Pint-Sized Pageants : Legions of Toddlers Compete in Beauty Contests Despite Experts’ Reservations

While other toddlers were breakfasting on cereal or watching cartoons one recent Sunday morning, 22-month-old Alexis Stevens of Thousand Oaks was amusing herself as the judges of a beauty pageant deliberated her fate.

The blue-eyed, brown-haired girl nibbled a piece of chocolate, plucked a pearl-and-crystal adornment from her $375 designer dress, then uncapped a ballpoint pen and took a few swipes at one of the shiny white double doors of the Hong Kong Room in the Torrance Holiday Inn.

“Lexy! Don’t do that,” her mother said with a giggle, gently guiding her out of the doorway and back into the room, which was crowded with mothers and, skipping about in acres of sequined chiffon and colorful petticoats, their little girls.

Alexis, the daughter of concrete contractor Roger Stevens and his wife, Paula, was in the 5-and-younger division in an event staged by Royal Kingdom Productions of El Cajon. A veteran of more than 20 pageants and the winner of more than 100 trophies and crowns, Alexis was vying along with two other tots for the title of “Wee Miss.”

Pageants are popular with a devoted legion of mothers who spend whatever it takes to win and who scoff at experts’ warnings that the activity can harm their children’s psyches.

For Paula Stevens, a 30-year-old homemaker who still has the effervescence of her days as a drill team member at Thousand Oaks High School, this is a chance to get together with friends for a few hours in a comforting cocoon of fantasy and glamour.

“It’s kind of like a girls’ day out,” said Sue Doster of Littlerock, a longtime pageant producer who was greeting mothers at the door and registering their daughters. “When dad is taking his son to a football game, mom goes off to the pageant. It’s like getting our nails done. We have a good time and really enjoy it.”

Mothers and pageant officials at the Holiday Inn shrug off comments such as those from Frances Brown, a Van Nuys psychotherapist and child-development consultant, who says the activity can impose a skewed sense of values on children.

“I think the modern trend in bringing up girls is to focus on . . . their ability to develop their strengths as people in general rather than their power of charm and beauty,” Brown said. “So this is an anomaly for middle-class culture at this time, because it reverts to the use of beauty for competitive purposes, using beauty for getting what you want.

“Certainly women have been doing that forever, but women have opportunities now that they didn’t have a couple of generations ago,” Brown said.

Paula Stevens admits hearing comments like that, but says they’re not going to deter her from her new hobby. Alexis entered her first pageant at the age of 11 months. Now she is the reigning Miss American Beauty Mini Queen and the National Baby Model of the Year. She is also Children of the World National Queen.

Those are only her national titles. Alexis also holds six state and city titles and has won a few cash prizes and a TV set, her mother said.

The honors don’t come cheap. Stevens estimates that she has spent at least $1,000 on the hobby in the past year--and she knows others who have spent much more.

“This can be a very expensive hobby,” Stevens said. “I know wives whose husbands don’t have any idea what they’re spending on their child. They say, ‘You don’t want to know.’ ”

Alexis has collected more than 100 trophies, crowns and banners, but none of the cars, cruises and cash prizes some big pageants shower on winners.

Her success is impressive but not at all unusual, said Charles Dunn, publisher of Orlando, Fla.-based Pageantry magazine.

Dunn covers an incalculably vast realm, comprising not only pageants but also a gaggle of ancillary industries, including the dispensing of gowns, makeup, coaching, photography and travel.

More than 3 million people nationwide, about 85% female and of all ages, participate in more than 3,000 pageant systems, Dunn said. There are pageants for boys, men, young married women, older married women, even grandfathers. The most popular, Miss America and Miss Universe, are only the most visible. The Miss America system alone attracts 80,000 participants at local and state events annually and offers $24 million in scholarships, Dunn said.

Entry fees range from modest sums, such as the $35 Paula Stevens paid to get Alexis into the Hong Kong Room, to four figures for larger events conferring national titles. Rewards at the top can be golden: Prizes of $10,000 are not uncommon, and winners sometimes drive home in new cars.

The other obvious lure is a shot at a career in entertainment.

It’s true, talent agents admit--they scout pageants. Bonnie Ventis, co-director of the Young People’s Department at Kazarian Spencer & Associates in Studio City, said her agency trolled pageants to discover teen-age actors Christopher Miranda, who has appeared on the NBC series “Friends,” and Sam Harrigan, a co-star in the theatrical release “Little Giants.”

But she warned parents against overdoing it. “Children who do too many pageants . . . become little wind-up dolls,” Ventis said. “Kids who have been [overly] coached come across very stiff, very false. They lose their childlike quality.”

This echoes some of the warnings of the child psychologists.

Brown, the psychotherapist, said that in some respects pageants are a risky investment of time and energy for parents and children alike.

A child can build character by learning a sport or musical skill and getting the message that practice brings results, Brown said.

“On the other hand, [learning] charm and seductiveness for competitive purposes will only pay off if the little girl happens to stay beautiful as she grows--which is not very predictable,” Brown said.

Some women don’t mind taking that chance.

“If you have the beauty, why not use it?” said Zoraetta Matthews, an Oxnard medical technician whose 5-year-old daughter, Nashay, has been in hundreds of pageants since she was 7 months old.

“And if you have the brains to go with it, then that’s a plus,” Matthews added.

Brown acknowledges that “if the girl and her family remain comfortable with training her to use beauty as a power tool, then who knows? Some great careers may be beginning there.”

That could be the case for Nashay, whose winnings of more than $5,000 have gone into a college fund, her mother said.

Inside the Hong Kong Room, the women seemed to take the warnings of critics in stride.

One of the judges, Kristy Mutch of Huntington Beach, acknowledged that pageants aren’t for everyone.

“It really depends on the child,” said Mutch, adding that she first entered a pageant at the age of 15 and has been at it for 13 years. She wore a crown and sash as Royal Kingdom’s reigning Mrs. Queen.

“It’s good if the child wants to be here,” Mutch said. “It’s the same as sports activities. But the downside is when you see parents forcing [children] to be here. It’s like the parents are reliving their childhood.”

None of the 30 or so youngsters on hand in the Hong Kong Room appeared to have been coerced.

“I like pageants because you get to meet a lot of new people,” said Shayna Hayman, 7, of El Cajon, the reigning Little Miss Queen.

When the competition began and Alexis prepared to take the stage, her mother hinted at her secret for success.

“It’s her personality,” Paula Stevens said. “She’s real bubbly. She’s very comfortable around other people. She can’t wait to get up there on stage and wave and blow kisses. She just loves it.”

Sure enough, Alexis trotted happily out to the front of the stage, her face lit up like the electric parade at Disneyland.

But alas, it was not to be her day, and the judges voted her first runner-up.

“Wow!” said her mother, beaming happily, her joy transcending any hint of disappointment.

Later, she looked over a schedule for the following weekend. “There are a couple of pageants we could enter,” she said. “Or maybe I’ll restrain myself.”