That's the consensus after photos of Miley Cyrus, "Hannah Montana" for those with tween and teenagers, hit the media over the weekend.

Shot by legendary photographer Annie Leibowitz for Vanity Fair magazine, the pictures include a shot of 15-year-old Cyrus with only a bedsheet covering her top half.

Star of the Disney television show, and one-woman Disney money machine, Cyrus headlined a sold-out tour last year, which had parents scrambling to pick up coveted concert seats. Those parents were paying many times the face value for their daughters to see the wholesome youngster in a city near them.

Parents always felt Cyrus was a safe choice as a role model, with her clean-cut appearance, and non-appearance in the tabloids.

Perhaps I'm jaded, but the photos didn't surprise me. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I've been in a state of mild shock since my first nieces became teens. A few shopping trips and I realize that "skin was in," the more the merrier. Short-short skirts, tiny tank tops and thin as tissue paper T-shirts have flooded the teen-oriented stores.

Their birth certificates might say they are 12, or 14, or 16, but merchandisers think they are grown women - and ones who aren't shy about showing what they've got.

Now, I've just got a son, so I haven't had intimate knowledge of the struggles parents must have in helping their daughters chose clothes which are both "cool" and "age-appropriate."

The clothes, I believe, are simply a manifestation of a world which is pushing our kids into adulthood way too soon. These teens are being fed a diet of images and lyrics of a world that used to be inhabited by 20-year-olds. In order to fit in, they have to go along.

There's money there. That's a huge motivator for marketers. Tweens and teens have money to spend, and spend it they will. So, products and marketers are constantly pushing the envelope to create a need for their clothes, or electronics, or gadget.

Why the rush to grow up? Heck, there are a lot of days when the relatively carefree times of my youth sound pretty darn good. I didn't have a lot of disposable cash (OK, I had NO disposable cash) but then, neither did my friends.

Can we put the genie back in the bottle, and let kids go back to just being kids? Or, is this the same arguments parents have been having throughout the ages, in modern form?

Or, as I fear, have I just become an old fuddy-duddy?