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Miley can’t hear you—but we can.

We all know about Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance last fall, but she continues to be in the news for one thing or another. Whether it be her performance, her outfits, something she’s said or most recently, photos she posted, she continues to be a topic of conversation.

For those of us who strive to live virtuous lifestyles, Miley can be an easy target. After witnessing months of continuous “Miley bashing,” I had to ask myself—Why do we keep doing this? I love seeing our country talk about morals, self-respect, modesty and values. But what’s breaking my heart is we are forgetting that the subject of the ongoing conversation is a 20 year old girl.

I want to be clear—I have read, watched and listened to some conversations move past “Miley bashing” and respectfully discuss the morality issues tied to her actions. What I‘m addressing today is the more frequent “rants” I have witnessed; making judgmental statements about Miss Cyrus and using horrible names that I refuse to repeat in my blog.

When we “Miley bash,” is our goal to use this as an opportunity to educate our young women about self-respect and dignity? Well if that’s true, we are doing a terrible job—I have heard very few people move beyond the “what kind of girl would do that?” to “here’s what we can learn from the situation.” Recently, I have even seen the headline “next stop: porn?”

We are doing a great job of teaching our young women that it’s ok to disrespect another young woman just because we feel she disrespected herself. We are teaching young women that it is ok to call her terrible names on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and anywhere else the Internet allows because we believe that her actions deserve it. We are also teaching them to expect the same treatment themselves when they make a mistake in their own life.

If we are upset that Miley disrespected herself then why are we disrespecting her as well?

As Americans we can’t stop talking about bullying—yet some of us have been doing just that for months now.

I am sure Miley hasn’t watched all of the negative interviews about her performance and her recent photos, she will never see the Facebook posts or the blogs that clearly state how we feel about the issue. But do you know who IS listening? Our young women.

So what now?

The performance happened, the photos happened, we have talked about them and then talked about them some more.

If our goal is to use this opportunity to educate our young women about virtue—then we need to start responding to the situation with the virtue of love.

Instead I challenge you—if the Miley Cyrus’ actions upset you, channel your anger into something positive…

  • Use Miley as an opportunity teach girls in your community that they deserve so much more than to be looked at as an object. That they can gain more confidence by showing off their brain, rather than their bodies and that they will receive true love by valuing themselves for who they are and not what they look like.
  • Use Miley as an opportunity to realize that our role models should be our grandmothers, teachers, mothers, aunts, friends, and sisters.
  • Use Miley as an opportunity for us to spend a little more time loving the teenagers in our own life. Pointing out the positive decisions they are making rather than the negative decisions of someone else.

Use this as a learning opportunity, rather than an opportunity to criticize. That is all I ask.

_____________________________

chelseaChelsea Gheesling was blessed to hear a very important message at a young age—happiness and fulfillment is found when we strive to see the goodness in ourselves and others. She wanted to share that message with others so she started the Good Girl Comeback. As the founder and main speaker for the GGCB, Chelsea has presented to thousands of girls at schools, churches and seminars, been featured in magazines, newspapers and radio broadcasts. Chelsea has been delivering youth presentations for more than nine years throughout the world on self-respect, virtue and spiritual development.

 

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