The buzz over the seductive picture of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus is a story about quitting.
In the beginning, Miley Cyrus really was the good girl. She was fresh, young and wholesome, much to the delight of Disney, the bean counters who drooled over the Disney coffers and the millions of young girls who watched her popular show.
But time passed and being fresh, young and wholesome grew tiring. The challenge of standing apart from the masses became less a badge of honor and more of an albatross. Who wants to be good when being bad is the new good?
Miley quit. She quit being original in exchange for the sameness of the teen celebs who have gone before. She swapped out innocent and fresh for the hard look of used goods. She joined a legion of other confused teens slinking down the path with the signs marked Vamp.
She quit long before the Vanity Fair photo shoot. Her self-respect quit when she began posting pictures on the Internet, pictures like the one showing her kissing another girl, the same kind of picture 5,000 other girls have posted in their quest to be different.
Her brain quit when she posed for pictures exposing her bra (that's how all your great women of note get their start, right?) and snapshots of her scantily clad body draped across her boyfriend.
I use the word "boyfriend" loosely - the kid looks to be about 12 and has a deer-in-the-headlights look. It is a look that says he is frightened at the sight of all that flesh - or he hears his mother calling.
Miley's parents quit, too. No thinking parents leave their 15-year-old daughter with celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz. She's hardly Norman Rockwell. Leibowitz is known for posing her subjects naked and half-naked.
Leibowitz quit, too. How much easier to do the cliche, as opposed to something fresh and original.
And don't give me the line about it being art. It's soft porn. Kids with a can of mousse, a box of 24 shades of eye shadow and a digital camera make these same tawdry images every day.
But back to the parents: Surely someone noticed something askew. The over-the-top makeup, the cunning pose, the plumped lips, the forced pout.
Didn't anyone hear a siren? A distant car alarm? The soft tick of a small studio bomb?
But the parents left before the shoot was over. A lot of parents leave when the kids are 15. They don't leave physically, but they quit parenting. It's too hard. The challenges are too tough, the encounters too intense, the arguing too loud.
It's easier to walk away. Do what you want, here's a credit card, make your own decisions.
Perhaps Miley's parents knew that if they stayed, they'd have to say no.
It's hard to say no as a parent these days. No to the party, the coed sleepover, the questionable friends, the provocative clothes, everyone else's mother, the celebrity photographers, the magazine editors.
It's easier to quit.
We've all quit at something some time or another.
If there is anything good about quitting, it is this: Once you survey the wreckage and gather your thoughts, you can always get up and try again.
