Toddlers in Tiaras

Good evening friends.  I hope all of you have had a great day.  I actually had some work to do today and didn’t get a chance to send out an email before this.  I came home from work, changed clothes and went out to mow.  Thankfully, the rain held off until I got half of the back yard mowed.  Maybe I can get the rest of it mowed tomorrow.  I am planning to go to TJ’s next week and if I can’t get it all mowed before I go, I will have to hire a bush hog when I get back.

 

You may think I have chosen a strange subject for this email. Over the weekend, several comments about the reality tv show “Toddlers in Tiaras” were made on facebook by people that were seeing the program for the first time.  None of the comments were good. Most of the comments were about how deranged the parents must be to do this to their child.  If you’ve never watched the program, you need to do it just once.  I can almost guarantee once will be all you will be able to stomach.  I’m sure you all remember the story of JonBenet Ramsey.  She was the 6 year old child found murdered in her basement several years ago.  She was one of these toddlers in tiaras.  She was called “a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen”.  The pictures of these little girls really disturb me. They are painted to look like….for lack of a better word….a child prostitute.  They have on makeup and clothes that cheapen them.  These girls are babies!! Their childhood is gone.  The few times I’ve watched the show, I would get so angry that I just wanted to reach into the television and strangle the mothers.  Some of the time the daddies were there too, but it was always the mother that was doing the pushing and cheering on.  You see these babies getting ready to go on and “strut their stuff” and you see some of them crying because they don’t want to do it.  You see some of them with a real competitive attitude and only want to win.  It really breaks my heart.

 

I firmly believe this is an industry that needs to be looked at real closely.  These parents are prostituting their children in almost every sense of the word.  The babies are taught how to pose, thrusting out their hips provocatively, pouting their lips, arching their backs to display their childish chests.  It comes pretty close to turning my stomach. And when the camera pans to the mother, she is doing all of the moves she wants her daughter to do. I think these mothers are so willing to subject their daughters to this lifestyle because they wanted to be a model or Miss Teenage America or Miss America, etc. when they were young and weren’t able, for whatever reason, to succeed.  I don’t think these babies need to be with parents that steal their childhood this way.  In the first sentence of this paragraph I called this an industry and I feel that is really what it is.  It takes a considerable amount of money to participate in these pageants. The parents will tell you they have taken our personal loans, used their credit cards to the limit and sometimes even taken out a first or second mortgage on their homes to finance this game.  Most of the time, the winner gets a huge trophy.  I remember seeing one of the episodes last year showing the winner and she had several trophies already.  Her parents had turned one of the rooms in their house into a trophy room.  This particular little girl had the competitive attitude I mentioned.   As the reporter was interviewing her, she was being a spoiled little brat. She threw things across the room, knocked some of the trophies off the shelves, threw one into a mirror and the mother just stood there.  Then the little girl told her mother to “get off your butt and clean up this mess”.  What kind of young woman is this little girl going to grow up to be?  What about the other children in families like this.  In the same episode I just mentioned, there was another daughter in the family.  She was a couple of years older and a little on the chubby side.  She was totally ignored.  Her sister told her she wasn’t pretty enough to be a model and the mother agreed with her.  Think about the negative view this little girl has of herself.

 

I don’t know what can be done about the exploitation of these babies, but something should be.  Maybe it will be as simple as enough people getting upset about it, but I doubt it.  It’s been going on so many years, I really don’t see it stopping.  Maybe if these babies were taken away from these parents and the parents put into jail, that might be a deterrent.

 

I hope all of you have a good night.  Talk to you again soon.

 

boutlaw@carolinaregion.com

 

 

A new journey

It’s Friday, June 24, 1977, about 4:00 PM and I am about to embark on the most amazing journey I have ever taken. I have to admit I am scared. There’s not really much you can do to prepare for this journey. There are classes, but they only prepare you for the physical leg. Nothing can prepare you for the emotional roller coaster that will be the rest of your life. There will be laughter, joy, sadness, tears, grief and a myriad of other emotions.

I look back now and realize I was in no way ready for this journey to begin. It is the most important thing I have ever done in my life. I didn't always do it right, but I feel like I did the best I could. So now if you have time, sit back and take this little trip with me.

