I’ve heard of kiddie pageants, baby pageants and some of the extreme, over-the-top measures that mothers take to make their girls competitive. But I’ve never heard of putting a weave into a three-year-old’s hair until this evening, when I found this video.

This is shocking and appalling. How could this woman’s priorities get so severely screwed up that she proceeds to program a toddler to favor something alien, unnatural and debasing over her natural, God-given beauty? This is a blatant case of unfit parenting (and in this case, unfit grand parenting), to spread heavy makeup on a little wee one and perm, braid and weave that baby to an inch of their life. It doesn’t matter if this sort of artifice and PSYCHOTIC MATERNAL VANITY is repeated throughout the pageant circuit or has been for years and years. It is sick.

Come on, my sisters. Wake up! Do not teach our babies that natural black hair is not becoming on a black woman. Fake white hair doesn’t do it, and neither does over perming. If you teach girls how to handle their hair properly, their hair will look healthy and they will feel pretty. They won’t go overboard with the soul-sucking weaves and other crap. And don’t let them wear any makeup or flattering outfits at all until they can clock some Romeo who might try to take these enhancements as permission to be forward with her.

I know I get into a huff when little boys approach Baby and touch her face, hair or try to follow her around. I can’t imagine deliberately putting her through all this nonsense just to put her on display for adults. It’s creepy.

More importantly, someone needs to shut these pageants down and avert creating a generation of lost, confused and self-destructive women. And as African-American women, we don’t need anymore of that stuff. We need these girls to reach their potential as great doctors, teachers, moms and writers or whatever other calling and profession they like. They need to love themselves as God made them. Instead, these girls are being steered toward long lifetimes of disappointments and rude awakenings. They’ll all hit a peak when they are young, probably, and spend the rest of their lives either reliving glory days or pursuing unsustainable hopes of marrying rich and living glamorous, care-free lives.