I Fake Tanned My Five Year Old

- Niamh Burns And Candice Fernandez

Snuggling down on the sofa in May 2016, my daughter Tina, five, grabbed the remote control and flicked through the channels at lightning speed. She knew exactly what she wanted and, in less than 30 seconds, I’d be a willing hostage.

While her dad Wojciech, 38, was at work, Tina and I watched four episodes of Toddlers & Tiaras. It followed children in the US taking part in beauty pageants, and there was always lots of drama. Tina was obsessed and I could see why.

Girly girl

Just like the kids on screen, Tina was a girly girl. I reckoned pink glitter flowed through her veins.

‘I want to look like them!’ she squealed, her eyes glued to the screen where a line of tiny girls in glittering dresses swanned down the catwalk.

‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you?’ I laughed. I didn’t think any more of it until... ‘Mum, can I enter a pageant?’ Tina chirped one day. ‘We’ll see,’ I replied smiling at her, brushing it off. She wasn’t serious, surely?

But after a few weeks, Tina was still talking about it and, the more she watched the show, the more obsessed she became with the idea.