The Teen Mom shows are still going (sort of) strong, more than 10 years after they first premiered. While some viewers enjoy following the lives of the girls they originally met as pregnant teenagers, others feel that the girls— now in their late 20s and early 30s— are too old to be on shows called ‘Teen Mom.’
During the most-recent episode of her Coffee Convos podcast, Teen Mom 2 star Kail Lowry discussed this topic at length. Kail told her co-host Lindsie Chrisley that she often sees viewers expressing on social media that her show’s title makes no sense, since none of its stars are actually teens anymore.
Kail stated that, while she is sometimes “annoyed” being on a show called ‘Teen Mom’ when she’s a woman in her late 20s, she feels the show’s title is still relevant.
“There was a comment yesterday on somebody’s Instagram and it was like, ‘These girls are almost 30, get them off TV’ or whatever,” Kail said. “I actually commented back and said, ‘Teen motherhood doesn’t just stop when you turn 20. There’s an aftermath. There’s so much more of a story that goes on after you become a teen parent…”
Kail and the other girls on Teen Mom OG and ‘Teen Mom 2’ (with the exception of Cheyenne Floyd) became mothers for the first time when they were in their teens. She stated that being teen mom has influenced their lives as adult mothers as well.
“It doesn’t define you, but there’s so much more that goes into it after that fact,” Kail said. “Things are harder later on. The statistics are against you still. Even beyond those teen years, there’s so much more.…there’s so much more to be said; there’s still so much story to be told.”
“…the aftermath and the decisions we make now, they all stem from having been teen parents,” Kail continued. “A lot of things we go through now—- no, it doesn’t define us—- but they’re decisions that we still have to make because we were teen parents. I think in that way the title of the show still makes sense. I hope that other people see it.”
Kail gave birth to her youngest son, Creed, last July. She is also the mother of almost-11-year-old Isaac (whom she gave birth to on “16 and Pregnant” in 2010); seven-year-old Lincoln, and three-year-old Lux. Having such a large gap between the ages of the oldest and youngest children is something a lot of teen parents have to deal with, Kail said.
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“If I was older [when I started having kids] and I was able to have my kids closer together I probably would have,” she said. “Because, now, there’s a huge gap between [the ages of] Isaac and Creed.”
“By the time you get done parenting, you would have basically parented for your whole life, because you started so young,” Lindsie said.
Kail’s co-star, Chelsea Houska, recently left ‘Teen Mom 2,’ and Kail talked about the prospect of leaving the show as well.
“In some ways I do wish to carry on with the show and in some ways I’m like, ‘OK maybe it would be OK to do something else.’ I’m rolling with the punches,” she said. “I told one of my childrens’ father the other day, ‘I’m gonna ride the wave until they tell me they’re not going to do the show anymore.’ Mainly because there’s still so much story to be told and I want to be able to show people that you can come out on top even if you are a teen parent or a young parent.”
Listen to the full Coffee Convos podcast episode below!
(Photos: MTV; Instagram)
44 Responses
I just was able to watch the reunion special…..I have always said that Kail reminds me of the cowardly lion from the Wizard Of Oz. Am I the only one that sees this??? She had a bit of makeup on her nose, that even made me think she really does look like the cowardly lion.
I am glad Chelsea is leaving this bunch of losers.
You know I know that Kail can be awful off-putting and kinda bitchy even at times, but you have to give it her–this girl totally thrived after becoming a teen mom. We’ve seen others on the show do it as well, but almost always with the help of family. Kail has only ever had help from Jo’s parents and only for a small bit of time yet shes managed to get more than one college degree, a successful book, her own hair care line and a podcast. She got herself through school while raising multiple kids for the most part by herself (except for the weekends and stuff that the dads had them). This girl really put it all into it and she succeeded. I’d be proud to call her mom, the only shit people can talk is of her multiple baby daddys but that was her choices/mistakes and she handled it.
