(Image source: TLC)

BY JENNIFER LONG

ANCHOR ERICA COGHILL

How could you possibly dress up as Dolly Parton without all the right curves? That’s what one mom says on Wednesday night’s episode of TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras. Her four-year-old Maddy got a little help taking home the gold.

“When she wears the fake boobs and the fake butt it’s just like an added extra bonus and it’s really funny when she comes out on stage everybody thinks it’s hysterical because they all the sudden realize that not only is she Dolly, but she has the enhancements like Dolly has.”

But that raises the question, where do you draw the line with what’s appropriate for young children? The blog City of Moms writes.

“There are always moments in the show where you question the integrity of some of the pageant mothers. This last episode only helps to prove my point.”

A Deseret News blogger agrees, and wonders how moms can let their little girls carry on like that.
 

“… I just don't understand these moms. How can they be OK encouraging their baby girls to shake their booties and perform other provocative dance moves?”

But Maddy’s mom Lindsey says -- lighten up --  it’s just a costume. She appeared on the Today Show to defend her daughter’s outfit.

(Anchor) “Do you worry, Lindsey; at all, that the emphasis is on the external appearance? It’s on the hair and the makeup and everything on the outside.”

(Lindsey) “I don’t worry about that with her because I explained to her that we use the hair pieces to keep her hair from being processed from being sprayed on. In fact that’s a fall that she has on and her hairs in a bun underneath it. There’s no hairspray, I haven’t taken a curling iron to it. I haven’t touched her hair today."

This isn’t the first time Toddlers and Tiaras has come under fire.

Multiple blogs as well as a Facebook page criticize the show and are calling for it to be taken off the air.

An article in the Silver Chips Online says -- there’s a theme to the show -- and it doesn’t center on the children.

“The reason such negative attention has been brought to the show is because it looks like the mothers are pushing their little girls way too far and forcing them to take pageants too seriously for their age. Some mothers are captured on the show forcing their daughters to practice until the routine is absolutely perfect, even when the daughter is desperate to take a nap or simply play.”

Toddlers and Tiaras is now in its sixth season.