Hannah Montana

Yesterday my daughter started talking about how she wished we had Hannah Montana available for her to watch because one of her neighborhood friends watches it.  I sort of remembered that I'd seen it available on Netflix, so when she was out of the house with her father, I sat down and watched my second ever episode of Miss Montana's TV show.

We'd been through this exact same experience 3 years ago when we still had the Disney channel and I'd decided to see if it was an appropriate show for her because lots of other girls her age were watching it with older siblings.

I could see why it's entertaining and how it would be appealing to young girls.  There are teenagers to look up to and to see into their day-to-day lives at school.  And the main character is also a rock star.  Disney had a great concept for getting the attention of the tweens and younger.  And it seems so clean, so it is probably accepted in lots of homes.

But both times the thing that struck me the most, and tipped the scales against the show in our home is that the teens are all kind of mean to each other.  There are the standard sibling insults, which is something that comes across as being funny.  But funny can hurt in real life.

And there are the obligatory "popular" girls who are mean to Miley and her best friend, and then Miley and her friend dish it back.  And it's supposed to be "funny" and "entertaining".  But we females really need to learn to build strong, supportive friendships.  We need to learn to encourage each other and build each other up.  And entertaining young girls by showing them females divided and tearing each other down to gain the attention of a boy or to make themselves feel good is not okay for our girl.

I told my daughter that I had listened to her request and had watched another episode to better judge the show, but that the answer is still "no".  I explained why and that God wants us to "think on things that are good, lovely and pure" (Phil 4:8) and that saying mean things about people in order to entertain is none of these things.

I thought she'd be upset and cry.  I told her that it's hard to make decisions like this because I want to give her what she wants, but sometimes I need to tell her "no" because it's not the best thing for her.  She handled it very well and simply requested that she have a chance to watch "a girly movie" sometime soon.  I told her I thought we should send the boys out to do some guy stuff and we could have a girly afternoon really soon.

I can't wait.