Child Beauty Pageants: What an irrational way to raise our children... Babies are not Barbies.

We are lost in a game of contrast. While there are over 850 millions of people who are actually suffering of malnutrition on the planet, billion of dollards are spent on esthetic cares.

Wow... Do you want me to repeat or it is already too cruel and too shocking ?
Well, check yourself the contrast of these pictures.

                    

Offensive, horrifying ? This is the esthetic capitalism. Now, let me introduce you the child beauty pageants.

According to Robyn Urback, it is «a sort of spray-tanned parallel universe where in little girls parade across stages to win their mothers a vicarious sense of approval». In other words, it is a sexualised beauty competition for young girls. I personnaly think that it is one of the worst non-violent ideas of History. It is completely irrational and chocking to have those kinds of competition when humanity have so many issues, that are way more important .

                               

This idea praises the priority  given to children apparences rather than their academic success, physical activities and psychological health. It is awful and immoral. Rather than showing their kids to read novels, learn a new language, geography or ways to cook healthy meals, some occidental parents want their kids to loose their childhood time in a stressful and fake world, where only outside beauty counts.

 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

 

Those parents are showing and inculpating baseless values and this really contaminating our society. These values attach more importance to what is outside and on our head than what's in it. Without knowing it, they are raising their kids in an hidden slavery of a world of appearance. Young participants of child beauty pageants are becoming prisonners of their parents ego and they are naively and fasly understanding that individual interests are priority.

 

We need to choose our priority because those youngsters will eventually become adults and they will constitute the society of tomorrow. With knowing that, let's form them with the best values feasible. Ideologies that favour individual life without going against collective interests.

 

 

As a man, I feel that woman beauty is one of the most beautiful thing in the world. But women are pretty, lovely and attractive in the way they are: sweet, gentle, charming, active and energetic. They don't need to try to comply theirselves in a mould of perfect looking and ideal appearances.

 

In addition, personnal beauty should not turn into a competition between several people, we need to perceive our physical différences as an attractive feature of ourself and as an advantage. The goal shouldn't be to look prettier than another because our nose is smaller and our buttocks are rounder. It should turn into perceiving our differences and see that we are pretty as a respectful society.

                                          

In a political way, a few countries such as France have the same thoughts as me on the subject. Indeed, France’s Senate voted to ban beauty pageants for children on the grounds that it represents the too-early sexualisation of children. I'm amaze by this rational and logical politic. I've only shown you the bad aspects about child beauty pageants, but do they even have some some advantage for the kids ? Visibility ? I think that it pleases more the parents than the young and credulous participants. According to Kelly Wallace from CNN, « pageant supporters say girls develop self-esteem, confidence and other skills that last a lifetime». I admit it, it grows your personnal self-esteem, but it also brings all the bad features that I mentionned earlier. In my opinion, Quebec shouldn't allow participants under the age of 14 in those immoral competitions. It could be allowed to people old enough to make their right choices and old enough so they could had a good and rational education.

 

There are so many ways to help the growth our kids self-esteem and confidence such as studying at school and practicing sports, wich are all better than beauty contests. Let's find together other ways to raise and entertain our children with ways that will show them the priority of right values, values for the good of all.

Sources :

• Conso Globe, Planetoscope,  (website): http://www.planetoscope.com/mortalite/32-nombre-de-deces-dus-a-la-malnutrition-dans-le-monde.html.
• URBACK, Robyn. «France tries to legisltate good parenting by banning child beauty pageants», The National Post, September 19th, 2013.
• WALLACE, Kelly, «French moving to ban child pageants: Should we ?», CNN, September 19th, 2013.

   

One small step for secularism, not a giant one for dignity.

«The time has come to rally around our common values. They define who we are. Let's be proud of them.» says Bernard Drainville, Parti Québécois minister for democratic institutions. These are revelant arguments in favor of the new Quebec  Chart of Values, project recently announced by the Marois governement.

Whoa ! A little too fast ? Let me explain you the facts:

 

I live in Quebec: a free bilingual and multicultural nation into the enormous country of Canada. We are proud of our province and of our culture. The majority of the people from Quebec are open-minded and welcome every immigrant who wants to come live in our society.

 But some of us don't: some of us even hate whoever is not dressed as them, has not the same skin or the same religion. Personally, I assign those people to the shame of our nation, but let's stay on the subject.

 

 The new Chart of Values goal is to get rid of the link between religious signs in the State. So every employe who works for Quebec in public institutes must look for a religious neutrality in their clothes, dialogs and mentality. The Chart will bring up a huge difference between being at home and being in public places: if you are an islamic nurse for example, you have to keep your Shahada and your Hijab at home.

 

This project really challenges the ethic of the governement and questions the indentity and the freedom of each Citizen of the nation. It is a true moral crisis, but not only in Quebec, in the entire World ! In our actual times, there are so many different cultures on the planet and with that come too many different points of view about the mondialisation.

