Miley Cyrus Does Not Have Permission to Raise My Children

I know I'm late to the Miley Cyrus, to twerk or not to twerk party, but I guess I'll jump into the fray anyway. I've heard a lot about the shock factor of Miley's fuzzy koala, foam finger molesting strip tease, but let's face it, this happened on the MTV Video Music Awards. Did we expect anything less, or rather, more? This is what we know the VMA's to be. Scandal is MTV's signature, their modus operandi, that's how they roll, yo. We know it, we love it, we can't wait to see what's next.

Aghast to see it coming from 20 year old, not Hannah Montana, Miley look at my tongue, daddy's so happy I'm famous Cyrus? Well, Miley has a new publicist who has successfully, and very much by design, put her front and foremost in our minds. We are watching her We Can't Stop video and her VMA performance over and over with mouths agape, wondering, "What happened to her?" both silently and aloud and in print and wow, just wow. You see, Miley and her publicist want us to talk about her, all the time, as much as possible, at work, at school, at home, on the internet. And, guess what? We are. We all are. Bring out the slow clap, kiddies. Job well done, Miley. Job. well. done.

This is how fame works. In order to remain famous, people must be interested in what you are doing. Your endeavors are getting a ho hum response lately? Well, here's the plan: shock and awe, baby, shock and awe. Everyone will watch. Everyone will talk. And because everyone talks, everyone will watch and talk and watch. It's the circle of life or something, I think. All this watching and talking will bring our kids into the picture because they will want to watch and talk, too, and mommy bloggers everywhere will lose their lunch. And Miley still wins. But here's the deal: it isn't Miley Cyrus's responsibility to raise our children.

Here's something we can do instead of continually chastising Miley for childish and ridiculous stunts in an attempt to hold on to fame: Don't let our kids watch MTV. Yes, I am aware it isn't that simple with children and their friends and their smart phones and Facebook and endless internet access opportunities, but it's at least a start. Not only did I have no interest in watching the VMA's, I didn't even know they were airing, but I have since then viewed some of Miley's performance because of the above mentioned, brilliant publicity move, aka the total uproar of the world. I have not, however, shown my kids. I did ask my 14 year old if she was privy to the pandemonium and she said she had heard people talking about it, but didn't really know much about it, nor had she seen it. Might she end up seeing it? Totally possible. Do I think that will make her want to twerk it? Seriously doubtful. Would I encourage her to watch it? No way.

Here's what I know, though. I need to take responsibility for my own kids. So, if I find certain television channels objectionable, we just won't watch them. Will this solve everything and fix the world and yay and stuff? Um, no, nope, not at all. My son was shown horror movies at a friend's house in elementary school. The scariest thing he had seen prior to that was Cruella DeVil in 101 Dalmations. As a parent, all I can do is try, and trying involves limiting things and doing that is my job and not MTV's. It is also my job to talk to my children and teach them the things I think are important. Am I super really good at this? No. But, I will keep striving for that.

The world is full of things we wish our kids would never know about. Twerking falls somewhere on that list way, way after rape, child abuse, and the holocaust, but somewhere above Spongebob and high fructose corn syrup. However, as much as we object, our kids live in the real world and not in individual, happy bubbles, so talking to them and modeling the behaviors we want to instill in them, and then talking and talking some more is our best defense against rampant ass shaking or whatever the current, appalling, celebrity behavior du jour happens to be. We could just blame Miley and be done with it. How could she? Doesn't she know she is a role model? That would be easy, but, it won't really get us anywhere. There have always been and always will be poor examples and as animals, people will always love to gape at a shocking display.

If we are honest, we probably have an entire ipod filled with foul mouthed, objectionable lyrics and/or inappropriate subject matter. Got any songs about drugs, rape, suicide, murder, vandalism, sex? Unless you are only listening to gospel or Barney's greatest hits, you probably do. (Let's face it, even show tunes are incredibly racy.) And, to be honest, we are probably the guilty parties that turned on the VMA's in the first place. Good gravy, I'll bet all the bad words kids know, they learned from us, not Miley. I am fairly confident, though, that unless there is no supervision at all regarding what our kids watch and listen to, unless we personally start twerking it around the house in koala leotards, unless Miley Cyrus is our regular babysitter, our kids are still going to make good choices.

Miley Cyrus is a kid, a kid with a slammin' body, a lot of money and publicist who knows how to get the girl some attention. Miley Cyrus is not a role model and our kids are smart enough to know that. So, let's just let Miley be Miley, but also be aware that every time we hit one of her videos, we increase the chances of that including more tongue and more booty popping.

