Since I was brought up by a teen mom, of course MTV’s hit show Teen Mom was something of interest to me – and, apparently, the rest of the country. Teen Mom, which was 16 and Pregnant’s spinoff was met with warm regards back in 2009 and has yet to lose steam. The show follows the lives of girls who appeared on 16 and Pregnant and covers all the highs and lows of motherhood. I loved it at first, but then it got to be less about the parenting aspects and more about the girls themselves. From their tabloid covers about jail stints to scandals of who’s dating who, it has turned into just another reality show cliché. It’s time for MTV to pull the plug so that these teens can actually be more like mothers and less like starlets.
Teen Mom has more drama than an episode of Gossip Girl and far higher ratings. Between Farrah Abraham’s overdramatic tears, Maci Bookout’s love triangle between baby daddy Ryan and a dude who looks like Cher’s son in The Mask, and Amber Portwood and Jenelle Evans’ violence and arrests, the show has no room for the kids. Maybe that’s why Catelynn Lowell doesn’t have her kid on the show.
Wait, they are still paying Catelynn to appear on Teen Mom and she’s not even taking care of a kid? That’s yet another reason that MTV needs to pull the plug on Teen Mom and put its efforts towards, I don’t know… music? According to media reports, Amber was raking in $140,000 per six-month contract. Other reports from a family friend of Amber’s said each girl makes $60-$65,000 per season. So no matter who’s right here, these girls are costing the network a ton, even though the show does well in the ratings. But can they really bank on this? I know I personally don’t want to buy a Gary doll wearing an ill-fitting Aeropostale tee.
Speaking of our T-shirt-wearing baby daddy, viewers can tell you about Amber and Gary’s violent disputes, but can anyone recall their little daughter Leah? She gets lost in the mix of things, just like every other toddler on the show. Tabloids are flooded with images of the Moms’ mishaps and relationships statuses like they’re their personal Facebooks. The only time the kids are mentioned is if one of them is up for adoption that week. The biggest issue sellers? Reports on a pair of jailbirds, Amber and Jenelle. Amber is in and out of jail because of her reckless behavior towards Gary but able to pay her bail due to her MTV stash. Surprisingly, Jenelle wasn’t in court recently for the violence on the show, but for unpaid rent. Excuse me, how does one not pay rent when one is paid by a network? The fee she was unable to pay was $927.50. It makes one wonder if all these financial struggles on the show have to be faked. We might be watching reality TV, but we aren’t that stupid. Who else has noticed that Maci went from a cheap flip phone on her 16 and Pregnant episode to a nice Blackberry when Teen Mom started? Money woes, I think not.
Dear MTV, remember when your channel was about cradling people with talent? Now you’re just keen on infecting the youth with ideas that partying in Jersey and getting pregnant by sophomore year is the norm. If you don’t cancel the show for the sake of the viewers, then do it for the kids on that show. The Moms have made enough to hold them over and it’s time to cut the cord so they can focus on more important things in their lives: those little guys and gals who got them the show in the first place.
