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I don't think I agree with this. If a mother is, e.g., using psychological pressure on her child to tolerate her boyfriend's sexual abuse out of a sense of loyalty or even fear of the boyfriend, I would still characterize that as a central example of "grooming".
Sure as I said: "A mother who has her child wear make up, takes bikini pictures of her in suggestive poses and the like in order to offer her to her new boyfriend (a real case) is a groomer."
Replace the you or someone else can have sexual contact in the first sentence. If your goal is not for someone to derive sexual pleasure (yourself or another person) then it isn't grooming. otherwise people putting pictures of kids in the bath on Facebook, that someone then masturbates over is a groomer. They may be unwise, but that isn't the same thing.
Okay, take it another step back. The mother does all that same stuff, but doesn't have a specific boyfriend to offer her to. Instead, she does all the same things, because her social group praises her for doing it. Grooming or not?
It seems to me that shaping a child's sexuality in unhealthy ways that make them easier to prey on is the essence of grooming, and whether it's done on behalf of a specific person or just for the community of predators in general doesn't really change why that shaping is harmful or objectionable.
In your original example, the mother doesn't actually tell the kid that she's doing these things to get the kid to have sex with her boyfriend. Yet we consider these things harmful, even if the sex with the boyfriend doesn't happen, which is why we made a word for the "lowering kid's defenses to sexual exploitation" in the first place. The effect on the kid is the whole point.
Nope. If she doesn't have the intent of sexual contact from her child to someone else it is not grooming. She isn't preparing them for predators, she is behaving in ways that incidentally some predators like. Those are very different things. Like teaching your 12 yo daughter to wax her legs is in some way preparing them for adult grooming (in the other sense) norms but that doesn't mean you are doing it so that your daughter will attract predators who like underage girls. Will some sexual predators prefer her hairless? Most likely. But that isn't the goal. She isn't doing it FOR the community of predators, she is doing it for her own reasons AND the community of predators might like it. The fact that might increase risks should be a consideration IMHO but it shouldn't be called grooming (in the CSE sense). If I polish my expensive watch so it shines beautifully, then walk down a dark alley and get mugged for it, I may be stupid, but unless I intended for the watch to be stolen I am not grooming my watch for theft.
Otherwise grooming becomes so wide that its meaning is essentially lost. Which isn't normally an issue, except in that it might muddy the waters for agencies and people who want to prevent "real" CSE. Child grooming is a real and serious problem, that results in the abuse of many children in ways that will often impact them for life. If one wants to oppose Drag Kids or child beauty pageants because they do expose kids unnecessarily to risks because of people who do target those communities, I think that is fair and reasonable. But using groomer for the organizers and parents is a rhetorical smear. Which is fine in the proper context, as a politician it would be a weapon that would be hard to ignore. But I do think here we should be more nuanced.
Because if we can't be more nuanced than bloody politicians what are we even for?
I think your 'grooming' may be a term of art at which point the authorities have a reasonable likelihood of success legally when they intervene.
The local townspeople and I likly have a lower threshold for grooming as our actions may be more likely to be extra-judicial.
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