Taking sibling rivalry to a whole new bitter level, US mum Keetra Barnes pits her daughters against each other in beauty pageants and says it will toughen them up. She says 'Some people might say it's cruel to make them compete against each other, but I think it's good for them. It toughens them up and drives them to be better'.
Her daughters Kylie (above left) who is 7 and Karley (above right) who is 5, have been competing in pageants since they were just 2 years old and are often bitterly upset when the other wins. Despite this, their mum Keetra insists they love it, and adds to the rivalry by remarking "Karley is my supreme queen’. It would seem that although Kylie has been successful in her own right, younger sister Karley has overtaken her with competition wins, and has taken 30 “supreme” titles, where Kyle has only taken 8.
Keetra also admits that the girls hate practicing routines and that she regularly has to bribe them with chocolate milk, and if they are tired she turns to her ‘secret weapon’ Pixie Sticks (which is basically a powder sugar sweet), saying, 'All kids eat candy and this is something lots of pageant mums do.'
Keetra believes that competing in these pageants will help the the girls to 'become models, singers or actresses’ and states ‘what woman wouldn't want that?’
And although she does have concerns about the risk of paedophiles viewing her girls and says, 'It horrified me to think they might look at my girls in the wrong way’ she defends how they are dressed and says ‘I only use what they would wear on the beach in public.’
So what do you think? Wrong or just wrong to judge? Is Keetra giving her kids the best chance to succeed in our fame driven world, or is she just living out some misplaced dream of her own and in the mix creating a bitter and fractious relationship for her daughters to grow up with?
