I really don't have a good reason for why I did so; it's not like the episode was new, or that I remembered something good that happened in it, or that I was doing it for an assignment. I think I just needed a reason to hate the world, and this episode provided that quite easily.
Teen Mom 2 is currently in the middle of showing its third season, and it's a little bit awkward because it's not in real time, so there are "spoilers" everywhere and very few things are surprises. The four girls are Leah, a girl from West Virginia who had twins and has since remarried and is pregnant again; Jenelle, a girl from North Carolina who has been off and on probation and is everyone's favorite disaster; Kailyn, a girl from Pennsylvania with zero family support and zero sympathy; and Chelsea, a girl from South Dakota who spent the first two seasons studying for her GED and refusing to emotionally separate from her daughter's father. At least, this is what the show wishes you to see.
Each of these girls has gotten royally screwed by her family, the father, and/or society, and while they've all made mistakes, so has everyone else in the goddamn world and we focus on whether or not a 19-year-old girl is being a "good mom" because she gets her nails done frequently. Leah got engaged to her current husband after about two months of dating, and while I seriously hope that it works out for them, some way that she was raised (many blame the small-town culture she grew up in) told her that having a "family" on paper was important enough to move very, very quickly (read: engaged after two months). Jenelle got diagnosed with bipolar disorder in season 2, and the shittiness of our mental health system makes it more important for her probation officer to check if she's smoking pot than for her to stay on her meds or get effective therapy. Kailyn's parents essentially abandoned her, and she shows significant evidence of narcissistic personality disorder and there's no way she'll receive treatment for it. And Chelsea, who is the hardest one for me to watch, has been addicted to the affection of her daughter's abusive father for roughly three years.
I rewatched Chelsea's episode.
Her daughter's father, Adam, is a nightmare. Chelsea's dad can't stand the kid, and does his best to tell him to shape up. Chelsea's mother (her parents are divorced) generally seems to be very "I'm not a regular mom, I'm a cool mom, right, Regina?" and therefore does not advise Chelsea to get this kid out of her life.
The kid bounces in and out of her life and she spends an excessive amount of time asking if he's mad at her. Her friends, to their credit, tell her that Adam doesn't need to be involved in her life, despite the baby, especially since she spends so much time walking on eggshells avoiding his anger. She tells them that she worries that she makes him mad, and that's why he's mad all the time. One example of this is her daring to catch a ride from someone else to a party when he's late. You get to feel the constant anxiety Chelsea experienced while attempting to obey rules that she's not even aware of until she breaks them. Classic emotional abuse, but no one in the show calls it that because it's not like he HITS her, or anything.
He's there for the birth, which is early, and the baby (Aubree) spends over a week in the hospital before she's ready to come home. He manages to get his last name on her birth certificate. Chelsea gets mad at him when he doesn't want to spend the baby's first night out of the hospital at home with her, and he calls her "stupid." The show skips over weeks, but Chelsea begins to show signs of depression (doesn't leave the house, doesn't call her friends, stops getting dressed up for any reason), and she tells the audience in a voice-over that Adam hasn't come to see his daughter in weeks. At this point in my rewatch I wasn't sure whether I was going to cry or skull-implode from anger, but the next ten minutes decided it for me.
Chelsea's friends manage to get her out of her house for high school homecoming (she hasn't been in school since she gave birth) and she returns several hours later to a text from Adam saying "heard u wnt out...way 2b a good mom." Skull-implosion begins.
Chelsea calls him and asks something along the lines of "do you say things like that just to make me feel terrible?" He asks "why the hell are you calling me?" She hangs up. I can't see straight I'm so angry at this point.
She texts him something about assuming he never wants to see her or his daughter again. He replies with a run-on text sentence that includes the gems "you fat stretch mark bitch" and "tell me when and where to sign over the papers for that mistake." She bursts into tears and I contemplate if I have enough matches to burn down the whole world.
The episode ends with her saying that the text was the last straw because her baby girl hadn't done anything wrong, and he called her a "mistake." She finds a lawyer to drop Adam's last name from her daughter's birth certificate and legal name. They are positive steps, but Adam has come back every season so far, and Chelsea doesn't finish high school.
It blows my mind that this kid is allowed to be like, walking around with no punishment. I don't even know what laws you'd have to put in place (other than like "don't be a douche to the mother of your kid"), but the fact that he's had actually zero repercussions from his atrocious behavior makes me have thoughts like "the world is awful and we're all doomed." How do you even begin to explain to someone that the emotional manipulation he's been practicing for years is awful, but technically there's nothing on the books you can do to punish him? Without him skipping away gleefully, that is.
I need to stop watching awful shows. I am a Song of Ice and Fire fan and even though like everyone dies on that show I cry less than in one episode of freaking Teen Mom 2. Don't let me do this anymore.
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