ReadMeLattice

Seriously so grossly irresponsible.

Plenty of stories of a 20 year old kid going to a house party and having consensual sex with a 15 year old also at the party without knowing and the parents crying rape. Good judgment? Hell no. Sex offender? Pedophile? Also no. However, this guy is a fucking disgusting creeper.

No one said this. The other poster was referring to the fact that there is an idea that in the minds of many people in the U.S., disability is akin to or worse than death, though they would certainly not say this explicitly. Statements that imply that anything else they might do is not as important as if they, say, became able-bodied, or that risking their health (like they did in pushing Ali to keep walking) or wasting their life with endless appointments/therapy is OK as long as it MIGHT lead to some smaller tiny baby step towards able-bodiedness (for example, people throw away their entire life savings and quit their jobs to go to places like Project Walk and are lauded as heroes--just because they can now sort of walk--while people with disabilities who work and have extensive careers/lives are not as impressive because, after all, they still can't walk), also imply that a life with a disability is not worth living or is not a real life/is indeed 'worse than death' or is death itself. The idea that a wheelchair is akin to weakness, a downward spiral, or a 'sign' of some sort of imminent death, for example, is a sign of this exact damaging stereotype/concept. Not the same as saying someone 'would be better off dead,' that would be crazy reductive. I also think part of the issue is that none of these people are bright. It's not like they can think about things in any sort of nuanced way. And yeah, sleep training=fine, Jenelle's 'sleep training' is as terrifying and abusive as everything else she does.

He told them this long ago in a much earlier episode and Corey chose not to believe it. He informed them that she needed to be using a wheelchair to preserve her strength (they didn't learn it at the last appointment) and he purposely delayed it. He told them long ago not to let her walk so much. Yes, they were young and immature, but they were equipped with the info long ago. Leah is irresponsible in not getting the wheelchair fixed quickly, but Corey did (for a time) choose to deliberately ignore it and push her to walk/not get the wheelchair. Of course he didn't understand it, but he could have looked it up once he got a diagnosis. He can use Twitter but he can't Google or read? I understand the pain of looking that up and following doctor's orders, but at some point you do have to do it for your daughter. And yes, if you are insisting not that your daughter will be alive but that it's 'just her little way' instead of muscular dystrophy, that 'nothing is wrong with her,' and that she WILL walk and be 'normal,' and purposely delaying the wheelchair, you are most certainly insinuating that with a wheelchair she will not be living a full life. He made countless comments like this over quite a long period of time. At some point it does become selfish instead of sympathetic. I have sympathy for that, but only so much when the doctor is telling you the opposite and LEAH has to be the voice of reason. Like I've said, yes, he was ignorant and thus didn't understand/made ableist comments/was in denial. But ignorance doesn't 100% excuse you. It seems that now he's mostly moved beyond that. I assume Miranda has had a major hand in that, though I'd never personally stay with someone who cheated on me with Perpetually-Lateface.

Yes, it's different based on whomever is in charge of you. It's not a hard and fast rule.

You're right; the article I read initially (or maybe only part of it showed up on my phone) only mentioned indecent exposure, which could be as stupid (and sometimes does land people on the registry) as getting drunk and peeing in public. Statutory is often ridiculous as well. (I'm also the victim of rape BTW, I just think our method of lumping in, say, an 18- 19 year old dating and having sex with a 16 year old with a child molester is rather unproductive). With that second charge, yeah, definitely a threat to minors. 100%.

Maybe he's like Kieffer and only has the one outfit.

He did delay the use of the wheelchair (the timeline is so impossible to follow but I remember it being months rather than weeks, but again could be wrong) and prevent her from using it around him for a time against the doctor's recommendation, IIRC, presumably because as @TwirlyGirly said, there is a stereotype that people in wheelchairs are "more disabled" when actually people in wheelchairs have greater mobility and independence than many others. I understand his grief, but it was definitely selfish to keep her out of a chair so that he didn't have to see her in it and be reminded of her disability. People are raised in racist environments, but we don't as a society tend to give them a pass for being hugely racist, so I'm not as apt to give him a pass for being hugely ableist (his denial of her disability is not at all different from Kailyn's denial of her son's heritage, just more dangerous), at least in the past. I agree that hopefully he has changed quite a bit over the years and with more exposure to different kinds of people. And while I do personally give him a huge pass because of the pain he was experiencing and his lack of education/general ignorant upbringing, those two things could be applied to much of the behavior we see on the show, yet we don't give it a pass because the person in question is less likable or is acting out in a way we might find less empathetic. I just hope the little comments, etc, don't continue when Ali is old enough to know, and that he doesn't insist she will be able to walk or "get better" instead of encouraging her to do things she finds fulfilling. He seems like a good guy at heart, so I do have hope for that, but I feel for her with those parents. Miranda seems great, though. I can 100% understand why people who aren't wheelchair users themselves or married to one/with them almost 100% of the time would feel this isn't that big of a deal, but it's not just offensive, it's a truly frightening mindset and would have been absolutely child abuse in my mind if he had kept at it or if he had refused to get the wheelchair (and as much as I hate what Leah has become, I do wonder what would have happened if she hadn't insisted). So it's not as much about demonizing Corey as it is about putting behaviors in perspective...feeding your kids Cheetos and junk food instead of real food is an unhealthy behavior, but so was what Corey did, if not more so. I hope that education and awareness grow so that attitudes can change too. And I hope he really has grown. In context, it was pretty clear that he very literally meant "walk," unfortunately. If he had just meant getting married, that would have been understandable.

