I am so pissed at some ignorant people in the pageant community right now. KayLyn's modeling coach has a niece that has Down's Syndrome and she is a very beautiful child and she competes in pageants all the time and does wonderful. Well, a couple weekends ago, she competed in her first ever State Pageant and won several overall titles as well as 0-3 Beauty Supreme. Well, of course her mom and aunt had a congrats banner made for her and posted on the congrats board. Well, today some idiot decided to bash this innocent child. I've included everything the person said below.
"I HAVE A REAL PROBLEM WITH THIS! WHY WOULD YOU PUT A CHILD IN A BEAUTY PAGEANT THAT HAS DOWN'S SYNDROME? THIS CHILD OBVIOUSLY DOES. THIS IS CRUEL, MOM ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY TITLES, THIS IS THE WORSE THING I HAVE SEEN IN A WHILE! SHAME ON YOU FOR PUTTING YOUR CHILD THROUGH THIS. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED AND DHS NEEDS TO BE NOTIFIED. THIS IS THE WORSE KIND OF ABUSE! YOU ARE SO CRUEL MOM. THINK ABOUT IT?"
"Pageants are not a place for retarded children, i am sorry but that is the cold truth. And she likes it, how would you know,, b/c she probably doesn't have the ablility to decide b/c of her disablity. You are a sick a demented person to put your child through this. I guess you want people to laugh at you and make fun of your child. That would be the cruel part. You have the major problems lady. No one bashing your child, just making the statement that a DS kid doesn't belong in pageants, THAT IS PURELY SICK! And lady didn't she win b/c of default, no one was there to give her competition, their are plenty of online sites that sell crowns and banners , just go buy you one, stop embrassing your child and yourself. You are disguisting."
Well, needless to say, the pageant community in Arkansas has come unglued on the person that has posted the above messages. It is people like this that give pageants a bad name. I mean I'm looking at this in two aspects: 1 as a pageant mom and 2 as a mom of a child with a disabilty.
Kaylen (Talice's neice) is awesome on stage, she is a little personality power house, and when she is dressed up and has her hair and make up done, you can barely even tell she has DS. And the comment about them not knowing if she wanted to do it or not is so untrue, if Kaylen didn't want to do it, an army couldn't drag her on stage, she is that strong willed. The only good thing I guess I can say about this is the outpour of support that they have gotten from other people in the pageant community and I really feel sorry for whoever is doing the bashing, because WHEN someone finds out who is doing it, the person that has said all of it will be so out of place and left out at pageants, because no will won't anything to do with them because of their attitudes toward children. I mean if that's how they feel, can you imagine what they are teaching their child or children about people with differences or disabilities?
