Bizarre, Criminal law, Society, Torts

You Have Your Mother’s Botox: California Mother Loses Custody After Doing ABC Interview on Giving 8-Year-Old Daughter Botox Injections For Beauty Contest

A California mother, Kerry Campbell, has lost custody of her 8-year-old daughter after she injecting Britany with botox to improve her appearance in a beauty pageant. Notably, Campbell triggered the investigation by admitting on ABC “Good Morning America” that she used the botox. The San Francisco Human Services Agency saw the show and launched an investigation.

Britney is shown on the program saying “I just, like, don’t, like, think wrinkles are nice on little girls.” While saying it hurt, she said that it was something that she had gotten used to as the price for beauty.

Campbell is a part-time aesthetician and uses botox herself.

Many of us remember our unease with the pictures of JonBenét Ramsey as a child beauty queen. The whole beauty contest culture for children is a bit repellent for some of us and seems to lend itself to this type of excessiveness.

However, I would be interested in the views of our readers on whether the loss of custody is an appropriate penalty. I totally agree with the need to remove the child from the home, but should the loss of custody be permanent?

Source: ABC

Jonathan Turley

34 thoughts on “You Have Your Mother’s Botox: California Mother Loses Custody After Doing ABC Interview on Giving 8-Year-Old Daughter Botox Injections For Beauty Contest”

  1. Absolutely should not lose custody! She was being stupid not purposefully abusive. She needs some parenting assistance and should be monitored by someone but never should an 8 yr old be taken from the one closest person in her life. Do people realize the abuse and trauma when you separate a mother and child? The world has gotten so heartless and evil. God help us.That child should be returned to the mother once the mother recognizes the danger of what she has done.

  3. Pingback: Aquascoop Miracle? This Mother Cured Her Wrinkles In Just 7 Days!

  4. I just think it is appalling. The pageantry circuit is a real sub-culture that is extremely bizarre, with children treated as dolls as oppose to what they actually are, kids.

  6. Woosty’s,

    My ex used to be a sort of “foster big sister” volunteer to a girl who was taken from the home of her mother (borderline retarded) and put in a foster home where she (the girl) was raped by a fellow foster child. Yeah, it’s horrible and it certainly doesn’t happen every time, but taking kids away from homes shouldn’t be done just because there’s a spot.

    I’ve known some child protective agency employees as well, and they know the consequences of what they’re doing. They also burn out of their work quickly, have huge turnover issues at work, have supervisors who just push paper and never go out in the field, and know that much of their job involves finding the least-bad placement for children. They’re also the ones who get pointed at when abused children die. Do they ever make bad decisions? Yes. Are they overworked? Yes. Are they underfunded? Yes.

    There’s no easy answer, but in this world I think a parent who parades her child in pageants isn’t my personal highest priority for even parental counseling.

  8. If she gets cleared by a psychiatrist after counseling, then she should get the child back, under scrutiny. It’s not just her abusive behavior though; she’s training the child in the mindset of who’s the hottest of them all. Maybe the kid will end up with BDD.

  9. There was a html coded end/snark postscript on the end of my post which did not come through! 😀

  10. So parents should lose their children for needlessly inflicting small amounts of temporary pain? Like spanking? Maybe ripping off band-aids without soaking them first? How about a good scrubbing with some lye soap and a rough washcloth, like Grandma used to do?

    Or perhaps the crime here is using a medication outside of its official FDA approval? Like 90% of physicians do every day of the year. Like a mother sharing a Claritin prescription with her child during allergy season?

    Nobody has addressed whether the mother did something actually unsafe. She professes to be an “aesthetician” with personal experience with the product. Is there any allegation that she used the medication in any way whatsoever that resulted in medical detriment? If a doctor had administered the medication in an equivalently safe manner would that have made a difference? Is, then, her crime practicing medicine without a license, even though she made no pretense of being a doctor, charging money, or treating anyone outside her family?

    Or maybe her crime is needlessly and cruelly effecting her child’s physical and psychological well-being merely to improve her chances of scoring well in a children’s beauty contest. If so, what is she doing that is substantially different than every other mother who pushes her child to diet, wear makeup and bikinis, and practice degrading and sexually- and age-inappropriate routines? Perhaps it is the institution of beauty contests which should be under indictment here, and the mother only a victim of the supposed psychological pathology inherent in what should clearly be an illegal enterprise?

    Or maybe her crime was to believe that even an eight-year-olds beauty might be enhanced through the application of a cosmetic beauty product that is usually used in adults? Like makeup, lipstick, eye liner, etc commonly used in these contests?

    Maybe you should all get off of your high horses and let the beauty judges be the judge of what the term means in a beauty contest. If the appearance of a cosmetically botoxin-enhanced child is inappropriate, the contest results will validate that, the mother need not use it again. Think of it as scientific experiment writ small.

    Or are you all you mother-haters also against science as well? I’m sure that the fact that many scientists are Jewish zionists has nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with your pious pronouncements and your sanctimonious censure of this loving mother. That’s it – you all want the child taken away because you’re antisemitic. Every one of you!

  11. I wonder if removal from the home will lead to a better, safer placement? The foster care system is filled with great people who want to help children. It’s also filled with children who prey upon other children, “parents” who stuff as many as possible into a home to collect the biggest possible monthly checks, and some real whackos. Removal of a child from a home should be the last thing anyone wants to do, and a parent having a lifestyle devoted to crazy beauty standards is dangerous? More dangerous than parents who won’t vaccinate? More dangerous than parents who won’t let their daughters wear pants? More dangerous than parents who spank? More dangerous than parents who put boys in dresses as a punishment? More dangerous than parents who demand straight A grades? More dangerous than parents who push their child to excel at athletics even when injured? There’s a slippery slope here, but let’s all pick on botox since it’s the worst thing ever in the entire free world and make allusions to Ancient Romans or something. Downfall of civilization! OMG!

  13. I hope both mother and child are soon in counseling of some sort or another. That is not the behavior of a healthy adult mind.

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