losing the battle

Big sigh...

Today I lost my quiet battle with Hannah Montana (HM).

I've been secretly avoiding her name, her show, and her gabbles and googles of stuff everywhere I turn. I've never bought Holly any HM stuff in an effort to keep the peppy little tween at bay. She seems like a nice girl, but I'm just not ready; not ready for my 6 year old to want to be a tween.

Until yesterday, Holly's favorite show was Curious George. I love that darn monkey. And more importantly, I love that Holly loves him. I want her to enjoy being a kid, not that liking HM means you skip kid-ness, but with HM comes looking good, being cool, and liking boys, which means peer pressure and all that other crap that comes during the tween years. (I realize this might be a slight over reaction.)

Today Holly asked if she could watch HM. She ended her question by saying "I promise I won't say the bad words."

Crap.

"What bad words?"

"I don't know."

I felt like I was at a cross roads with my parenting. Was I going to make my quiet battle a public one, not allowing Holly to watch the 'cool' HM show? I didn't want to make it more temping and a bigger deal than it actually was so I chose to let her watch. The episode we saw actually had a pretty good little message (although I about gagged through most of it).

I'm torn about the whole HM craze. Part of me thinks she's great (compared to the non-Disney choices I had as a kid). When I was in 2nd grade my 'idol' was Madonna and I would be-bop around the house singing 'Like a Virgin.' I still remember my dad asking me if I knew what a virgin was. Of course I didn't, but who cares - I loved the song and the awesome video of Madonna in that little boat. I had all the teen magazines and did my best to look just like my singing super star. In 4th grade I went as far as wearing my grandma's lace curtain in my hair because I had seen a photo of Madonna with a big white bow in her hair. My teacher chuckled a bit and then made me take it out.

The other part of me thinks Hannah Montana is the grim reaper of childhood. I don't like that elementary kids are pushed into being so grown up so soon. Why does the princess, dress up, pretend phase only last a few years? Can't it last at least until 3rd grade? My big concern is girls wanting to be HM and not being happy to be themselves. Last year I saw a little girl wearing a shirt that said "I want to be Hannah Montana." What the shit!!!! We shouldn't be teaching our girls that they should want to be someone they're not! Seeing this shirt reminded me of an interview that Oprah did with Pink (a sexy punk rocker). She had just come out with her song 'Stupid Girls' where she makes fun of people like Paris Hilton and Lyndsey Lohan. On the show Oprah also had teenagers who were obsessed with being like these 'stupid girls.' Pink made a comment to these girls that I think summed up my concern. She said "If I was obsessed about being someone else when I was your age then I wouldn't be me right now." (Okay, that's not a word-for-word quote, but I'm close).

I think the difference between my Madonna obsession and HM is that I didn't like Madonna just because everyone else did. I liked Madonna during my 'hot shot' phase. Girls in my class actually called me a 'hot shot' because I was such a fashion guru. Liking Madonna didn't make me fit in, it actually made me stand out. But I didn't care. I loved Madonna and I wanted to look just like her because that's what I wanted - not what some stupid shirt told me to want. I fear that this HM obsession is more about what everyone else is doing rather than truly liking her music or her poorly acted show.

So I guess I've come to the conclusion that I don't have a problem with HM as long as Holly doesn't like her just because she's the cool person to like. (side note: Why can't Pippy Longstocking make a come back? That girl was all about adventure and fun.)

I will say that I think Hannah Montana is much better than Madonna, but better than Curious George? NEVER.