 Democracy operates and developp each person's liberty of expression, unlike dictatorship, but democracy leads to tolerance and tolerance leads to concession. What can we let go for others and what can we earn from other cultures and religions ? It's really a blurred area because we don't know the extreme limits of the culture mondialisation.

 

 

I firmly think that our beliefs and our spirituality is a fondemental right and an individual freedom. If Quebec accepts newcomers, we have to accept them in who they are, not in who we want them to be. This is the main reason that I think that, unless human's fondemental rights (decieded by the ONU in 1948) are not broken or threathened, religious rituals can be tolerated. This being said, my opinion is in the respect of all and if the wearing of religious symbols can go into this visionnary way, there's no problem about it.  

 

To conclude, I feel that State officials can wear whatever they want, unless it is safe and respectful for all. I'm not in favor of the new Chart of Values and instead of it, I think that dignity offencers needs to be operate indivudually.

You are free to choose your path, but be aware of health issues !

Do you remember the conversation you had with your father on a chilly wednesday of december evening, the night he told you that he once smoked weed when he was younger.Personnaly, I couldn't get it ! At that time, I was 12 years old and the word POT meant some evil things to me. The drug education my parents tought me has been very conservative and strict: «You must never try to smoke weed.»

 

They wanted me to turn into a clever man so I respect them for that, but to scare me that smoking pot can turn you into a exhausted zombie on a couch, well they were right ! With the fact that, in our actual times, you can find weed everywhere at every moment of the day, it's quite easy to turn into an addict. This being said, I'm not the only person that thinks that way: «Montreal researchers say they’ve found evidence that pot-smoking interferes with the healthy development of teens’ brains and puts them at risk for developing a dependence to the drug, as well as for mental health problems». Human society has found some relevant scientist proof showing that weed is an ennemy of our brain's caoacity, even if you don't want it to be.
 

 

Pot smokers don't get addict to the weed, they get addict to the routine they adopt progressivly. One teenage boy will smoke once a month and there won't be any issues about it. But when it grows and progress to inhaling cannabis once a day, now there is a problem. Scientists will tell you that cannabis isn't good for our brains , but how does it work ? Here are some New-Zealand research results about it: «Adolescents who smoked marijuana at least four times a week, lost an average of 8 IQ points between the ages of 13 and 38.»

 

We cannot afford the health issues about smoking pot, espicially for the youth. There are even studies that will tell that you can have mental health issues even for infrequent smokers: «One study of 46,000 Swedish soldiers found that even infrequent pot smokers were more than twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as non-smokers; regular users were six times as likely.»

 

If the governement was to legalize the marijuana, can you imagine the presence of those drugs in our community elementery schools ? Students would be in a complete freedom  situation of smoking in High School outside yards, they wouldn't be as focus on their studies as if they were sober and results could go in the same way. These are only my reflexions but my opinion is looking toward to build healthy, clever, wealthy and energetic future generations that know how to have fun without only use marijuana as the lonely solution.

 

This being said, I firmly think that weed must stay illegal to protect our child brains and to help them grow into intellectual and physical well developped adults. There are no problems with smoking weed once, but be aware of the health issues that goes with it.

 

 

 

 

Sources:

 

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana

 

http://theweek.com/article/index/236671/is-marijuana-bad-for-you

 

 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/health-headlines/pot-use-presents-long-term-danger-to-teens-brains-study-suggests-1.1432167

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unite for Glory !

It is seated on a grey chair, my head toward the ceiling, that I ask myself : «what is a community ?» Well, like a swarm of bees or a law faculty in University, a community is a group of people harmonized and matched together due to a shared common value, interest or goal.


This kind of human union can be within an institute, for exemple a catholic mess on sunday mornings or only and randomly in the streets, where a group of friends meet to play hockey or to discuss about the Syria crisis. A community can also be related to our nationality, opinions, careers and even to our sexual orientations ! It is humanly created to never be alone with your mind and thoughts, where ever you are in this world, to meet and to discuss with other persons you may enjoy being with because of your shared interests.

If you want to stay in your community, it is quite simple: like if you were a member of a family, you must  be physically and psychologically respectul with other members and with their opinions. When we're living in the same city, it means we are in the same municipal community and with this come a few responsabilities we all have to be active citizens. We must develop our own opened mind, build ourselves an opinion to improve and help our community and then lauch it by doing some concrete actions as to vote or to do volunteer in a social cluster.

To contribute for the good bearing of our commune, each citizen must respect the community rules, like helping neighbours in needs or like putting each day garbages and recyclables into their respective dumpsters.  To encourage our local producers, it's a good thing to buy local products when you can. I personally adopt these daily tasks and I try to do the more I can to contribute to my town and to help it staying an enjoyable environment.

So let's get away from our dark basement and open the window of the world with our eyes and mind opened, because our passions and interests are so more enjoyable when shared !