Every day, I try to visit a wide variety of blogs to get a sense of what people beyond my own geographic, political, socio-economic cohort are thinking. Sometimes, it is fairly clear what people are thinking, other times, you just have to ask yourself, “What were they thinking?!”

Yesterday, I stumbled across two very different viewpoints that I thought I would juxtapose. The first is an article, Selling Sex To Little girls, Miley’s 9-year-old sister launching a lingerie line for kids. “What were they thinking?” seems to be a common response. Some have asked how this is different that little girls in tutus and leotards in their ballet classes, or three year olds in the Dora the Explorer undies. Others have said that it looks more like Jon Benet Ramsey. What were they thinking? Perhaps all that they were thinking was, “Cha-ching”

It made me think of one of the blogs I often visit. Penny Raine describes herself as a “born again, spirit filled, blood bought, Christian” and asks on her Facebook page, “Is what you are living for worth Christ dying for? While we were still sinners Jesus died for us.” This is also reflected in her status, “know that if you are a Godly parent desiring to raise Godly children that you have an enemy, he seeks to steal and destroy your children, he is a big bad, wants to eat your lunch enemy, and he will stop at nothing, but ... not to fear cause we serve a Jesus who has overcome the world and we will overcome here too!”

On her webpage, she describes herself this way:

Let me see, to introduce myself. Well obviously my name is Penny Raine, I am momma to 8 youngins, 1 with Jesus, the rest still here all in one house, that is until last year when the oldest got married. Now she has a husband and they have a home of their own and a baby on the way. I am wife to minister hubby known locally as “jumpin Jim” we have been married since ‘86, goodness how many years IS THAT? We all live on a horse farm in Mid TN where our favorite thing to do is worship the Lord.

With that, she shows a picture of her family leaning against an old blue pickup truck, with three of them wielding guitars. I suspect that Jumpin Jim puts on a real different show than Miley Cyrus does and I suspect that I probably have some strong disagreements with Penny and Jim on politics and theology. But I also suspect that Penny and Jim are much closer to being my kind of people than the Cyrus family.

One of the things that Penny promotes on her blog is Jumpin Bloomers which sells “modest clothing for girls of all ages”. The outfits are cute and remind me of the clothing some young Mennonite girls would wear to Sunday School when I visited their churches in Ohio back in my college days. It also made me think of the sort of clothing I always imagined Laura Ingalls Wilder would wear as she moved from big woods to the prairie.

One of the things that many of the bloggers do is have various contests to build traffic. Penny is having an Apron Giveaway contest to promote her blog and jumpinbloomers. I had read about the contest and initially decided not to enter. I usually don’t go for these sorts of contests. I’m not likely to write a review of a blog for a one in a hundred chance of winning an apron or some other little trinket or treasure.

However, the contrast between Jumpin Bloomers and Noah Cyrus’ lingerie was just too great to leave this without a comment. So, shake your head at the Cyrus family’s latest venture, but don’t stop there. Join with others to promote young girls clothing that glorifies childhood instead of glorifies sexuality.