A Bad Reality

   This weekend was a strange one for us.  My two older boys as I said were at a friends and Elijah was invited to Grandma and Papa's for an overnight.  That left me with only two little girls who headed to bed decently early and a tired hubby who crashed by 9 after a whole week of 12 hour days and two more to go.  He asked if I was coming up soon and I hollered that I would only be a few minutes but my few minutes turned into several hours!

   What did I do?  I'm almost to embarrassed to say!  I stayed up watching On Demand episodes of MTV's Teen Mom 2.  When it was the original Teen Mom I stumbled acrossed it one day and thought it was nice to see them showing some of the realities of being a teen mom and then as the next season began I wondered how their lives were turning out.

       When I was a young child my mom volunteered at a home for teen moms whose families had kicked them out of their home and they had no place to go.  My mom taught child birth classes and attended most of their deliveries.  She would often bring the girls home to meet us and spend the day.  There's a lot I can say for the good and bad that came out of that situation but one good was a heavy dose of the ugly reality of unwed, unplanned pregnancy.  Watching the original of the show reminded me of those girls.  Watching the new season is really just curiosity.

   I spend a large amount of the time talking to the screen (hence the reason I watch it alone! Ha!).  For example the one girl comments that she always wanted a family and she tried to have that with a baby and her boyfriend (who is a real piece of work) but she guesses she should have gotten married to the right guy first and then tried for a family... ya think??  Another one who is constantly fighting with her mother (who has temporary custody of her son) was trying to get her life on track going to school and working and spending time with her son.  Unfortunately she also chooses to stay with her new boyfriend who has no job and spends his time crashing at other peoples homes and smoking pot.  In the last episode I wished I could jump through the screen and shake the girl.  She was doing so well and making something happen and then she chooses last minute to take a road trip with her boyfriend and pay for it by stealing her mom's credit cards!

   Honestly I don't know if this is a very rare small percentage of the teens out in our world today or if it reflects the majority.  Either way it's a little scary.  I read later that their is concern of girls trying to get pregnant so they can get the attention these girls have.  ???? What??  I'm not sure how the show pays these girls because they are all struggling for money and to make ends meet (well, all but one whose parents take care of everything).  I hope that maybe it's in a college fund for their kids or something.

   Anyways, there's my late night confession.  I confess it has no redeeming quality other than pointing out the things I want to teach my children NOT to do!  My second confession is I'm officially old!  I don't look at these girls as cool and hip, I look at them like a mom and want to scoop them up in my arms and show them love, show them Christ's forgiveness, show them new beginnings.  I'd also like to knock them upside the head and ask them what on earth they were thinking!!

So yes, my name is Tami and I did waste several hours watching really bad reality TV!

(This is where you all say, "Hi Tami" and make me not feel so all alone!)