Rereading My Childhood: The Baby-Sitters Club

#15: Little Miss Stoneybrook . . . And Dawn

There's no point in trying to conceal my bias – I think child beauty pageants are creepy and gross. I don't like the idea of forcing children to compete against one another for really no reason. They'll have enough competition in their futures. However, I don't blame the children. I blame the judges who are willing to rank children on an arbitrary scale, and I blame the parents who want to slap ten pounds of make-up on their child to make them look sixteen and, finally, I blame the industry that perpetuates this activity – including the trainers who teach the children how to win over judges, the make-up industry that caters to these parents, and the institution itself.

That being said, this month the BSC gets into a fight over a child beauty pageant, so it's going to be one of those blog entries.

Like most BSC books, it starts with a BSC meeting. Dawn is announced as the new treasurer and she thinks to herself, "I like Stoneybrook, but I'm a California girl at heart. I like hot weather, not cold, and health food, not junk." The flex is that stark and it is in the part of the book where each member is given a page-long paragraph detailing everything we need to know about each member. I'm starting to skip these. And as for the remarks about California – the hot weather is on point except for Northern California, Tahoe, Squaw Valley, Mammoth, and every other ski resort. We can say that Dawn is a Southern California girl. And have you seen the junk food at Disneyland? Clearly, Californians love their Mickey-shaped donuts. I've said it before and I'll say it again – I don't think Ann M. Martin had been to California before writing these books.

Anyway, Mallory and Jessi are sworn in as members, and the BSC oath, as introduced in this book, goes like this, "I promise to be a good, reliable, and safe sitter, and to be true to the Baby-sitters Club forevermore." Sounds like a good oath. Mary Anne cries. Claudia and Dawn roll their eyes, which I think is a little rude. She's just happy for them, and while I may be an emotionless gargoyle, I think it's wonderful that Mary Anne feels still things.

Back at home, Jeff is having some problems adjusting to the house. Jeff's teacher calls and tells Dawn and her mother that he got into a fight. Jeff wants to move back to California and their mother reluctantly agrees to work out a deal with their father and their lawyers, which, frankly, is probably the best solution for everyone. Unfortunately, Dawn does not agree.

"You little twerp!" I said to him hotly. "You are a rotten, spoiled baby."

"Dawn!" cried my mother.

I ignored her. "Can't you see what you're doing?" I yelled at Jeff. "You're breaking up what's left of our family."

"No, I'm not," Jeff replied quietly. "I'm giving Dad some of his family back. It's time we evened things up. Besides, I have to try this or I might end up in jail."

Mom and Jeff and I all began to laugh.

This is the tenth time reading this and I still don't quite get it. I guess Jeff going to jail is hilarious. Probably because he's a white boy and if certain rapist swimmers won't go to jail for being rapist swimmers, then this kid in Connecticut isn't going to go to jail for fighting. Hell, white men don't go to jail for stealing billions of dollars from the American people – this kid isn't going to jail. Now that's commentary!

At Claudia's house, Dawn and the young Miss Kishi see the advertisement for the pageant. The girls will be judged on "poise, talent, and looks." "Looks." "Looks?" They're eight, don't be gross. There is a short discussion on how sexist it is, surprisingly not from our favorite health-food vegan California girl, but from Claudia. In fact, Dawn says she did child beauty pageants and won when she was a child.

The rest of the BSC shows up and there is a quick conversation about how sexist pageants are, which I guess is progressive for when this book was written (1988). Kristy says, "I guess a pageant could be sexist . . . but fun." Well, Kristy, if it's fun, then we should keep doing it! Men have a lot of fun slapping flight attendants' asses, we should just keep doing it! You're disappointing me, Kristy, but I guess we have to have a central conflict in the book and it can't be Jeff and Dawn, it has to be the BSC fighting over their separate pageant contestants.