As a former baton twirler myself, I had been in a few pageants when I was a girl so I didn’t take them too seriously. But Breanna asked about doing more of them. She loves modeling and putting on clothes. It’s like playing dress-up. All little girls love that. But it’s not costumes that win pageants. It’s personality. The reason Breanna does so well is that she loves it, and you can tell. Her face just lights up onstage. In five years of doing pageants, I’ve never seen her nervous. She’s always excited. One day we were heading down to a ballroom for a competition and she turned to me and said, “You know, Mom, I can do anything if I work at it.” That’s my goal for her in life: to have confidence to be anything she wants. Breanna’s learned that from pageants.
We’ve only had positive experiences with other girls and their families. I’ve never met an abusive mother, and I’ve met a lot of parents since becoming a part-time pageant trainer myself. Sure, people get upset when they don’t win, but not to any extreme. You are going to find that anywhere. Look at Little League. The girls are good sports, too. It’s not a competitive, backbiting thing.
Last year Breanna was in seven pageants from March to August, which was the most she’s ever done. It can be expensive, especially for a typical middle-class family like ours (my husband works in an iron foundry). We spent about $7,000 on pageant expenses in 1996. We usually work our vacation around a big competition, but it if conflicts with a family event or if we don’t have the money, we don’t do it. And there are many non-glitzy pageants. They’re not all like the ones you see on TV. Some don’t want glamorous clothing at all, and they mark you down for puffy hair or makeup. Breanna has never been in a competition where she’s been asked to do anything that made me uncomfortable. When she did her first swimsuit competition when she was 6, it was very age-appropriate. The suits were very cute, and they held beach balls. As far as I’m concerned, she can keep going in pageants for as long as she wants. She watches Miss America on TV and says, “That’s what I want to do.” Maybe she will, maybe she won’t.
