Well Poirot, your opinion, like mine, is neither here nor there. I'm sure there are many parents that think I am warping my daughters, but they just have a different value system to me.

I'm really into moral relativism. When I'm not a Nihilist that is.

I don't know these women and their daughters, and I am in no position to judge. I just know what's right for me and my daughers.

What is 'psychologically healthy' is not something I want governments making judgment calls on. What's to say someone wont decide your Laissez-faire attitude to education isn't next in the firing line by some do-gooder with a political objection, armed with some hand picked phsycologist theory.

Houellie,

I'm sorry if I implied that you were warping your daughters.....wasn't my intention. I certainly realise you have their best interests at heart. My reflection on what was being warped was the psychological effect of emulation and competition.

I suppose my main query rests on the young age of the girls that compete in these beauty pageants. Most children learn in the normal process of life unfolding how their physical appearance is received by others - and they adjust their opinion of their looks accordingly. Regularly experiencing a "formal judgment" on their presentation would certainly require the child to alter perspective regarding their system of self-value.