Anna Montana

by Kate Hayes 
 
As you may know (from reading this post), my oldest child started kindergarten last week. (And it was a huge success! If you actually care to read more about that, you can read this post on my personal blog.) 

So now, at the ripe old age of five, Anna feels like she has “made it.” She is finally in school with the “big kids,” which has been her lifelong dream. She can also read now, which allows her to do many things for herself that she couldn’t do when she was younger, like read the nutritional content in her breakfast cereal. In addition, Anna has recently discovered the ‘tween shows on the Disney Channel. Most notably, Hannah Montana.
 
Before Hannah Montana, we spent more than a year watching iCarly on Nickelodeon (another ‘tween show)…so I’m not exactly sure how Anna’s new fascination with Hannah makes me feel like she has crossed a frontier. Maybe it’s the fact that Hannah Montana is a musical show, so now Anna is bee-bopping around the house singing pop songs like a teenager, and trying out dance moves that she is not coordinated enough to pull off yet. I just feel like she’s suddenly trying to act so much older than FIVE. And I wonder if this is something that the whole kindergarten set is doing…or if I’m going to be the one mom who gets angry phone calls from other moms because my kid has prematurely aged their kids. (I guess we’ll find out soon.) 

The evening before school started, I took Anna on a mother-daughter trip to the mall to pick up a few last things we needed…like tennis shoes for gym class (she likes to wear dresses almost every day, so we have not purchased “real” tennis shoes in years). While we were looking for shoes, Anna spotted a pair of hideous Hannah Montana tennis shoes, which of course, she begged me to buy. I said NO. I am not a fan of characters on kids’ apparel, so I was not about to start that precedent with a pair of $30 Hannah Montana shoes that I knew I would have to fight her to NOT wear every single day.

That was a good decision, and I knew it. BUT, Anna was so brokenhearted about it that I told her that IF we saw a Hannah Montana shirt, I might consider buying it instead. (At least she can’t wear a shirt everyday! And it would be less of an investment.) After all, it was the night before Anna’s first day of kindergarten, and I wanted it to be special for her. I didn’t want to ruin it with my “lofty” opinions about children’s clothing. 

To make a long story short, somehow the “IF” we can find a Hannah Montana shirt quickly turned into “we must find a Hannah Montana shirt!” I walked that kid all over a very large mall in a very short time, looking in every store that we thought might have one. We saw nothing. Finally, it was getting late and we were at the end of the line. JC Penney was the last store in front of us. I told Anna that we would run in and take a look, but if we couldn’t find anything, we would have to head home.  The look on her face was so forlorn. Despite my feelings about character apparel, I was actually praying for a miracle. 

We made a beeline for the kids’ section of JC Penney, and hit every rack. No Hannah Montana shirts. I could see the tears welling up in Anna’s eyes. I stopped at one last clearance sign, and started quickly flipping through the hangers on the rack. A shinier-than-usual tag caught my eye. I held my breath. Could it be…? 

YES! It was! A Hannah Montana t-shirt! It was the ONLY one on the rack. AND…it was a size five. What are the odds? I swear, it was like I saw sunbeams coming down from Heaven and heard a choir of angels singing. Anna squealed in delight, hugged her shirt, then skipped and giggled all the way out of the mall. She was SO. INCREDIBLY. HAPPY. (And I was happy too – the shirt ended up being marked down to three dollars! Now, that’s a “character apparel” investment that I can live with!)

The next day, Anna put on her Hannah Montana shirt after school (yes, she knew better than to ask to wear it on her first day), and sang louder than ever. I think the shirt makes her feel even older and cooler. 

The question is…should I be excited that I was able to do something that made my daughter so happy and amused that she thinks she is so big now…OR, should I be concerned that if THIS is what she likes at age five, who knows what she’s going to like when she’s ten? Am I a bad mom for even letting her watch Hannah Montana in the first place? 

What have you done (or would you do) with your own daughter? 
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