I guess you are probably wondering what I am talking about. Some of you may have already figured it out. Thirty-four years ago this afternoon, I gave birth to my oldest son, Thomas Swartz Jordan, III, better known to me and my family and a lot of his friends as TJ.I shared a brief trip through Ray’s life with pictures in May. Today I want to take a short photo journey through TJ’s life. My labor with TJ was long but not really too hard. Since the first of June, my bag had been packed and Tommy and I made sure the truck’s gas tank was always full. But…..needless to say the night, or early morning, I actually went into labor, the truck was empty. While we were filling up at the service station, a highway patrolman, who also happened to be a friend, pulled up beside us. He wanted to know why were out so early…I forgot to mention it was about 3:00 AM. Tommy explained I was in labor and we were headed to Elizabeth City. He asked me how close the pains were and I explained they weren’t very close at all but we had called the doctor and he told us to come on. At this time, there was no hospital or even an urgent care facility on the Outer Banks. This friend gave us a police escort to the Currituck County line and a friend of his picked us up there and led us all the way to Albemarle Hospital. What an exciting ride!

I would like to insert the hospital new-born baby picture here, but (and I’m sure TJ will be thrilled about this) I don’t have it. It was included in all the pictures I gave him. I thought I had a scanned copy on my computer, but I don’t. So I will have to start with the first picture taken of him after I brought him home. What a head of unruly black hair.

Shortly after this picture was taken his daddy carried him to Al VanCurrin’s for coffee, much to my Mama’s displeasure. It soon became a family tradition (with Ray too).

This was the first professional picture taken of TJ – taken at Rose’s in the Outer Banks Mall.

Nanny Jordan had this picture taken by Olan Mills.

Taken at a family reunion at the Community Building in Midway.

Birthday party while we were living at the Pink Shell Cottages. I think there are 8 candles on the cake.

He wore this costume for the 400th. Manteo celebration. His teacher was Mrs. Argent Spake and the festivities went on all day.

One of the original cone heads, taken on the ferry to Ocracoke.

I can see now that I have this picture out of sequence. Sorry about that. It’s too much trouble to go back and change it now, but I imagine he was about 3.

He was a preppy kid back then. Taken at Muver’s house when we visited at Thanksgiving.

A visit to Oregon Inlet and south Nags Head with Aunt Sallie Nunemaker.

We were living at the Pink Shell Cottages when this was taken. He had just been stung by a huge jellyfish. It was taken after the medicine (meat seasoning) had been applied.

First day of school – check out the long legs!

Both boys were in Scouts and they both did really well.

I have to include a “geeky” picture. He looks so studious ( maybe sleepy?).

Taken at the zoo in Maggie Valley. He really got a kick out of holding this big snake. It weighed almost as much as he did. After he passed it back to the handler, it wrapped itself around TJ’s leg and as the handler walked off to put the snake back in the box, TJ was having to hop on one foot to keep from falling.

Taken on graduation day for the fifth grade. I think this was probably his favorite teacher. All of her kids loved her.

Also taken on 5th. grade graduation day. Cori McGuinness was his best friend in elementary school. After we moved to Manns Harbor, Cori spent almost as much time at our house as he did at his.

One of the many Halloween faces. I’m glad he spent the night at his Dad’s house and I didn’t have to help clean that face.

This is my favorite Halloween costume. Patti did the makeup job. Again, I am glad he was at his dad’s house.

Science project – it worked. We had just moved to Manns Harbor.

For some reason TJ doesn’t like this picture. I think it is a very good picture of him.

There is a real big gap in pictures here. I don’t have any high school pictures of him on my computer. He has all of them. This was taken after he moved to Greenville. This is his best friend, Clayton (Doc) Holliday. He is in the Army and he and TJ are just like brothers. I believe either of them would go to the end of the earth for the other.

Taken in Libya, Africa. He worked off and on over there for 3 years laying fiber optic lines. It was a great experience for him. During this time, I saw the greatest growth in his life.

I’ve never really asked for the story behind this picture and probably don’t want to know. He is on the balcony of his apartment in Africa. I suppose it had been a looooong day!

This is TJ’s daughter, Hannah. She is probably his greatest accomplishment, thus far, in his life. We had been out to visit his Dad in Georgia, shortly after he had been diagnosed with cancer. This was taken on the Nantahala Gorge on our way home.

One more taken on the trip home from Georgia.

This is Amy, the love of his life. They were sweethearts in high school. This was taken Thanksgiving of 2009. Hannah and I spent the weekend out in Albemarle with them.

Dakota is such a beautiful horse and she knows it. She will actually pose for a picture. TJ could be the “Marlboro” man.

