Goodbye Innocence, Hello Spandex

I do not have cable and have not had cable for many years.  Watching the clips from this years VMA's, I am over-the-moon glad that we made that decision so many years ago.  Because she does not channel surf, my daughter's role models do not come from TV.  She hand picks what she watches, instead of just flipping channels and settling on junk.  Which means that as those teens have grown up and tried to shed the skin of innocence and be seen as grown ups - I have not had to fear that my daughter would follow suit.  It is with a sigh of relief that I watched those VMA clips of Miley Cyrus in her spandex undies and flipped through the online pictures of Selena Gomez in a bustier (no one would even question her dress if she were 30, by the way) and the long line of other young actresses showing just how grown up they've become while their fans are still in training bras.

The mother part of me is aghast that young actresses would dress, act and perform this way - Miley, Britney, to name a few.  But the girl part of me says, "hey - they just want to be seen as something beyond a Mousekeeter."  I don't blame them for wanting to grown up.  Annette Funicello did and was a lot of things - but when we remember her, we remember the Mousekeeter.  Is that so bad though?  Is being remembered for your innocence worse then being remembered for dancing around in your underwear, grinding on a man old enough to be your father while he sings a "rapey" song?  Apparently for some girls the mouse ears must be discarded at all costs.....even if that means she must cross some "Blurred Lines." (oh yeah - I went there.)

I feel sorry for girls whose only choice is to follow female role models who aren't old enough or strong enough to make wise choices yet.  By the time those impressionable girls realize that the strength of a woman does not begin and end with her vagina, it might be too late.  Although our va-jay-jay is very much a part of our strength, it is not and should never be, the sum total of what makes us strong and sexy.  Female strength comes from many things, intelligence, courage, morality, and the ability to be humbly aware of our power as women - to respect that power.  How will young girls learn that that power doesn't come from their crotch - it comes from their heart, it comes from their convictions and their choices? 


JK Rowling (she's famous and I've never seen her in her underwear) taught us, "It is our choices that define us....not our abilities."  Make good choices, girls......make good choices.