Those Jon-Benet-type moms are very scary. :fifty:
not all of them. my husband's cousin Cassie did those shows, but she did it because she liked the dress-up part. Her mom entered her in one, and she won first place. Cassie wanted to do it again. If she didn't want to go, she didn't have to. She even won one year and was one of the 'royalty' of Blaine, MN-not like that is a real big deal, but it was to her-she got to be a princess for a year and it was just fun for her-wearing pretty dresses and wearing a tiny amount of makeup. She got a small scholarship as well. Her mom, Tim's aunt, didn't push her at all. She just said that when it stops being fun is the time to stop.
She still does pageants every so often, but when school is in, she is only allowed one extra-curr activity per season, so she usually sticks with ice skating and soccer.
Its when the moms get obsessive because they wanted to do stuff like that when they were kids, so they live it through their kids, and make them do it whether they want to or not and put too much emphasis on winning, thinking this will be their ticket out of whatever situation they are in to retirement. This also goes with sports-parents too.