Thursday, July 19, 2007

Time's caught up with you

I was having an interesting conversation with the wife last night about judgment -- being judgmental of other people based on their actions. I would like to not do that. I mean, I have no problems with judging actions. My problem is with judging the person and filing that person away as "bad," as the case may be.

This morning I was revisiting that concept as I took care of some box collecting. For some reason, the judgment idea came through by thinking about Hannah Montana.

Having two girls, ages 8 and 6, Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus, yes, that’s Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter) is very popular in my home. And, I gotta tell you, I don’t mind. Not the music or the TV show. Not that either are all that good, but they’re tolerable. The TV is actually pretty entertaining now and then, but that’s primarily due to the kid they have playing Hannah’s brother. That kid is just hilarious. Hopefully he has quite the career ahead of him.

Anyway, I was thinking about HM and then started thinking about how she’s pretty much followed the mold set before in the past few years by other Disney and Nickelodeon TV/Music crossovers. There’s Raven Simone and, probably more popular (or more pertinent to my conversation here), Hilary Duff. My kids aren’t quite old enough to have been taken in by Hilary, and now that she’s a bit older, I don’t really want my kids to have anything to do with her. Which is sad, because in retrospect, watching the show with cousins, etc., I seem to remember her show and early music as being pretty morally sound. It seems that when she got her first chance to go ho, she took it. Or, ho-ish.

But I’m being judgmental there. Aren’t I?

That’s where the question comes in: We are obviously required to make judgments -- both of people and things. Where does the “judge not, lest ye be judged” line start and end? It’s easy to say “hate the sin, love the sinner.” And I’m trying. But, limiting your children’s access to some of these performers and events requires you to be judgmental.

In the short term, I guess I’ll just do my best to judge actions and not people. In the long term, Miley, I implore you, please don’t go ho.

No comments: