I don’t remember my time in a ‘beauty contest.’ I was an infant at the time and only know what my mother has reiterated to me about it. Each parent dolled up their baby. In my case, that was quite literal because I was very small and wore a frilly red dress made for dressing up a doll. There was a set up at the local mall where we were then photographed. I ‘won’ second place. (Always taking second, story of my life!) I still have the little red doll dress that I wore for it, though it’s packed away in my belongings, and I think there’s a photo of me somewhere in my mother’s hoards of storage. What’s my opinion? These are ways for mothers to validate their feelings of accomplishment for the work their bodies put in for creating a child, which is fine because it’s a normal sense of pride that parents should have. However, the older the child gets, the more exploitive and unhealthy it becomes. At some point there needs to be an awakening to how utterly vain and pretentious it is.