Foam and Twerk

Spoiler alert: I've Arrived Late to the Miley Cyrus Meltdown.

It takes me a little longer than most people to fully form my opinion on controversial topics. I'm always impressed by 5,000 word blog posts and articles that appear seemingly moments after something newsworthy happens. I could never be a journalist for this exact reason - by the time I'd finish writing, 14 more relevant things would have already happened and I'd be like, "I'm still ruminating on that one." (Side note: someone recently said to me, "I'll have to marinate on that and get back to you," and it made me physically recoil. I don't want to envision you slipping around in lemon juice and a zesty blend of spices like a pale raw chicken! Try ruminating on it instead, it's a lovely little word with no bacterial connotations).

So I woke up on Monday, and as many of us with internet access and without concerns of imminent famine or bodily harm found, social media had completely exploded in the aftermath of the VMAs. I'd actually gotten texts from a few friends the night before that said Miley Cyrus was making them sick, but I wasn't watching the VMAs and to be completely honest, I'm not a fan of hers so this didn't really strike me as newsworthy. Which it obviously was. I still haven't seen the entire performance, which seems unnecessary in light of the constant news coverage since and the fact that I read several play-by-plays of the foam and twerk extravaganza. I don't want to see that.

I think at another point in my life, I would have had a very blase attitude the whole thing. My initial reactions were along the lines of; some people will do anything for the shock value, some child stars will do anything to shake off their Disney Channel image, is it me or does Miley Cyrus have dinner rolls glued on her head?

But then I saw a gif of her mom jumping up to give that performance a standing ovation and that was the hell no moment that woke up my lazy mama self. What in the world we were expecting from a girl whose own mother is applauding her degrade herself and flaunt her lack of self-respect? Because the point is not really whether or not you believe that performances like that are exploiting or embracing sexuality, the point is not really that Miley is uncomfortably young and Robin Thicke is getting rich this summer off a song that assumes men know what women want when they aren't cognizant of it themselves. Those things are certainly upsetting, and certainly worth discussing, and most of the world did that on Monday. But to me, as I arrive late to the party, the point is that this is a girl who is saying, what I do with my body is the most important thing I want the world to know about me. The only thing that separates me from the Hannah Montana Miley is that now I live my life right out of the urbandictionary playbook. I know Molly. And all that's lewd and crude about sex? I want you to know that I'm down with that.

And there's her mother, giving her a standing ovation.

If there's anything that I want my own daughter to know, it's that her body is the very least important thing about her. Oh, it's entirely important to be healthy, to be strong, to have self-esteem, to embrace and not loathe all the scars and ripples and curves she will have. It's important for her to have a healthy sexuality and self-respect. But her mind, her intelligence, her passions and her interests are far more valuable to this world than anything about her physicality. It's painful for me to realize that someday Matilda may love a benign show like Hannah Montana, and then could end up watching whoever the 2022 version of Miley Cyrus is declare that she's all grown up now, thanks to sex and drugs. Not because she got an education, or because she has an awareness of world issues, or even because she's matured and grown as a performer and entertainer. Those are all great and respectable things, but instead we've got Miley Cyrus in a nude bra, shoving her sexuality in the face in a million young girls, saying, this is what growing up is all about.

It sure as hell is not, and it offends me, the mother of a daughter, that Miley and her mother (who has been one of her managers and who was highly unlikely to have just shown up and been as surprised as the rest of us by what followed) chose to display that narrative through her VMA performance. It's hard enough to raise girls in a world that values flesh over brains in almost every arena. It's even more complicated when it's laid out this explicitly, and the subsequent uproar is positive in that it makes us reflect on what we're seeing and negative in that it drowns out the truly important things that happened this week. How do you even begin to prioritize when you're raising a girl in a world where CNN spends equal time discussing chemical weapons unleashed on Syrians and a foam finger being used inappropriately on a washed up pop singer with a one-off summer hit? I'm glad this performance didn't go by unnoticed, because that says that we aren't all ok with it, but I'm conflicted over the fact that instead it just played on a loop for days and certainly many more young girls who didn't watch the VMAs have seen it since.

Matilda's new favorite game is to pretend - anything and everything. Pretend we are taking naps. Pretend that her stuffed kangaroo needs a bath (he really does, though). Pretend that we are making eggs and pancakes in her toy kitchen. Is it so much to ask that in a few years she pretends to go to college instead of pretends that she's a Disney star? We cancelled cable recently, for a lot of reasons, but suddenly it feels like that was a really important parenting decision (it was not at the time, I wish I could claim that but really we were just trying to live a little more simply). I'm not at all knocking little innocent shows, but the industry of transitioning child stars into adult ones is one that values sex appeal over all other personal attributes. It's all blurred lines and subtle messages that either women are for men to use, or that their power comes only from their sexuality and how they use it.

I guess what I am saying, days late and paragraphs too long, is keep that away from my girl. I'm not stupid, I know you can't peel yourself away from these messages completely. I was a teenage girl, and I know what it's like to fumble around trying to make your mark and discover yourself as an adult. It's all awkward and uncharted but I don't think it's too much to ask that Matilda never thinks her life will be improved by twerking and getting to know Molly, pleaseGodplease. (Molly is ecstasy. It's already Friday so I've just been assuming you all googled it by now if you didn't already know). And I'm positive that she's never going to get a standing ovation for anything she does along those lines. This is the message I want little girls to know - that it should not be expected that your mother stands up and applauds you doing something stupid, something demeaning to who you are and what's important about you. That you are so, so much more valuable to society when you keep your clothes on in public and fling your intelligence and your insight and your curiosity out there at the world instead of your ass.That you are making the world better for every girl when you don't allow yourself in the same room as anyone interested in crossing blurred lines, let alone dance with them. That achievement is not ripping your clothes off for the viewers at home.

So sit down, Miley's mom. Put your clothes back on, Miley. Write an apology note to the foam finger company. Go to college. At this point, nothing would be more shocking than that.