New Form of Child Abuse
You might already be aware of 11 year old Sasha Bennington from Burnley which sadly means that her Mother Jayne Bennington has already won half the battle. Maybe if you don't recognise the name you'll have heard about Sasha who at 11 years old already bleaches her hair, has nail extensions and dresses up in tacky grown up dresses. In America, I believe this is a worryingly common trend but here in the UK it is relatively unheard of (or at least I hope so?) Sasha has been shaped by her Mother to appear in beauty pageants.
A documentary shown on BBC follows the Bennington family in their quest to make Sasha famous. We live in a nation where for some reason it's acceptable to be famous for absolutely no reason. Jordan is obviously the Queen of this and I cannot stand it when people defend her and say, "she's a business woman". Nope. Shes a woman but she has a very, very clever PR and marketing team behind her. They are probably business women. Jordan is just a face and essentially this is what Sasha is quickly becoming.
Sasha doesn't want to be famous for anything credible. Hell, she doesn't even want to be famous for having a pop career! She goes to school to show off the latest lip gloss (her Mother thinks this is acceptable) and she spends her time practicing her cheerleading. At this point I remind you that she is 11.
When watching the documentary last night I was so appalled that I commented that I thought this child should be taken in to care. I actually think that what Jayne is doing to her child is child cruelty. Sasha didn't even seem like she wanted to model, cheerlead or bleach her hair. She seemed like she wanted to play with toys, mess around with hair mascara and dance around her bedroom to Girls Aloud. Weird, huh?
I have since discovered that this family have also been on Wife Swap. I suspect that Jayne is so desperate to be famous that she is prepared to risk the mental wellbeing of her daughter to achieve it. Children should be children. They should watch Disney movies and dream of being a Disney Princess. They should dance around and not even know what it means to look fat.
At one point in the documentary, Sasha wants to read Lorraine Kelly's column in The Sun. Her parents actually discourage her from reading as though that is the most ridiculous idea she ever had. The worst thing? Sasha actually seems like quite a sweet little girl but her parents are dead set on turning her in to a bitch. Can social services intervene now?
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