In Defense of Miley: She is Me

Miley Cyrus has, of late, represented something ominous to adults, a developmental storm brewing on the horizon. Her passage through puberty has been blowing up the blogosphere and, on the ground, is just plain making people uncomfortable. She’s suddenly a celebrity to monitor carefully, gone from G to PG-13 in the blink of an eye.I was about to join the fray of outrage when I started tweeting with 15 year old S., who saw me speak at her school in the southwest a couple of years ago. She was annoyed about the grown-up freak out, she told me, because (she later wrote me on Facebook), “The media picks out every little mistake [Miley] makes. She's a teenage girl, and nobody's perfect. She's going to make mistakes, just like other teenagers, especially girls, and they make it seem worse and even bigger than it actually is, which obviously makes it worse for her.”Which got me thinking: What Miley’s facing as a celebrity echoes the intense Good Girl pressure girls face every day. S. was defending Miley, in a way, on behalf of herself. “As a teenaged girl, I feel like I'm somewhat in the same position as Miley because high school is crazy,” she wrote.

“We're all judged for our looks, our actions, our origins, basically everything, as is she. She does one little thing and half the world is turned against her. I think that's why a lot of girls, including me, look up to her, because she doesn't succumb to depression or angriness or anything whenever she is talked about. She handles it well.”

The worthy impulse girls like S. feel to defend Miley is an unexpected gift for adults. Rather than look at Miley as a threat to girls, let’s consider the amazing conversation starters she’s offering us:

• Everyone makes mistakes – even Miley. When the world pounces on Miley for a single misstep, it reinforces the all-or-nothing pressure girls face in their everyday lives. Ask girls what they think about how the world has judged Miley. Is it fair? Is it normal for girls to feel – or be made to feel – that one mistake ruins everything? If you agree that there’s an all-or-nothing mentality at work here, use Miley’s situation as a way to talk with your daughter about her own experience. Does she feel this kind of pressure to perform? How does it influence her approach to school and extracurricular activities? Make this an opportunity to talk about how to deal with and think about mistakes differently.

• Teen girls face a lot of judgment from other girls – Message boards are filled with Miley bashing from other girls who are in love with Miley’s ex, Nick Jonas. S. told me that they “bash her relentlessly. ‘She's fat!’ ‘SLUT!’ ‘She's only where she is today because of her dad!’” Some questions you can ask a girl: Why are other girls so hard on Miley? Is this similar or different from what you see at school? Is it hard for girls to support other girls? Why? If girls call Miley fat, how does that make other girls feel?

• Defending Miley is a way of standing up for a girl who is being hurt. S. wrote, “She's 16 years old - she's obviously going to read some message boards and comments and stuff people write about her. I defend her whatever chance I get because I realize that she doesn't have the ability to stand up for herself without being bashed even more…”. Ask girls if they feel inspired to defend Miley. Is Miley a victim of bullying? Who is doing the bullying here? Why are you standing up for her? How does Miley handle it?

Miley’s behavior may make us uncomfortable, but let’s not throw the baby celeb out with the bathwater. Uniform groaning about Miley may end up reinforcing the Curse of the Good Girl. It also disqualifies us from a terrific conversation starter with girls. Don’t lose sight of this opportunity.