I’m proud to say I didn’t watch the Teen Choice Awards this year. After all, I’m not a teen and my daughters are almost 10 years away from being teens, praise God. However, thanks to my lifeline to all things pop culture, E!’s The Soup, I did catch the spectacle that everyone’s been buzzing about: Miley Cyrus’s performance featuring a stripper pole.
Kid Glue editor/writer Germain Lussier posted his take on Miley’s performance in this post: It’s Time to Let Miley Cyrus Grow Up. I appreciate his sentiments that Miley has a lot of pressure on her that most kids don’t and that, as a parent, it is our job to be role models to our children and to help them find other suitable role models, which may or may not include Miley.
The problem is Miley is a role model whether she likes it or not. To quote the memorable and haunting Facts of Life theme song: “you take the good, you take the bad.”
If you take the millions of dollars and all the perks of fame, you also take on a responsibility to the young girls that look up to you. You should conduct yourself in a way that not only “normal” teenagers would act, but perhaps better. I don’t have teenage girls, yet, but my hope would be that when they are sixteen, they will not be dancing even moderately close to a stripper pole, be it for balance or not. I’d prefer they lose their balance and fall.
I’m wondering who is guiding Miley in making the decisions to wear certain things for photo shoots or to dance near questionable poles. While I am happy to chalk an immature Facebook photo or a older boyfriend up to mistakes that “normal” teenagers make, there are people in Miley’s life whose job it is to make the career decisions. If they can’t make good decisions for Miley based on what is best for her, maybe they can make these decisions from a career standpoint, and understand that she’ll be losing fans and their parents’ support should she continue down this road.
And I don’t care if your name is Billy Ray or not, no parent wants to see their child thrusting in hot pants on a pole.