My understanding is that it's different state by state and depending on the crime. This guy hasn't shown any predilection for desiring kids, so idk if it would apply to him.

Husband #3?!?! More like #5 or 6 by then.

It doesn't seem that he's a pedophile from his actual charges-- "sex offender" doesn't always (and usually doesn't) mean "pedophile/child molester"-- but the stories are definitely creepy/shady. I wouldn't want to be around him, let alone my kid, just because I assume he's a sleazeball based on what he did.

Well, yes. And he did try to get back with her and she said no. But on Girls, "decent" is soooooo relative, lol.

I think she tried because that IS her mom, but was ambivalent about it. Suzi would promise to be there for Kail and there for Isaac, then not show up or start using again. She watched the kids a couple times, everyone seemed happy, and then got drunk while watching Lincoln as an infant. I didn't ever see her being "manipulative" as much as repeatedly hurt in a predictable pattern. She seems to have cut off contact now, but it's hard when it's your own parent. You might hate them and their abuse but they are your parent. I assume you always hold out hope they'll be the unconditionally loving parent you longed for.

Exactly. And Hannah had actually had more dedicated male attention on the show than Marnie, for example, who had Charlie who dumped her twice and, well, Desi. Jessa had that one hell of a marriage and now Adam, while Hannah had the devotion of both Adam and Fran, two of the most decent guys on the show, both of whom were pretty willing to stick it out with her until she left them. I think people hate seeing that and they also, as others have said, don't accept that she should be "allowed" to act out in the kinds of selfish ways we see girls do on television constantly since she's not conventionally sexy.

I don't think it's fair to say that they did things "back and forth" when Kailyn was a minor with an alcoholic,neglectful mother who regularly abandoned her for boyfriends. Maybe now, but she's certainly never done anything to her nearly as bad as that. I'd be a total bitch to my mom if she told me to my face she loved me less than her latest live-in dick, too. If Kaiser is a jerk to Jenelle in the future, it will be 99% her fault, not 50%, and Suzi is basically Jenelle without the heroin history.

Holy crap!

I have heard stories about people who waited for one of the bridesmaids to be able to walk down the aisle before they would get married. I have to wonder what the huge deal is about walking except that wheelchairs make OTHER, able bodied, people uncomfortable. If your daughter was getting married the big deal would be getting married, not walking. Moreover, you have to understand that people get nuts about it--my husband has a PhD, is a professor, is married and has a child, and what people are really concerned with/excited about, much more, is that "maybe he will walk again one day!!!!!1!" As if that's way more important or even close to as important as those other accomplishments. It might seem normal, but for disabled people and their spouses and children, that gets extremely tiresome and offensive. So my response to that period of extreme denial was mostly hope that he wouldn't turn out to be one of "those" people and thus denigrate his daughter's actual life that she is living in a disabled body. I would hope that in general, people have much bigger dreams for their daughters than "walking down the aisle," but the point was that he seemed insistent on saying he "knew" she would, in denial. Not just "not wanting it," I never said anything about wanting it, but actively refusing her treatment, making her walk when the doctor advised against it, and acting as if if she had it her life would be worthless, and overall totally ignoring the very real disability right in front of him. I do wish that there was more widespread education about disabilities in general, and I don't think he's "bad" or anything, but he did display a lot of ignorance, some willful. I did also explicitly say that perhaps he's changed. I hope he has and think he shows signs of it. I don't agree on not bringing up stuff from the past because we all still snark on things these people did when they were 16. It's weird, but it's reality TV, I guess. Yes, Leah should really purchase a wheelchair accessible van with all that money she loves to spend. The doctor told them the wheelchair was necessary.

Yeah. They've been through a lot. Miranda is a beautiful, mature girl and she chose to be with a guy from TM who has two children, one of whom has muscular dystrophy, with a total bitch. Let her have a moment in the hospital with her husband or be the princess who just gave birth for a minute.

I just mean that they generally aren't as dramatic as she depicts. Of course, she's a TV writer. And that's my point-- yes, it's not about people with mental illnesses, but since she does depict them she has a responsibility to do so, well, responsibly. I also hope that people's general hatred of Lena doesn't extend to the mental illnesses she portrays. I do wish she would deal with the OCD again. It generally doesn't just magically go away.

