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Was it or wasn't it?

All through last week, the Internets -- the mommy bloggers, the celeb stalkers, the generally righteously indignant -- were studiously debating whether Miley Cyrus' performance at the Teen Choice Awards could be described as a pole dance.

A brief recap: Midway through the actress-singer's choreographed routine on Monday night, two stagehands lugged out an ice cream cart with a pole on the top. Miley, 16, jumped on and grabbed the pole, squatted to her haunches, stood up, was wheeled across the stage while holding the pole, jumped off. Some say the pole was there for balance, some say the pole was there to corrupt your children.

The whole thing took maybe 30 seconds, so the hubbub surrounding it (if Miley was pole-dancing, are all the pole-holding subway commuters doing it, too?) leads one to conclude something: it's not about the pole.

It's about how awkward it can be for teen and tween stars, especially the freshly scrubbed ones, to transition to adulthood.

The cycle has played itself out again and again: There was Britney Spears going from schoolgirl pigtails to flesh-toned bodysuit at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, an act that made co-host Marlon Wayans exclaim "Girl done went from 'The Mickey Mouse Club' to the strip club!" There was Christina Aguilera, instructing listeners to "rub me the right way," just a few years after hanging up her own mouse ears. There was Vanessa Hudgens in lingerie, causing parents everywhere to have awkward teachable moments with their pint-size "High School Musical" fans. And there was Miley's first shocker: last year's Vanity Fair spread in which the star of wholesome "Hannah Montana" wore nothing but a bedsheet.

For every child star who has forged a smooth path to adulthood -- Jodie Foster, Brooke Shields -- there's another who has taken the Lindsay Lohan path, which leads Directly to Video.

Miley's booty-shorted performance on Monday might have had some parents cringing, but it also might have been a survival tactic. "Seventeen magazine isn't read by 17-year-olds, it's read by 11-year-olds who want to be 17," says Joal Ryan, author of "Former Child Stars: The Story of America's Least Wanted," who adds, "And 17-year-olds want to be 25."

Perhaps the smartest stars have eschewed the issue altogether by stepping away from the spotlight to finish growing up privately. Foster took a break from acting to go to Yale; Shields went to Princeton. "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson, 19, seems to be trying this tactic -- just as the leering boys began to beg for topless pics, she announced she's headed to Brown University this fall.

As for Miley, she's committed to a fourth season of "Hannah Montana" and is in the middle of filming "The Last Song" with co-star Greg Kinnear.

It looks like a wholesome family affair.