Posts Tagged ‘Teen Mom’

December 22nd, 2010

16 and Pregnant Season Finale

While taking my blogging break I hit 20 weeks on Sunday (Will post an update this weekend hopefully) but I wanted to take a couple moments to touch on the season finale of 16 and Pregnant last night. It featured a 17 year old girl who got pregnant having sex one time with her then boyfriend. They were not together long, and frankly he seemed like a giant loser through the episode. But we know how reality television plays that out.

Anyways, Ashley, the mother in the episode, or pregnant teen, whatever you would like to call her at this point of the game decided on adoption for her baby. She knew that she could not properly take care of her, or provide for her, so she made the responsible choice to seek an adoption agency and look for an adoptive family for her daughter. During this process her aunt and uncle stepped in and said they would like to adopt the baby, of course only if it was ok with Ashley.

Now this is where I found things to start getting dicey. Before the family adoption came up, Ashley discussed how she felt closest with this one particular aunt. Always has been very close to her, and felt like she could really discuss anything with her. The more I watched in the episode, the more I personally felt that she was being pressured through her love for her aunt and uncle to please them with the adoption. Not choose the adoption for the right reasons.

My heart broke for this young girl as I watched.

The closer she got to her due date, the more apparent it became that adoption, or at least an adoption within her own family may not be the right choice. Her due date, which was Christmas day, was of course sped up to 12/16 with an unnecessary induction which started when she was not dilated at all. My blood began to boil at the irresponsibility of her provider at that point. Between that, and the purple pushing they instructed her to do, with the oxygen… Almost sent me over the edge, but again not the point of my post today.

In the days after the baby was born, she struggled with the decision of adoption. To the point of keeping the baby for over a month. Her family members that were supposed to be adopting the baby were in so many words calmly freaking the F out. She didn’t want to give her daughter up, but like most teen mother, she didn’t want the full responsibility of the baby.

Now before the teen moms start chiming in and jumping on me, I am not against teen mothers, and I do not think they are all bad. My own mother was a teen parent, and she is a kick ass mom, but it is no secret that good teen mothers do not make up for the majority, and the statistic. Or those girls who have been featured on these three seasons of 16 and Pregnant.

With that being said, she wanted all the help, her mother money, and of course didn’t want the 24 hour a day job of being a mother. When everything got to the point that it all became too real for her, she decided it would be best for her daughter to of course, go live with her family member like originally arranged.

I think what bothered Ashley the most is that her aunt and uncle would be raising the baby as their daughter, not second niece or whatever they would be considered biologically. It is almost like she wanted to be mom, but only at certain times, which clearly isn’t how adoption works.

I do believe that the decision of adoption was best for this girl in her situation, but I fully believe the adoption should have have been through an agency, with social workers, councilors available, and all the typical steps an adoption would use. Unfortunately for Ashley, the whole experience may have caused some long term problems not only for her, but for her family that one day could be torn apart over the legality of the adoption. While it was done legally, it was written by the lawyers for her aunt and uncle.

I think this episode above many of the others, including the adoption story of Caitlynn and Tyler from Season one should be used as a prime example of what not to do. And how not to handle the difficult choice of adoption.

My thoughts are with Ashley, while her daughter is a year old already, I am sure the experience as a whole is going to be something that is with her for her whole life.

November 20th, 2010

Keep Your Hands to Yourself!

It all started with Amber and Gary on Teen Mom. The recent rash of violence in reality television, especially the younger generation. Sadly, Amber’s lack of control has not only landed her with charges of felony assault, but they have resulted in her toddler being removed from her care. Rightfully so, no child should be witnessing such horrible scenes. She may only be 2 years old, but violence of this nature us NEVER acceptable in front of children, no matter WHAT their age.

Then we saw “The Situation” smacking Snooki around on Jersey shore. That sparked a post I wrote a couple months ago called Violence Against Women is NEVER Acceptable. Which it isn’t. What kind of message are we sending to our children when you can turn on the highest rated reality television shows and we are seeing these young people literally assaulting each other.

First off the actions are against the law. While all of them have not been arrested for these crimes, the charges are starting to make their way into the public eye. Heck, when we were children in school one of the biggest rules was “Keep your hands to yourself”.  What has changed with the newest generation of fist waving maniacs?

Then Tuesday night I was watching the new season of 16 and pregnant. Not only was the show a complete train wreck with a boyfriend who looked like he had a serious identity crisis on his hands, but the young mother had a serious problem keeping her hands to herself. While I understand couples argue, and yell, heck we have all been there at one point in our lives… there is NEVER a reason to hit, punch, or pull on someone else.

Example :

This is the clip I am talking about.

But what bothers me most today is these are mothers, parents… the people who are responsible for raising the next generation… the children that our children are going to be in school with, interacting with, and befriending… and if these parents think it is just fine to throw punches in a parking lot while your new baby sits in the car alone… what kind of children are they going to raise?

What can we do to curb this rash of violence that is taking place in our youth?

February 19th, 2010

MTV’s 16 & Pregnant

I thought last season of 16 & Pregnant was chock full of irresponsible children having children, which confirmed my thought when they used some of those same girls for their most recent series Teen Mom. Until this past Tuesday when they debuted the new season of 16 & Pregnant.
The advertisement of the show says “10 more girls” and I thought to myself, here we go again.

But of course MTV is going to continue to cash in on this Maury Povich type series because they are making a butt load of money off of it. Tuesday’s episode of 16 & Pregnant was #1 on cable, and #2 on TV only behind American Idol. It featured a 16 year old, rather immature girl, and her alcoholic, missing in action, loser of a boyfriend who in the end, saw the baby one time and that was it.
My heart broke for this girl’s mother. I thought Farrah from Teen Mom was bad at ditching her kid to go hang out with boys or party, but this girl took the cake.  At one point she even compared being a mother to being in prison. Clearly a child that was not ready for motherhood.

But I have to wonder, with numbers, and ratings like this, what kind of message are we sending the 13-24 age group, which this show is most popular with? Now, I myself am only 24, soon to be 25, but I did not have my first child till I was 22, living on my own, and fully responsible and supported myself. And to be honest with you I would never have been able to raise a child, and live in my parents home for a wide array of reasons.

But are we showing a glorified message to these young girls of what pregnancy and parenthood is?  Granted most of these girls clearly are not living the high life, but in typical teen mentality, how many will say “Oh well that won’t happen to me” or “Johnny is the love of my life, he won’t leave” when in reality the number of girls on this show that actually had their boyfriends involved in the raising of their children statisitcally was way higher than in reality.

I just think MTV should focus on shows helping teens to prevent pregnancy to begin with, not exploiting them through crappy choices.
Another thing that struck me as strange is…. why hasn’t MTV featured any girls who made the choice of abortion?  It seems to be sending a very one sided message to teens, and young women watching this show.

I don’t know… I guess that is just my take on things.

I hate to see something like teen pregnancy glorified.