A new – albeit kind of small – survey today shows that a whopping 78% of parents think Miley Cyrus is a bad role model for her children.
The Vouchercloud.com survey of 2,287 British parents of at least one child under 10 found that the female celebrity that parents would want their children to idolise is instead Kate Middleton, with 34% of them rating her.
The worst male influencer was Kanye West, with 56% of people ticking ‘yes’ when asked, ‘Are there any celebrities you would hate for your children to idolise?’ And the best was Ed Sheeran, with 41% of parents saying he’s a good influence.
Chris Johnson, Head of Operations at Vouchercloud, told the MailOnline, ‘It's no surprise that parents are worried about celebrity influence on their children, particularly when you look at the likes of Miley Cyrus. She started out as the perfect teen idol in Hannah Montana and then when she reached a certain age, she decided to rid herself of the clean-teen image. Parents tend to have high hopes for their children and it’s typically not a parent’s dream for them to prance around with not a lot of clothes on, partying their lives away.’
Now, the problems here abound, because, well, if we have to compare Miley Cyrus and Kate Middleton, neither of them should really be role models for children, and it’s far more likely under 10s are much more influenced by, say, vloggers.
But, if we will delve into their worthwhileness as role models, at least one of them, you know, has an actual job. And for all of Miley’s rebellion, what she’s done is undo what’s expected of young little girls like Hannah Montana as they grow up, instead of just reinforcing the ‘look pretty, get married, look pretty, have babies’ narrative.
Not only has Miley questioned what it is to be straight, what it is to be a girl or a boy (she now identifies as bisexual and gender fluid – ‘I'm just even. It has nothing to do with any parts of me or how I dress or how I look. It's literally just how I feel’), but she’s used all the controversy about the killing off of her tween fame for good. Her charity – the Happy Hippie Foundation – actively looks out for homeless and LGBT youth and celebrates those who don’t fit into the neat little pockets of male/female.
There’s been a lot of nudity along the way. And a lot of partying. But young people have bodies and they have parties, and they’re going to push the boundaries of acceptability with or without a pop star to encourage them. That’s never going to change. Offering them a realistic role model who works hard over a woman whose only duties in life are an offshoot of her husband’s responsibilities might actually be, in the long-term, much better for them.
After all, we can all do our bit to question why men and women are treated so differently in so many ways, but we can’t all marry a prince, can we?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.