I feel badly for the mother's out there who's daughter's witnessed Miley's behavior at the MTV Video Music Awards. I mean the majority of people are trying to raise their kids with some self respect. I don't have a girl. I do have a few nieces and every time someone like Miley Cyrus degrades herself in public I hope they don't feel the urge to copy her or think she is "cool" or that is what is "sexy". I hope we as a family have helped guide them towards respecting themselves.
I don't have a daughter, but I do have a son. I haven't watched MTV in a long long time. There was a time when MTV actually did play music videos. Today's MTV bears no resemblance to the ground breaking channel that once introduced us to artists and their music. Which is why my son has never watched it. In fact we don't watch much network TV and are pretty selective of what we watch on satellite. We are realistic. We know he is going to hear and see things out in the world that we can't shield him from, so we try to prepare him. We learned pretty early that we would have to do this. Two weeks into Kindergarten, a little boy called him a "jackass". Little Guy had no idea what that was or why he was being called that. That afternoon after Big Guy picked him up from school and was driving down the road, Little Guy asked in a quite voice, "Daddy, what's a jackass?" Big Guy almost drove off the road! He pulled off the road and explained to LG what the word was and how it was originally used as a name for donkeys, but that people say it today in a bad way.... after that we learned that several kids in his class were hearing ALL the bad words at home on a regular basis. It was so sad! We told LG that there were some words that were on the "Bad Word List". They were words that were he was going to hear, but were not nice to say and he would get in trouble if he did. He's 12 now and we have never had any trouble with him repeating those sort of things and when he hears them on TV, in a movie or video game he knows what they are and doesn't repeat them.
He is at the age when things will start changing though. Hormones are beginning to change and having a girlfriend won't be to far off in the future. I have tried to teach him to respect people as a whole, but I also want him to respect women and not think of them a objects. People like Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, the Kardashians and any number of "celebrities" that are all over our TV screens and magazine covers act like they have no self respect and no self control. We did not watch the VWA's, (we rarely watch ANY awards shows anymore because there is bound to be someone like Miley or Kanye West behaving in a disgusting manner that is not worth watching) but the pictures began popping up on the web before the night was over. Just from the photos, it was a disgusting display of self degradation. A young person exhibiting no respect for her body or her self. These people are screaming for attention and they're getting it too. Just all the wrong kinds of attention.
I feel badly for the parents of these people. Whether they admit it or not, I doubt many of them hoped to ever see their children exposing their bodies in public and acting like that.
I want more for my son. I want him to respect himself. I want him to respect the girls around him. I want him to know it is okay to act decent even if people around him are not. I want him to know it's okay to walk away if anyone he's hanging out with acts like they have no respect for themselves or anyone else. I want my son to grow into a man that respects women. I want him to first see her as a human being. I want him to notice that she does have a brain in her head. I want him to respect her feelings, her opinions and her body. I want him to live an honorable life so that if the day comes that he is getting married and he recites his vows, he fully and completely understands those words and is able to live by them. I want him to look at his wife and fully love her, be proud of her. Respect her. I want so much for him.
Right now I want him to know that REAL girls don't act like Miley Cyrus did on that show, that her behavior was not "cool".
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