Conversations With The Boy

Throughout history, each generation of parents has been faced with new challenges regarding the care and upbringing of their children. The perpetual evolution of our culture continues to put new twists on a task as old as time itself: raising our offspring to become healthy, happy, thriving adults and contributing members of society, with hopefully some modicum of manners and decent decorum thrown in the mix.

• In the 1900s to the 1920s, teens went to work and married young, people started to play the blues, and the steel guitar and ouija boards were invented.
• During the 1920s, hemlines went up, jazz came onto the scene, Prohibition made criminals out of everyone, and dance marathons became the craze.
• In the 1930s, parents encouraged their kids to get a High School diploma to give them a fighting chance during the economic depression. Teens learned to depend on themselves instead of their parents. Oh yeah, they also learned to Swing Dance {scandalous}.
• By the time the 1940s rolled around, teens had become their own force to be reckoned with, hence the advent of the word, "teenager". Sleeve lengths and hemlines continued to get shorter and shorter and doing the jitterbug was killer diller.
• 1950s teens were watching television, listening to Rock 'N' Roll, and idolizing sexy Marilyn Monroe. There was also the problem of Elvis and his *gasp* gyrating pelvis.
• The 1960s brought hemlines all the way up to miniskirts which were worn with seductive go go boots (bras optional). The Beatles burst onto the scene as smiling, catchy tuned moptops, but morphed into psychedelic acid rockers by the end of the decade. Teens were pitted against their parents as never before, fighting for their political beliefs, free love and the right to smoke pot and wear tie-dye.
• The 1970s found teens streaking, listening to Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper,The Sex Pistols, and learning about a life of disco and sexual promiscuity from John Travolta in 'Saturday Night Fever'.
• The teens of the 1980s were well off, spending money on frivolities with a general apathetic attitude towards life. Drugs became prevalent as did the scare of HIV and AIDS. Adults began banning books like mad in a misguided attempt to keep bad ideas out of the heads of teenagers. Meanwhile, teen girls mimicked the so NOT 'Like a Virgin', Madonna, donning lace tops, fishnets, baubles and heavy makeup. Boobs, sex and drugs became the theme of all movies viewed by teens.
• In the 1990s, punk pop became mainstream, broken families became the norm, and computers and electronic devices began to blend into our everyday lives. TV became increasingly more accepting of sexual content, profanity and graphic violence.

This brings us to the past 10 years wherein the internet has taken over our lives completely, especially the lives of teenagers. Teens now spend 24/7 online by way of their ipods, cell phones, laptops, PS3's, PSPs, Nintendo DS, etc. Instead of going out to find "something to do" teens are huddled around a glowing screen IMing friends online, talking to strangers on Chat Roulette, updating their Facebook status, sexting, taking naked cell phone pics of themselves, viewing the latest hit vid on YouTube, or Googling "poop", "man-boobs" and "bedsores". Teens of today have access (like it or not) to information, photos and videos on any subject at any time. I am "schooled" by my teens quite frequently about things I never knew and never particularly wished to know, frankly.

Teens of today have seen pornography on a scale I cannot even fathom. Clearly, young men wanting to see naked chicks is not a new phenomenon. It has, however, become slightly more complicated to monitor as a parent. Ripping down your son's pin-up girl picture, or throwing away the Playboy under the bed is pretty simple compared to trying to de-pornify the world wide web. In 1983, Tom Cruise's character, Joel Goodson, lived out every young man's fantasy by getting a super sexy call girl to fall for him. While parents at the time no doubt found 'Risky Business' questionable viewing for their children, the likelihood of their sons living out the scenario was pretty slim. Obviously, a teen's chance of getting into the same predicament as Joel is still a pretty far-fetched equation. However, in a virtual world, any scenario is possible and all manner of graphic videos can be seen via the internet. Which leads me to a recent conversation with the boy.

Boy: "I got added by a porn actress on Facebook."

Me: "You are not supposed to be adding porn actresses to your Facebook."

Boy: "SHE added me."

Me: " She CAN'T add you unless you confirm it."

Boy: "Well, I DID confirm it. Who isn't going to confirm a porn actress?"

Joel Goodson: "She wanted to make love on a real train. Who was I to say no?"

So, in conclusion.... hmmm...

If only it were as easy as saying, "Please Joel, do what they say, just get off the babysitter."