That may be the case but if it wasn’t for Teen Mom those things would not have happened. People listen to her podcast because she is on TV, she was able to get the hair care line because of her money from Teen Mom and the podcast, people were interested in a book written by her because of Teen Mom, she was able to go to school and support her children because of Teen Mom money, she didn’t have to work. The average teen mom has a hard time doing these things because they have to work hard to support their children and can’t always go to school because of lack of childcare, money for childcare, or needing to work. Her success has a lot to do with the having the money from Teen Mom. This show is not an example of what struggles the average Teen Mom goes through. Actually, it is not even a good example of what your average mother goes through. Some of them don’t even work at all. That is not realistic.
I need to say this. I tolerate Kailyn more than Leah. I cannot stand that possum-faced girl or her youngest kid. Something about them just grinds my damn gears.
I just can’t- I literally laughed out loud at this one- “I told one of my childrens’ father the other day (in itself, this comment is comical, yikes), ‘I’m gonna ride the wave until they tell me they’re not going to do the show anymore.’ Uhhhh yeah ya are. We all knew that! Ride the wave of a paycheck just to allow someone to document your life as if anyone cares. Sorry, I REALLY dislike Kail. Always have.
Wait, wasn’t the point of the show to show viewers how hard it is to be a Teen Parent? To try to discourage young women from having babies in high school?
The show has kinda jumped the shark from those purposes. That said, I still watch. I feel (sadly) invested in these women’s lives, since I’ve watched them for the past 10 years. I’m enjoying watching the early seasons on Netflix. Those seasons REALLY do show the struggle of being a teen parent.
Watching those early seasons, I honestly feel badly for Kail. Of all the girls, she was probably dealt the most difficult hand in life. Sure, she made bad decisions that made her path even more difficult (she really did break Janet’s heart by doing the whole Rivera family dirty) but she has fought very hard to have her current lifestyle. Plus, her kids are kinda the only ones on the show (aside from Chelsea) that are well-behaved and well-adjusted kids. She must be doing something right as a mom to have such good boys.
All of this is a long way of saying—can’t we cut Kail some slack?! She’s trying to be a good mom, and since she didn’t really grow up with a good example, I think she’s doing a really solid job parenting.
She’s annoyed until that paycheck comes in.
You are right to ride the wave until they decide to cancel the show. I too was a teenage mom at 17. I had 3 children by the time I was 22 with 1 living son. I have loved watching everyone’s journey and seeing each one of you grow into such wonderful women. I am a grandma now and will be 60 soon. You and the other mom’s are such an inspiration don’t ever let haters take away what you have accomplished. I was so happy that Janell stopped being on the show. She was and still an embarrassment to women. Thank you all for being on the show and sharing your stories with us.
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She’s so disgusting.
Oh shut up, Kaitlyn. You haven’t experienced the struggles of being a Teen Mom since you were probably 21. You are not a statistic, you are the outlier. As a teen mother, you lucked out to have your “story” filmed and were paid millions of dollars for it. Your story has no relevancy towards teen mothers, save for the fact that you have 4 children by 3 different fathers… we all know that you won’t leave the show until it ends! You couldn’t support your lifestyle without it!
I get that these girls are no longer teens, but in the real world, being a teen mom WOULD impact the rest of their lives (under most circumstances – there are always a few exceptions). Being a young parent affects their education, their maturation, their finances, and their future choices. This show has done nothing but ensure that we don’t see “real” teen moms, but rather women who had children as teens and then became millionaires because of that.
My best friend was a mom at 15, married her daughter’s father at 18, had her second child at 20, and was divorced by the time we were 24. She had a wonderfully supportive extended family on both sides, in that they helped her while she was in school and working, but they were also not enablers. Her mom told her, “I will watch the baby while you go to school and when you have to work, but if you want to go hang out with your friends, you either find a babysitter or the baby goes with you.” (Her parents also were not able to help her much financially.)
