
The Parents’ Television Council is a group of Puritanical fuddy duddies who try to force their version of morality on the rest of society by holding their breath and stomping around until some jelly-spined executive freaks out and gives them what they want. It’s not easy to make them seem like the reasonable party in a situation. In order to do that, you’d have to be so far in the wrong that even heathen, Free Speech zealots like myself think you’re doing something disgusting. You know, something like dressing up a 3-year-old as a famous prostitute and having her strut around a stage during a beauty pageant like a harlot. Oh, hey “Toddlers & Tiaras,” didn’t see you there.
The PTC justifiably lost their damn mind about this, as any rational person would. But they’re not the real story here. No, the real story is the mother, Wendy Dickey, and her attempted defense of the whole situation. I’ve pulled some selected quotes to illustrate what a misguided boob this lady is:
From Entertainment Weekly:
“Well, at this pageant there was an option to do celebrity-wear,” Dickey says. “And we thought about what we could wear with her being a brunette and Julia Roberts is my favorite actress of all time. I thought it was real cute to do Julia. She’s 3, if she was 10 I never would have considered this. But as young as she is I thought it was very comical.
Because if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that sexualizing a 3-year-old is HILARIOUS. By this lady’s reasoning, a picture of a baby in lucite heels leaning against a stripper pole would be, like, double Caddyshack.
Also, dressing her child up like Julia Roberts? Not a problem. Julia Roberts seems like a great lady. Dressing her up like a character Julia Roberts played who had sex with strangers for money? No. Icky. Thank God Sharon Stone wasn’t her favorite actress.
“I’m amazed it’s caused this much of a frenzy,” Dickey says. “The judges loved it. Everybody except one particular mom went nuts over it. It was the cutest thing ever. It was very innocent. A lot probably would have been different if they aired the whole entire routine instead of just the hooker part.”
“ALL THE OTHER CREEPS AND PERVERTS LOVED IT!”
And later, from an interview with TMZ:
Wendy says, “I’m raising my child just as well as any mother does … I take my kid to church every week … at least I’m not forcing them into sports and getting my child injured like some parents.”
Wendy adds, “People need to look at their own family and what they’re doing. I don’t know why people are focusing so much on pageant moms when there’s much more harmful things people are letting their children do!”
“Yeah, at least I’m just injuring my kid psychologically. That doesn’t even count! I mean, you can’t even see the bruises!”
For the record, if I ever have a child, I would sooner let him or her play with discount fireworks while hanging upside-down from rusty monkey bars than compete in a freak show like this. And I didn’t even include the part of this lady’s explanation where she said the outfit was fine because it was more clothing than a bathing suit or a gymnastics uniform, as though the problem was strictly the amount of exposed skin and not the loaded message the whole thing sent.
So congrats, Wendy Dickey. It takes a special kind of monster to get me to stand side by side with the PTC and sing Kumbaya, but you did it.
Here’s the video, if you want to have an aneurysm or never sleep again.



Can you imagine the field day frat bros will have with these Toddler beauty queens when they’re freshman in college?
@ Nussy – If any of these girls go on to college, I’d consider it a win.
And this is why I dislike religion. Her excuse is “I take my kid to church.” Just because you incorporate religion into your life DOES NOT MAKE YOU A GOOD PARENT. Then she mentions her kid doesn’t play sports. Right, because you know, teaching a kid to work with others as a team to achieve and ultimate goal is a BAD IDEA while parading your kid around like a whore to get attention is going to make her a very functional human being in the future.
/thankful to have two boys
The real abuse is naming her child Paisley.
You still don’t have to like the PTC though. They want to ban the network from showing this crap. I say let TLC show it, let people hate it, and let them realize on their own not to show it again.
My favorite part is when the mother states that people should essentially mind their own business…and she’s on tv.
This woman has terrible judgement, she named her daughter Paisley.
T&T once again raises the bar for bad parents
Dammit Burnsy. I should have refreshed the page before posting my comment. great minds think alike.
@ Bobby – No, I still hate the PTC. And you’re right about the part where this crap shouldn’t be “banned,” just that they should be shamed into stopping it all. But this is one of the few times in the history of things that I agree with the PTC’s reasoning for their outrage.
Let’s call it a very limited “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” exception.
Fun with future strippers… TLC on Tuesdays!
Perhaps Buddy could bake them all cakes to pop out of, and the winner gets adopted by Jon Gosselin and the loser all go to Kate. It’d be TLC crossover he’ll – like when “Hello Larry” showed up on “Diff’rent Strokes”. Except, this time, the stroke is all mine!
I have two young daughters and seen people walking around playgrounds with notebooks, asking parents if they want to enter their daughters in ‘Beauty Contests’. When one guy asked me if I would like to enter my youngest in one, I very nearly strangled him using a swing rope.
So, has Danger carried out a coup of ‘Warming Glow’?
Have we got a new leader? What’s going on?
You are all missing the pure genius of this woman. How the hell is this child ever going to revolt against her parents? She’s going to run off and join a convent, that’s how. Praise Jesus!
“Julia Roberts is my favorite actress of all time…”
There you go, the lady just isn’t smart.
“The judges loved it.”
People who make a living sexualizing little girls loved the idea of having one dressed as a prostitute? Shocking!
“I take my kid to church every week …” I’m surprised she didn’t invoke the old Mary Magdalene was a prostitute argument.
The bottom line is that this is America, and if she won the competition, it doesn’t matter that this mother dressed her child up like a 3 year old prostitute.
Nicki Minaj is a famous prostitute? Toddler what? Oh, I see, never mind.
@smegga – Daddy still loves you, he just had a bit too much of that amber “big people drink”, I’m sure. Now just put on this Fred Garvin outfit….
This show should be renamed “Future Porn Stars with Daddy Issues.”
Geez, you know you fucked up when other pageant moms think you crossed the line.
I don’t get the difference between this and getting the kids to stomp around in a saucy cow-girl outfits. Crazy pagaent mom kind of has point. At least there is some context to THIS hooker outfit. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
Is she effing serious!? You’re on t.v…that pretty much spells out “look at me i’m an attention seeking whore of a mother! This show needs to go off the air asap.
@Dave: classic SNL skit reference made me nearly choke on my chuips.
I realize that this is not the big issue here, but did anyone else notice that the mother choose this ‘character’ because her daughter is a brunette.
“And we thought about what we could wear with her being a brunette…”
Then why is she wearing a blonde wig?
@dowski ‘At least there is some context to this hooker outfit’.
Holy shit. Please reread what you just typed. In what fucking Econoline-rape-van world do you live in where a cowgirl outfit = Julia Roberts character who has sex for money?? At least ‘cowgirl’ is generic. The mom specifically chose an outfit that has no other connotation than ‘hooker that gets stuffed by Richard Gere’.
@ Dr. Steve
Rape-van what?
If you are comparing the costumes in these things maybe this is the worst one ever but it’s still only marginally worse than any other….actually, I don’t care.