Crazy 8's

I was in a waiting room this morning watching a woman being interviewed regarding the Botox injections she administers to her 8 year old daughter to keep the child competitive in kiddy pageants. She’s a “medical professional” and gives the shots herself. When compelled under the reflective quad of an interviewer, a camera crew, having her beautiful daughter sitting beside her, and the certain knowledge that damning idiocy on this level would be seen by millions, this mom didn’t drop to her knees clutching her head under the crushing weight of realization. She didn’t beg any gods for forgiveness. Didn’t immediately bundle her child up and rush her to someone sane. Her entire justification: It’s tough in the pageant world. My boss has an expression: “The gene pool could use a little chlorine.”

Could this woman be an excellent parent otherwise? No. The child seemed happy and engaging, but that’s more an indicator of life in the pageant world where not being happy and engaging is not an option. Women who never got over playing with baby dolls should not be allowed to have children. The mom said lots of kiddy porn pageant parents Botox their kids. I added the kiddy porn part because it was necessary. Lots of kids are happy and engaging despite idiot parents. That doesn’t mean those parents get the medal “Good Parent” by default. What makes a good parent? Not giving your kid Botox is likely high on the list.

Of course the entire interview was engineered to responsibly outrage us. The interviewer asked the pat questions and adopted the proper expressions to guide viewers. At no point did the interviewer—a mother herself, she informed postscript—frown deeply into the mom’s face and say “Are you fucking crazy?” She did not cut the interview short to prevent this bovine-minded woman from receiving a crazy person’s inevitable 15 minutes of fame (there’s always the possibility for mom to be picked up by a reality show). So I’m outraged twofold. Whenever there’s a geek show you have to be mad at the barker. Somebody sought this woman out.

Maybe rehumanizing is the wrong word. Help me here, what do we call it? Where do we go to become better than ourselves?

Oh, and the little girl also had the hot wax on the “bikini” area. I didn’t know little girls even had bikini areas. Somebody’s out there looking, though.

Kiddy porn.