I don't think she has portrayed any of them in a realistic way at all except, for a few episodes, OCD, but then she quickly dropped it and stopped mentioning it as soon as Hannah went on meds, which isn't realistic. She has no experience with other mental illnesses herself and especially Caroline she has made absolutely ridiculous. It's hard because I know she's supposed to be writing a funny show about immature people, but people can be immature jerks without having mental illnesses. I don't think she has done anything more for the "stigma" of mental illness with the character of Hannah than she has done for feminism (yikes). Another problem is that at the end of the day, it's TV. Most mental illnesses aren't very interesting to watch. Depression is mostly about internal pain and lots of listless, hopeless boredom. PPD is generally about suicidal thoughts that never get acted on, not running away. Bipolar disorder generally makes you have a manic period a few days a month and a lot of depressive episodes, not lie on the side of the road or whatever other insane things the characters have done. Alcoholic relapses don't generally result in you almost raping a girl like Adam did. They are more about guilt and your own physical health. So while of course she needs to keep it interesting, I hope that viewers without mental illnesses or spouses or family members with mental illnesses don't think that mentally ill people spend most of their time hurting others rather than just being in pain themselves.

A note that said she was suicidal, filled with guilt and shame, and wanted to hurt her baby. Why would that be her flaky lie?! Wouldn't she just say Laird was a bad partner or bought more agave or something? Also, to the "she wasn't strong enough" thing: So if a character was paralyzed, would we say they were not strong enough to walk? If a character had diabetes, would we say they weren't strong enough to create more insulin? PPD is a very particular situation. Other people with severe depression might have jobs, spouses, partners, friends, school, or kids to contend with, and that can be horrifically difficult. But a person with PPD has recent bodily trauma (birth/labor, hormones, possibly complications, exhaustion) as well as a newborn baby that requires breastfeeding, constant attention, and nurturing, and probably lots of isolation. So there's not really a way to just "seek help" (if it's very severe) without leaving the baby for at least some amount of time. If you can get over it while still caring for the baby full time and just some outpatient therapy, it likely wasn't all that severe.

We don't know that she isn't coming back or that she didn't check herself into a mental hospital. She likely wrote the note in a moment of crisis (and possibly in a suicidal or violent moment) and thus it isn't going to be all, "Oh, let me get some talk therapy and let's talk about it calmly." I actually think this one instance is the only time Lena handled mental illness well. Caroline's actions were truly unselfish. She obviously wanted to stay with both Laird and the baby, but that would have been the selfish choice. The problem, and part of the reason I assume so many of the mental illness/was this wrong or right/does Hannah have a mental illness or not reactions from media and viewers are veering into offensive territory, is that Lena has made her mentally ill characters (Caroline, Jessa with her addiction, Hannah) into cartoon characters. That's fine with satire, but mental illness already carries a huge stigma and people already have all sorts of inaccurate, stereotyped ideas about what mental illness "is." She perpetuates those ideas and even makes them worse. I truly hope Hannah doesn't have bipolar disorder because it'll just make people with bipolar disorder seem ridiculous, and people already have crazy ideas about it. Caroline was a 100% satirical character before, blown up far larger than life, so of course it's hard to see her PPD as serious and difficult and painful because we're used to her being a crazy caricature rather than a person. And how are we supposed to see addicts as people in pain rather than selfish or weak assholes when Jessa, Laird, and Adam are the addicts on this show? It's really highly irresponsible of Lena when it's already a category of disability that is so misunderstood by most people.

Yeah, it's too bad that we don't get to see the produced interactions like on OG. Remember when Leah and Amber were recognized by another kid at the park? Probably happens all the time.

Yeah-- I even think that there can be serious issues from the past (one violent incident, bar fights, toxic relationships, cheating, addiction, not being a great parent, what have you) and people truly can grow and get over those, especially if they have therapy and really want to do so and their issues stem from childhood. But the common theme among Jenelle and her throng of boyfriends is that they did nothing wrong and their exes are all insane, their bosses are insane, their friends are insane. Their exes may well be just as troubled, but have some accountability and work on your shit intensively. Go to programs, go to AA, take medication and anger management courses, adopt a spiritual path, read self help books, pay more child support, apologize, form a strict routine, do whatever you have to do. But seriously, every single one of them maintains that they're an angel who just happened to fall into bad luck with every cop (and I'm no fan of cops), every relationship, every boss, every event in their life. And they expect to be believed?

Wheelchairs do need fixing or upkeep quite often if they're being used. But I assume Leah isn't responsible enough to bring it in every time in a timely fashion. Of course, Corey could insist on that as well. It's not like Leah owns the wheelchair. My only fear about Corey and custody is that he will try to ignore Ali's disability or make her not use the wheelchair so HE isn't in pain about it.