I have watched her struggle to support her family for years. I watched her all but kill herself trying to keep her marriage together under very trying circumstances, but she did it to try to make sure her kids had both parents present every day. I saw her apply for government assistance because she couldn’t feed her kids when her ex wouldn’t keep a job after they split, just so he wouldn’t have to pay child support, and he also refused to keep the kids so she could go to work. I saw her give up a job she loved, that paid an excellent wage and had great benefits, a job she was so good at, because she couldn’t work swing shifts without babysitting help; by that time, her parents were too sick to provide assistance, and her ex and his family had cut her off, trying to break her and make her run back to him. I watched her have a car repossessed, her house foreclosed on, and move into government housing. I saw her struggle to make sure that the impact of her teen motherhood and the personal choices that she had made as a result, didn’t mean her kids would follow her path. I watched her jump into other relationships quickly, attempting to provide her kids with a father figure and stability, only to see those fall apart, too, and the kids again were effected. Through it all, she just kept moving forward, because she had to. She didn’t break down, she didn’t wallow in her mistakes, she didn’t blame others – she kept going because she had no other choice. Her kids were always fed, always well groomed, and very well loved, no matter what she was dealing with. (And she was also very careful not to bring more children into the world, when she was struggling to take care of the two that she had already.)
My friend made bad choices along the way, no doubt, but we’re 41 now, and her kids are turning 24 and 21 this year. Her son just graduated from trade school at the semester and started a great new job the next week; he is going to be a huge success, I have no doubt. He has her drive and determination. After a lot of emotional ups and downs in her teen years, her daughter is in a very loving, long term relationship; both she and her boyfriend have stable, well-paying jobs and own a home together. My friend has just started to really get own life on solid ground in the last 5 years, but she says these kids are her greatest success. She’s just now getting a home loan for herself again (nearly 15 years after losing her first house), she’s got her credit rating back to a good level, she’s paid all her debts without having to file bankruptcy, and she’s learned a lot. She was always honest with her kids about her struggles, and about how she wouldn’t trade them for anything, but she also didn’t want them to repeat her mistakes. SHE is a real teen mom success story, SHE is reality. Not the ones on TV making upwards of six figures a year and struggling to plan their next vacation ?.
I’ve long since given up watching the entitled women of TM. I’d gladly watch a documentary about your friend or someone like her. Your friend landed on her feet after a lot of struggle and hopefully the next chapter of her life will be happy and less stressful. OTOH, some of the TM women will hit rock bottom in the coming years.
A documentary profiling your friend’s life or someone like her should be mandatory viewing for all teens. The sister of my best friend from high school was a teen mom. Seeing what my friend’s sister went through scared me straight as a teen. I saw up close and in-person that being a teen mom was a constant struggle and I had zero desire to go through that.
45 years ago I was a teen mom at the age of 17. My child’s father dropped me like a hot potato. I got a REAL job and despite much social shame was able to raise him. These shows like teen mom are not representative of real life. The complaining these girls do on TV is offensive and utterly disgusting.
This show just serves to teach teens that they will become nothing more than couch dwelling humans that raise their kids from the sofa, if they’re being supervised at all. They too can be baby making divorcees but just don’t expect the MTV paycheck. You’re gonna have it a lot harder. You’ll probably have a used sofa ? Maybe they should have followed the moms who despite having a baby as a teen was able to persevere and get an education, make something of themselves (other than just couch dwellers) and did it all without MTV paychecks.
You do realize that Kail has more than one college degree, so she definitely wasnt just “sitting on the couch waiting to cash mtv checks.” Yall are all so funny, of course she/they have complaints–its HUMAN and we all bitch and moan sometimes. And any of us would gladly welcome the 6 figure checks from mtv if offered to do a show, most people would. I get u can have your own opinion, but it’s just funny when those opinions are nothing but negative statements that barely make sense. Some of these girls got up, got educated, and used their fame and name to create businesses and books and so on, they’re good. It’s always nice to try and remember that these girls were also just normal, every day, random children who got pregnant and got lucky.
How has Kail changed from being a teen mom? She hasn’t. She’s still immature. She’s still having babies. She still lies. She still chases after Javi. She still doesn’t see her parents. The only difference she has money.
I know a ton of Kail fans will fight me, but Kail will not have much of an income once teen mom 2 is cancelled or she is kicked out, her podcasts are very based on the show and her hair care line is barely surviving. She has a degree in a major that is very competitive, and it will be very difficult to get a job in that field with no recent work. She is going to be one of those washed up reality stars that are going to end up working at her local Walmart.
Pretty sure you’re in a safe space with no to few Kail fans in the comments section ?
Wait, Kail has fans?!?!?!?!?
