A Little Person Competes on Toddlers & Tiaras
Rich Juzwiak · 05/17/12 02:55PMLast night's Toddlers & Tiaras featured the 8-year-old Lacey-Mae, who has achondroplasia, a bone disorder that causes dwarfism. She's about the size of a three- or four-year-old, cute as a button and accepted in the pageant world, if her trophies and ability to elicit on-camera gushing from judges are any indication. Lacey-Mae's mom says she puts her kid in pageants "for her self-esteem," and while that seems like it could only be the outcome of a scenario that ends in victory, Lacey-Mae is a lot more happy go lucky than most kids on this show and her mom is less abrasive. It's also a very strange leveling-out dynamic, since kiddie pageants are all about dressing children to look older than their years, while Lacey-Mae inherently looks younger.