On Wednesday, June 16, 2010, TJ called me and invited me to Albemarle for the weekend. At first I wasn’t too excited about it. I had work to do, etc., etc. Then he told me he and Amy would really like to have me at their wedding on Saturday. SATURDAY!! Three days notice. Needless to say, I packed my bags and headed to Albemarle. It was a beautiful wedding, in their home, with just family and some friends.

Taken the morning after the wedding. The house was full of family and they cooked breakfast for us. They both love to cook and are both good cooks.

Thanksgiving, 2010 in Manns Harbor. Bonnie, Hannah and Josh – his children – cause after all, Bonnie is almost human.

TJ is a multi-talented man. Here he is in his “workshop” – the garage - working on the yarn box he gave me for Christmas last year.

This was taken on my most recent visit on Memorial Day. We had gone to the clinic to do some target practice. He is very good with a gun….me….not so good. But I did manage to hit the target a few times.

This is a good picture of all three of us. It was taken at the family reunion in Merry Hill in either 2008 or 2009.

This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of TJ. This was his first glimpse of Amy as she came down the stairs to become his wife. I’ve never seen TJ as happy as he is now. He loves Amy and loves his life with her. Things are sometimes tight for them, as with a lot of young couples. They sometimes have disagreements, as most couples do now and then. But they respect, love and cherish each other.

I hope you have enjoyed this little journey through some of TJ’s life. And TJ, I want to wish you a very Happy Birthday. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 34 years since we welcomed you into our lives. Time has really gone by so rapidly.

I guess you can tell from this post and the post I made last month about Ray, I love my boys very much. I haven’t always been the best mother, I haven’t always made the right decisions for myself or for them. I’ve tried to teach them to be responsible and kind. I didn't get them to Church as early as I should have. But I don’t think I have done such a bad job. I have to admit it's been a great journey and I feel like my journey is coming to an end, which is the natural way of things. I have a few regrets but being a mother has been the greatest part of my journey and I have two wonderful sons to thank for that.

Happy Birthday Mama

Lida Evora Overton Outlaw – My Mama

Ninety-four years today the world changed – for the better.  My Mama was born. This event didn’t make headlines in newspapers all around the world; it wasn’t earth-shattering news.  There was no television back then; she just quietly entered the world. 

She was one of 11 children.    I can only remember five of my Mama’s siblings – three sisters and two brothers.  Mama  married my Daddy, Raymond, when she was only 15 ; had her first child when she was 16 and 1/2  and had her last child when she was 31 .  Mama never had a very easy life, but you know I don’t remember hearing her complain about it.  You just took whatever live handed you and made the best of it.  Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if it was like that today?  All people do is complain….about just about everything.  She was a hard worker, worked in the fields with my Daddy, worked in a retail store in the winter, took care of the garden and all the things that go with having a garden, was a great cook, awesome seamstress, great housekeeper and I could go on and on.

This is an early picture of my Mama and Daddy with my sister, Jean (who we all called Sister), my other sister Faye and my brother Ronald (known to all of us as Bud).

This is my Mama and me.  This is probably taken at the house that burned when I was 3 years old.

 

This is Mama and me taken the day Sister and HG got married.

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This has always been one of my favorite pictures of the three of us. I don’t exactly know why. I just always felt so safe when I looked at this picture.I can barely remember my Daddy looking like this. He was almost totally gray from the time I was little and wore glasses. This was taken on Mama and Daddy’s

25th. wedding anniversary – a surprise party.

  This was at the little grocery store my Mama and Daddy operated in the big city of Merry Hill. Boy, the things a nickel would buy back then!This picture is very special along with all of them that were taken on that Easter Sunday. It is Mama, Daddy and all of the grandchildren they had at the time.  Several more came along after this, but sad to say, they never knew my Daddy.  This was taken on Easter Sunday and he died on April 30.  The grandchildren called them Mother and Papa.This was taken in the summer of 1966, shortly after I graduated from high school.  This is the best picture I have of Mama and my boys.  TJ called her Muver and Ray called her Wuver.  They would send mail to her with those names on the envelope and believe it or not, she would get the mail.  That wouldn’t happen today.

My Mama and I didn’t always get along.  I guess she and I were too much alike. But she was a great Mama.  I loved her very much and I miss her a lot.  She died on December 30, 1994.  I know she was always my champion.  I also know that later on in my life I did some things that disappointed her, but she never let me down.  She, my two sisters and their husbands were at my Church the night I got baptized – May 15, 1988.  I am so thankful she knew I was saved when she died. 

Thanks for taking this journey with me.

I meant to post this yesterday, June 15, Mama’s birthday and I forgot to do it.