FLU: Damn, FLU, don’t hold back! Tell us what you really think!
I have a pre-teen daughter and she rides competitively and does martial arts (Taekwondo). Fortunately for us, she’s something of a tomboy, so the cheer and dance thing never really interested her. It is interesting to note, however, how her personality is very different from those girls in cheer and dance. The same goes for her “barn buddies”, those she rides competitively with. They are more confident, more assertive and more driven, and in both academics and athletics.
One of my player’s younger sisters was on the beauty pageant circuit, starting at four years of age (no, that’s not a typo). The mom, who was something of a freak in her own right, used to raise money at football practices and games to help defray travel and pageant costs. She’d set up a table and do the bake sale thing and have pictures of her daughter (who was now seven or eight) in these various get-ups, some of which were, to me at least, very suggestive. When I commented on this one time, she looked at me as though I were some kind of pervert and snapped that this was they how they dressed in order to win.
I played football in high school and my recollections seem to hold true today: The cheerleaders were all pretty ditzy and shallow and petty. However, most of the female jocks I knew (softball, volleyball and field hockey) tended to excel in both academics and athletics and had far better self esteem.
