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Fierce Mommy: The Birds and the B-Listers

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A blogumn by Stephanie Myers

Before you have kids, you often have a general idea of what you want your parenting philosophy to be.  After lots of careful thought, most of which is not based on any actual kid experience, you have definite ideas of how you want to raise your kids regarding everything from nutrition to television.  Having “The Talk” about the birds and the bees with my kids was something that I figured I wouldn’t have to think about doing for a few years yet, being that Jillian is 6 and Aidan is 3.  Now I’m not so sure.

Jillian, like most little girls, loves all things Disney and, as a result, I became familiar with High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and the Cheetah Girls.  I’m fluent in Disney in a way you can only really understand if you have a little girl.  Perhaps that’s why I’m a little tweaked about the latest Disney scandal involving Cheetah Girls Adrienne Bailon and bottomless pictures meant for her fiancee which were stolen from her laptop last week.  If you don’t have kids, or if you are blissfully unaware of celebrity ‘news’, you might not know that this is far from the first time Disney has found its squeaky-clean stars in the middle of a scandal.

Jillian was only 2 when the Vanessa Hudgens scandal blew up and the nude/semi-nude pictures of a very underage High School Musical star hit the fan.  The pics were apparently taken as a gift for her boyfriend Zac Efron.  Obviously, in light of the $80 million dollar haul HSM3 saw opening weekend, the scandal hasn’t had a lasting tarnish on the franchise or Hudgens. I personally am glad that Jillian isn’t into HSM (its got too many ‘kissy’ scenes) right now and that she’s too young to be able to Google her Disney Idols like I can.

Then Miley Cyrus (daughter to Billy Ray “Achy-Breaky Heart” Cyrus and my daughter’s absolute idol) revealed her “friendship” with the Daddy-approved 20-year old Justin Gaston.  I don’t know about you, but personally the idea of my 15-year old daughter getting cozy with a twenty-year old is something that freaks me out.  I don’t care how Christian the guy may be or what her crazy daddy thinks – it’s still a felony.

Now Adrienne Bailon, known for her role in the Disney fabricated faux-girl group The Cheetah Girls, has found herself in a similar mess to the one Hudgens was in.  Apparently while at JFK last week, someone stole Bailon’s laptop and then ransomed it back for $1000…only to return it without the pictures.

As a parent, the fact that these starlets are appearing in the news for something other than the their wholesome talents bothers me and makes me wonder what, exactly, is going on over there at Disney?

Granted, the scandals themselves aren’t shocking:  Bailon is 25 and the pictures were supposedly intended for her fiancee;  Hudgens, though underage when she took her nude pics, intended them for her teenage boyfriend.   Yet for a girl who is a bit older, one who has grown up with a Disney vision of the world, it could be a bit of a revelation and make for some confused tweens.

Its a revelation that, since Jillian is still so young, she is thankfully not exposed to.  If she were older we might be talking about these starlets in a different light.  Jezebel touched on how a parent might approach older kids questions about these scandals and suggested that parents try to see it as a learning experience, asking kids to think about their own opinion without offering your own first and pointed out this might not be the scariest thing parents could face:

“for older kids, surely there are worse things than explaining that an actress is older than who she plays; that Hollywood is a rough place; and that, in any case, these were intended to be kept between grown-ups “who love each other.” Really, when you think about it, it’s a pretty PG way to introduce a child to the sordid.”

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[Source: Jezebel]

I think for me, another component of this involves how much supervision there is in the kids life. When you let your kids browse the web without knowing where they’re going or where they’ve been, they might stumble on something you don’t want them to see.  My kids will probably not have a computer in their rooms because I want their computer access, like their access to television in the home to happen in very public family spaces.

At least that’s the plan.

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Photo Credit: John Watson