant culture, which reeks with over the top beauty and grooming practices, sexualised dance routines and expensive glitzy costumes. Five year old child beauty pageant ‘star’ Eden Wood is being touted for interviews with Australian media with a price tag of up to $20,000. Oh, and she’ll be doing her Las Vegas Showgirl routine when she gets here in July.
How many more reasons do we need to keep child beauty pageants out of Australia? Please join the campaign. Sign the petition, join the Austrailan’s Against Child Beauty Pageants facebook and attend the protests country-wide May 24.
See also: Petition launched to stop US child beauty pageants in Australia
Child beauty pageants: equating girls worth with appearance dangerous and destructive
9 Responses
There is a legal age for someone getting a tattoo. Please someone tell me there is an age for Botox! If not, how do we get one? This reminds me somewhat of highschool aged girls wearing makeup to school or primary students having their legs and eyebrows waxed. For crying out loud – who are you trying to impress? I will certainly endeavour to teach my two girls (now 4 and 5) that our bodies are merely something we use to allow us to experience life. Whatever we look like will not limit our ability to enjoy life and experience happiness. Wish me luck!
If it were not for Glamour Magazine I would not even think twice about Suri Cruise’s clothing. Apart from that one little pair of heels, she seems to be wearing age-appropriate clothing. Sure, it’s expensive and they often look like party dresses, but they are still little girl party dresses. Even the handbags are the types of bags that a lot of little girls want to carry – as far as I can see from the photos and other online content, Suri herself is behaving like a child enjoying frilly dresses. But her inclusion on a list of well-dressed women does, as Melinda points out, invite us to view her as more than a little girl. It makes our minds switch from ‘party dress’ to ‘evening dress’. That’s a subtle change, but a very dangerous one. Being conditioned to think of children as ‘women’ robs them of the opportunity to be children, because if we all treat them as women, they’re going to feel like being a woman, and not a child, is what is expected of them. But far more than that, it potentially makes them unsafe.
As for the Botox mother, the fact that she sees absolutely NOTHING wrong with it rings huge alarm bells and I honestly think she needs some help. There’s a difference between knowing it’s wrong and doing it anyway (which is abuse) and honestly believing it’s perfectly okay. In some ways that’s far more dangerous for her daughter, because she (the mother) has not developed or understood appropriate boundaries between help and harm.
Notwithstanding Glamour’s culpability, I want to know what Suri Cruise’s parents were thinking, allowing her to be on that list in the first place. Surely allowing your 5-year-old to be included in list of women, her appearance subjected to public scrutiny, voted on and ranked, is not a huge leap from pageant parents who allow (encourage…) their 5-year-olds to be paraded with a bunch of other 5-year-olds, their appearances subjected to public scrutiny, voted on, and ranked. “About as close to child abuse as you can get”, right Michael Carr-Gregg? Although poor Britney Campbell’s mum has managed to completely bulldoze what was left of that fine line.
Enough is enough. 5 year old ‘women’ and literally toxic pageant culture fail our children and are a social disgrace. I’m absolutely chomping at the bit to stand up for our kids on May 24!!!
Any “Mother” who is in such a hurry for her child to grow up AND in such a physical and emotionally damaging fashion should be arrested and charged with child abuse…this is outrageous and I cant believe stories like this can be aired and then not followed up by CPS?! I predict that poor little girl will be in the news again in 15 years time when she is suing her mother for deliberately causing the facial disfigurement which could potentially be the outcome.
Hi Nicole,
To be fair to Suri’s parents, I doubt Glamour asked for their permission to put her on the list, any more than the mags ask permission to print whatever else they like about celebrities’ lives. I like a picture of an actress in a pretty frock as much as the next person, but I do think that they are entitled to some private life and surely children should be off limits.
Kids who accuse each other of having wrinkles have to have gotten that info from somewhere….. are their own mothers telling them they have wrinkles? That’s so mean! How crushing for a little kid to not feel gorgeous to even their own mother. 🙁
Parents should not comment negatively on their child’s appearance like that. Nor should parents complain about their own appearance to the extent that the kids think it’s normal to be so picky. (yes I’m a parent)
@Imelda, I take your point, however none of the relevant headlines I’ve come across have read “Suri Cruise makes Glamour best-dressed list, Tom & Katie furious” 😉
These beauty pageants are no doubt child abuse. It boggles my mind that they are allowed. Exploitation by all of the adults around her should have direct ramification. I think there is so much psychological damage to all of these children. These parents should be in jail. My family would happily take her in and let her be a child.
@Nicole
You are quite right, of course. I guess I was hoping that they would object, given time!