The woman who dressed her young daughter as Dolly Parton - complete with a padded bra and sculpting underwear - for a child beauty pageant that aired on TLC's "Toddlers & Tiaras" could lose custody of the girl after her estranged husband claimed she sexually exploited their daughter by allowing her to dress so provocatively.It appears that the dad would not be getting any custody but for this pageant. On the video, psychologist Wendy Walsh says "it is absolute emotional child abuse ... it's shameful." The mom says:
Her father, Bill Verst, has asked a Kentucky court to grant him sole custody of his daughter, who is now 6.
During a court proceeding Saturday, a judge threw reporters out of the courtroom, closed the hearing and placed a gag order on mother Lindsay Jackson. The judge also imposed a ban on any pageant activity for Maddy or her mother for the duration of the trial.
A court-appointed psychologist has sided with Maddy's father, condemning the Parton costume and recommending that a judge make Verst the girl's sole custodial parent.
If that Maddy needs to live with her dad because she does pageants with me, then that opens the door for any parent to challenge anybody on any activity that a kid does, period.Yes, that door is wide open, I am afraid. That is probably how the mom got custody of the girl in the first place.
These TV shows like Toddlers & Tiaras and Dance Moms seem pretty sick to me. But I know moms like that. Those activities are legal and not shown objectively to be harmful, as far as I know.
Note how the judge does not have the guts to let reporters see what he is doing. When judges are doing something indefensible, their first impulse is to cover it up.
This case will probably generate some controversy over whether the pageants are good for kids. But the real issue here is whether judges should be second-guessing every parental decision and child activity, and jerking child custody around according to his prejudices or the prejudices of some stupid psychologist.
The phrase "legitimate rape" has been misinterpreted. Those who are against abortion are usually in favor of allowing abortion in case of rape, but only if it is legitimately a rape. They do not want any women to be able to just tell the abortion clinic it was a rape, without any consequences for lying.
In a genuine case of a violent rape by a stranger, the woman reports it immediately, and she gets medical treatment to prevent a pregnancy. That is what I've been told, anyway. In that sense, I believe that it is correct to say that pregnancy from legitimate rape is rare.
There are feminists who refuse to distinguish different kinds of rape, for ideological reasons. So they hate phrases like "legitimate rape". They say that stranger rape, date rape, and marital rape are all the same. They are the ones with the extreme views.
This case will probably generate some controversy over whether the pageants are good for kids. But the real issue here is whether judges should be second-guessing every parental decision and child activity, and jerking child custody around according to his prejudices or the prejudices of some stupid psychologist.
I usually defend dads, not moms, on this blog. But I defend any parent's right to make decisions about legal activities. If the pageants are so harmful, then pass a law against them. Get the TV shows off the air. But apparently the pageants have broad public approval.
I don't blame the dad, because bringing this motion is probably the only way he can see his kid.
Family court judges have way too much power. The law should just let both parents have joint custody. If the mom wants to do beauty pageants on her time, and the pageants are legal, then it is none of anyone's business.
Update: TV legal analyst Lis Wiehl sides with the dad. She just divorced her second husband. I don't know about her child custody.
3 comments:
All of hypocrites have problems with heterosexual related activities. But they have no problem with homosexual related things.
"If the pageants are so harmful, then pass a law against them...Family court judges have way too much power. The law should just let both parents have joint custody. If the mom wants to do beauty pageants on her time, and the pageants are legal, then it is none of anyone's business." Spot on right there.
And note Wendy Walsh's comment that the pageants constituted emotional abuse. The thing I've noticed from the family court stories you have posted is that judges make up all sorts of frivolous interpretations of emotional abuse. And then in your own custody case there was the CPS agent who considered a math contest to be abusive.
And my quick search of studies regarding child beauty pageants turned up little, but wikipedia's article about child beauty pageants has a section that reads:
"In a study published in 2005, eleven women who had competed in beauty pageants as children were compared to a control group of eleven women who had not competed. They were compared in different areas, such as BMI, age and overall body satisfaction. In general, this limited study found that those who competed in beauty pageants as children were more dissatisfied with their bodies, and had greater impulse dysregulation and trust issues than those who did not participate, but showed no significant differences in measures of bulimia, body perception, depression, or self-esteem. The authors acknowledged their small sample size reduced the conclusiveness of their study."
These beauty pageants are like many other activities. They appeal to certain types of parents, and have various pros and cons. I don't like them, but no one cares about my opinion. I object to the logic that says that married and single parents can do them, but divorced parents cannot.
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