Unless you have a little girl between the ages of 5 and 14; or a granddaughter in one of those approximate ages, chances are you may never have heard of Hannah Montana(I do, and I have). You may or may not have heard of Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana's real alter ego, before this past week; but chances are you could not have missed the furor surrounding her of recent.

For those whose head has been into really important news events, Miley Cyrus is the precocious daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, who burst on the scene in the early nineties with his mega-hit "Achy Breaky Heart".

Today, he's more recognizable as Miley's dad as well as her television dad on her mega-hit "Hannah Montana", the Disney Channel's latest offering starring a young teen.

Miley has become so popular with the pre-teen set that she has become a billion dollar commodity for Disney.

Screen grabs of the photo quickly popped up online, sparking a blogosphere debate. “Bonfire anyone?” wrote Lin Burress on her marriage and parenting blog, "Telling It Like It Is", referring to the mountain of Hannah Montana retail items — makeup, shoes, clothes — in the marketplace.

“Parents should be extremely concerned,” Ms. Burress said in an interview. “Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.”

It is doubtful that one photograph — especially one that is tame in the context of an Internet awash in nude photographs of other starlets — could dent the Hannah Montana machine, said several Wall Street analysts. Retail sales for the franchise are expected to total about $1 billion in 2008. A motion picture is in the works for 2009 and Ms. Cyrus signed a seven-figure book deal with the Disney Book Group last week.

But keeping a teenage entertainment franchise on track in an age when stars are monitored around the clock by bloggers and paparazzi is extremely difficult, even for a company with the experience of Disney. Executives are constantly battling to keep minor slipups from growing into full-blown controversies.

So, how did this photo happen to be taken in the first place? For the same reason that I discussed in my previous post, "A World Without Limits". Miley's parents and her professional advisors let her down.

A case in point: What is a fifteen-year-old Disney star doing posing for a photo spread in "Vanity Fair". This is an edgy magazine that targets the hip professional in his/ her late twenties or early thirties.

One knows, if he is posing for this magazine, that it always features edgy, slightly controversial photos and content.

But greed once again reared its ugly head. Neither her parents, who were at the shoot as was her grandmother and other adults who are "supposed" to have her best interest at heart, did one thing to stop this photo being printed for publication. That, in spite of the fact that they all saw it.

Miley simply followed the suggestion of her photographer (a woman, incidentally, with a stellar reputation). She thought it was "cool" when the photographer suggested it. What fifteen-year-old doesn't want to look sexy and older?

Here's where the family should have stepped in to state that it was too mature for her as well as totally alien to her image on Hannah Montana.

Fact is, they should have stepped in when "Vanity Fair" came calling with a firm "NO".

Miley later admitted the photo embarrassed her when it started popping up everywhere. She's on a slippery slope right now. Will she go the way of her predecessors--Lindsay Lohan,(in and out of drug rehab); Britney Spears(all kinds of mental and drug problems; and Jaime Spears, Britney's sister, now pregnant at 16. Former Disney pre-teen idols all.

Let us hope her parents step in before it is too late to put some limits on and provide some direction for their daughter.