5 Parenting tips from The Learning Channel

Last night I watched an episode of Toddlers in Tiaras on TLC.



I know, I know but I can’t help it. TLC is like a shoe box in a stairwell with Dead Baby written in magic marker on it. You have to look! Each time I think there is no lower point for humanity, TLC finds one and makes a show about it. Here is what I learned from Toddlers in Tiaras.

1) If you let a child do anything it wants, it will still be sucking on a pacifier at the age of 4.

Yes, one of the toddlers had a pacifier that she called Ni Ni. If she didn’t have it she would scream and throw a tantrum. The mother shrugged it off and said, She’s a diva. I let her do whatever she wants. It’s easier that way. Now, I’m no Dr. Spock but it seems to me that once they’re walking properly and speaking in complete sentences you’ve got to take away the soother. How ironic would it be for mommy’s little beauty queen to wind up as a 40 year old infantilist still sucking on a dummy?

It would be like she mentally aged in reverse. Suck on that Benjamin Button!

2) Some parents let their kids drink Red Bull

There was one 6 year old girl that started her morning with a can of Red Bull and was on her third before the pageant even started! Her mom said that the girl had trouble getting going in the morning and that she liked to give her daughter Red Bull to keep her energy up. What is she a homicide detective catching a 3 AM stiff or a 40 year old gay hairdresser on a Saturday morning? That’s one of the things we all envy most about little kids. There unlimited energy. No kid needs Red Bull.

3) It’s a lot easier to give your 6 year old a spray tan if you buy your own machine.

All the kids in the pageant had spray tans. Women get spray tans because they think they look sexy.

Women get their pageant daughters spray tans because they have crippling emotional and self image issues and must live vicariously through their children.



One pageant mother bought her own spray tan kit so she could spray her daughter at home. She said it was easier than going to a salon and the daughter liked it too because she could dry off on the backyard trampoline instead of sitting in the salon reading. I’d like to chip in that it’s also good practice for her future profession.

4) You can get your child dentures to hide their unsightly baby teeth.

Yeah, that’s right. I watched a girl get fitted with child partial dentures to give her a big beautiful set of adult teeth in her tiny head. They call them Flippers and it makes all the girls look like a cross between Garry Busey and Fire Marshall Bill.

This:

Plus this:

Equals this:

5) It’s perfectly fine for a 6 year old to grind her ass on stage as long as you call it Hip Hop Dancing

This was probably one of the most disturbing things in the show. (And that’s saying something!) I’m not even going to search for a video of it to post just in case the cops bust down my door and I have to give them that research excuse like Pete Townsend. Basically it was little girls in crop tops and short skirts on stage bumping and grinding like they were Hot Gossip.



They referred to it on the show as Hip Hop Dancing. I think it was just a ploy so that if anyone took offence to it and tried to ban it from the pageants they could just label that person a racist.

Pageant Judge: They’re not trying to be sexy you ignorant fool. They’re just a stunning group of little white 6 year old girls celebrating black culture. Now I’d ask that you kindly leave event room C of the Holiday Inn and take your racist opinions with you. Good day.

Ha, nice try. I don’t recall Sir Mix A Lot having any toddlers in his videos. Right Mix?

Right Johnny. My Anaconda don’t want none unless you got legal age buns hun!

Good Day to you too. Come on Chief Boot Knocker. Let’s go get some buttermilk biscuits.