Teen Mom

I’ll admit it…One of my favorite past times is watching junk tv. Some of my favorites are: Keeping up with the Kardashians, Kendra, The Real World, and more recently,Teen Mom. This kind of stuff provides a welcome distraction from my real life and zone out. Usually there isn’t anything on these shows I’d consider really “blog post worthy”, but Teen Mom, really deserves a write up here on TQOD.

Teen Mom (which airs on MTV) is a spin-off of Sixteen and Pregnant. The first season featured a different pregnant mom every week and followed from the last few weeks of pregnancy to the first couple months after birth. The show was pretty interesting to me because the majority of the girls kept their babies. Usually the girl decides to give her baby up for adoption ala Juno. And I hate that because it’s so unrealistic that Juno would really be so flip about it all and move on two weeks later.

One particular episode of Sixteen and Pregnant was difficult for me to watch. It followed Caitlyn and her boyfriend Tyler as they decided on adoption for their baby girl Carly. Their parents were not happy with them. They believed Tyler and Caitlyn should have kept baby Carly and parented her. Out of all of the parents from that first season, Tyler and Caitlyn are the two I believe could have been the best parents. They really seemed to love each other, and while their living situations and family life could have been more ideal, the “better life” offered to Carly by adoptive parents is little in comparison to the love they both have for their daughter.

It was sad to me. The adoption agency and adoptive parents promised them an “open” adoption. The adoption didn’t seem open to me at all. They restricted the “openness” to a few letters and photos. Caitlyn and Tyler did not even know their daughter’s new last name or address. They were not able to see her. Not able to visit. Not able to send gifts. How open is an adoption like that? I’d say barely if at all.

I did appreciate the fact that MTV has documented how difficult it was for them. Both have dealt with immense grief surrounding the relinquishment, although the way they rationalize the decision is to tell themselves the same “better life” crap. This season I’ve noticed they are starting to realize that they could have kept their daughter and tried to make a life for her themselves. Sometimes I wish I could reach through the screen and shake them. Tell them what it’s like to be the other party, the one who had no choice. Every time I see the episode where they cry and say goodbye to little Carly, a little part of me hurts for her and for myself. It’s kind of like watching a car accident. You can’t tear yourself away, but it makes you sick to watch.

One of the things that bothers me most about the whole thing is when I see people say they think what Tyler and Caitlyn did was “brave”. Or “selfless”. To me it was really the easy way out. The other moms on the show took the harder road. They’re struggling to balance school, work, friends, and raising a child at a young age. They’re dealing with baby daddy drama, sacrificing their education, money woes, etc. To me they’ve taken the more difficult road.

I think I will continue to watch the show. I hope Caitlyn and Tyler ’s daughter will find her way back to them one day. In the mean time, I hope other people will watch and learn from their heartbreak that giving up a baby is not easy or Juno glamorous.