It USED to be interesting to watch these girls navigate their teen lives. But that stopped after season one and viewers started to realize how much they were getting paid. Almost all of them stopped working and just started popping out more kids because MTV was paying for them to live that way.
A TYPICAL former teen mom, now a grown single woman of 4 kids with 3 different baby daddies would NOT be buying a huge home in an upscale neighborhood after having not worked for years. Just doesn’t happen and isn’t REALITY. Any mom that followed in Kail’s footsteps without the luxury of Teen Mom would most likely find herself in a trailer, working two or three jobs, walmart, taco bell, etc. trying to keep things together financially.
Good for Kail in regards to milking it for all its worth, but her story is no longer interesting. It’s her having another kid by that loser, and the other kids getting pushed aside. It’s her flying around on exotic vacations the kids don’t really want to go on. And a few shots of her doing her podcast, then fighting with her baby daddies because she didn’t get her way.
In other words, BORING!
But filming a show from the sofa is hard work. ???
None of you are relivent.
Yeah, Kail, but your life now doesn’t reflect the aftermath of teen motherhood. It reflects the aftermath of reality TV stardom.
This ?!
It isn’t Teen Mom, it’s Reality TV Moms! If they really wanted to show how parenthood truly affects teens later in life, they need to get teen moms who didn’t have the luxury of MTV money while raising their kids.
I would watch that! Make a switch and find women of similar ages, similar background stories (getting pregnant as a teen) but they don’t have the luxury these entitled ones have! I would totally listen to a girl aged 27 with two kids now (one born in her teens) who struggled a lot because she had her first one at the age of 16!
Agreed. All they would have to do is look up girls from the original “16 and Pregnant” show that didn’t get a “Teen Mom” contract.
The show has been on so long that it can accurately be called teen mom now because these 30 yr old women are the mothers of teens and preeteens. After the epidode of teaching the kid to shave her legs i realized that the “teens” on the show are actually the children these women gave birth to over a decade ago and the teens have actually become the stars of the shows.
Sorry, REAL teen mothers don’t get huge pay checks and live the kind of life the live, They usually struggle to make ends meet and unless they have family support, end up depending on government programs.
I’d love to see the show make these delusional so called “teen moms” live the way others live for a week as a condition to continue on the show. I’m pretty sure they’d drop out faster than Macy did on Naked and Afraid
As the daughter of a non realty TV teen mom, so much this. My teen parents worked two to three jobs each to support the kids and go to school. They weren’t, by their own admission, anywhere close to financially secure until they were in their thirties and my older brother was in high school. Kail struggled maybe a year or two and then MTV took over supporting her. She doesn’t really know the struggle she claims she overcame. Glad my mom didn’t live to see this show. She’d be infuriated. My dad blocks MTV because he doesn’t want his grandkids seeing Teen Mom and Jersey Shore and thinking it’s in any way okay to live like that.
Kail was raised in poverty with a single mom alcoholic. I wouldn’t expect her to quit the show.
You also just… don’t have to have 4 children? I don’t get the concern between their ages. If you’re so worried about an age gap you could just use birth control or something and you know, not continue to pop out children.
Also LOL to the rest of her rationale. No other teen parent makes millions of dollars so… show is unrelatable and completely ridiculous now.
The cold hard truth is that MTV is still willing to pay these dingbats to be on this show. Unless they can find a way to make that kind of money doing something else, they’d be foolish to stop. Most of these women have lots of kids, and extended families to support. They could be more careful on social media and have more privacy if they wanted to. They just don’t want to.
Kail: I want a private life I’ll probably quit next
Kail: I’ll quit the show after they cancel it
In real life- yes- watching a teen mom navigate life with kids in her 20s may be interesting. Is it interesting to watch wealthy, messy women sit on a couch and talk about baby daddies? No.
Unfortunately, all of these women were so young when they started that they literally have no sense of reality.
Sorry, Kail. I know you love those paychecks (I would, too) but this “story” has run its course.
What the heck will most of them do if the show ends. They’ve all worked for maybe a year or two tops in the real world…
Kailyns comment about telling her story is hilarious because shes the one who hides mist of her life, refuses to speak about things in camera and stps filming when she cant control the narrative.