ReadMeLattice

Nathan and Jessica broke up. Big surprise.

She's said she's bi for years and had long term relationships with women when she was younger. I'm actually surprised she hasn't had more, she seems hella queer to me (this from a hella queer person...I'm married to the only guy I've ever been with). I don't know if Kailyn is serious about the relationship now or ever was, it seems she's trying to stay with Javi, but Becky sure seems to be into it. Not sure if anything truly *happened,* but feelings, certainly seems like it.

No, I actually think it's the woman. Becky seems quite smitten with her. Kailyn has always been bisexual and she's always pinged for me. From Becky's Twitter, it seems she's VERY infatuated with Kailyn and Kailyn is the one less interested/going back and forth due to Javi, kids, etc. Becky is very attractive and could get a lot of girls...but it seems she's got her eye on Kail at the moment. Seems they had more than a tiny fling from her Twitter.

I definitely agree on the volunteering. Many of my friends share on social media when they volunteer for a cause in order to spread awareness of the cause or just because everybody shares on social media now. It doesn't take anything away from what they did to volunteer; in fact, it often gets others motivated and involved/interested. Doesn't make me respect them less. *shrug*

I definitely agree with the majority of this, though the nutrition and wheelchair factors get confusing. What Corey and Leah are doing with the wheelchair is abusive, but I don't know if they've actually agreed on it due to mutual ignorance or if they just happen to share that one entitled opinion (that they know better than the doctor) or what. That's the most confusing thing IMO. Like, they both go to the appointments...so did they sit down together recently and decide "fuck this, she's going to T ball and not using the chair?" Or do they just both happen to not get it, or to think it's all bs, or what?! And then how do they justify it? That part fascinates me. It's sad that THAT is the one thing they seem to agree on. In terms of food, it pains me to see how they're fed, what with all the processed foods and little nutrition...but unfortunately many, many children in the U.S. are fed that way. Due to poverty, ignorance, access, education, experience, or a combination. I think many of those parents love their kids. But with Leah, it's just another one of those things where I truly cannot figure out if she's actually that ignorant like many are (as in, does she fit into one of those categories alongside many others, or is there something more insidious going on with her?), or if she doesn't care, or if she knows the risks and thinks she's smarter than the critics. It's not necessarily laziness in this case because purchasing a pre-made turkey sandwich or frozen meals or a package of pre-cut fruit would be the same level of "not difficult" as buying Cheetos from the store. So is it ignorance with the nutrition and wheelchair, or does she think she knows better? Or does she know, does she have the relevant information, understand it fully, and not care? Those are the two issues I really do not understand with her. I'm genuinely curious as to what the real deal is with those issues in particular. On everything else, it's pretty cut and dry. I'd honestly add Adam to that list, though...to me his superiority complex, verbal abuse of others, and obsession with adrenaline rushes make him scary.

He is in many ways the male equivalent. No feelings for others.

Noooo!

I find big butts really attractive, and "disproportionate" isn't a word I'd often use...usually that's a good thing.@Brooklynista said it best: Full hips are necessary for a butt that large. If you're pear shaped, you have childbearing hips, thick thighs, AND a bubble butt. Not just the latter two, or it'll look fake, which it does.

It just looks like she's sticking her stomach out. I can stick it in and out like that too.

@monagatuna Sorry, can't get this tag off. Ignore! That is incredibly kind. Many people wouldn't.

Right. And we really can't distill anything to one factor. It's not ultimately about someone's personal choices OR ultimately about someone's environment and background. It's both and always will be, no matter how attractive binary thinking can be.

I don't think of Chelsea either as benevolently or as harshly as some do. She had privileges the other girls never had in their wildest dreams, not just financial but emotional and familial. So starting from there, that informs everything she has done. That isn't her "fault," but it's worth noting. She started at a much higher baseline. She did display a great deal of lack of discipline...this happens to a lot of kids, but it seemed extreme with her as she regularly skipped cosmetology classes, didn't study for the GED and partied instead, etc. Yes, some college age kids do do that (though many don't). She also isn't bright enough to just pass anyway despite a lack of studying, so she needed more discipline than average, but had far less. If she'd been a minimum wage single mom working for her survival, or without family support or a dad-provided apartment, maybe she wouldn't have skipped...or maybe she would have, and she'd have lost her job and her ability to feed herself that month. Being able to flounder around not picking up a GED book was an enormous luxury. But her biggest luxury was being able to call Randy or her mom for emotional support. Leah had Mama Dawn and no dad, Kailyn had a mom who kicked her out, no parents, no money, and the basement of a guy who dumped her when her child was an infant, and Jenelle had no dad and a lifetime of watching abuse and dysfunction unfold around her. Does that mean nothing they would ever do would ever be their fault, no, but it sure did make Chelsea's options seem like a great deal. Chelsea didn't have the same level of trauma to deal with AND had the luxury of working out the trauma she did have (the divorce, Adam) slowly, with a paid for apartment and stable family members. That said, she hasn't been unwise with her money or men like many of the other girls have. She seems to be a naturally kinder and less selfish person and I don't see her as a materialistic or spoiled person. Some of that is due to personality and choices, but some is still due to her middle class environment, which encourages home ownership and a stable marriage with an employed guy as markers of high status. Her particular environment also seems to have a fair amount of "traditional" family structures. In Jenelle's, Leah's, and Kailyn's worlds (though Kail really straddles the line between both), "high status" means something different...trips, material items, cars, etc. Jenelle and Leah in particular, and of course most especially Jenelle, have taken this to great extremes, being hugely irresponsible and acting out in various ways, never figuring it out or making solid attempts to stabilize, at least not yet. So while all of them do have some choices, those choices don't operate in a vacuum. Chelsea might not have ended up just like Leah or Jenelle because that doesn't seem to be in her DNA, but she'd almost surely be a Kailyn or simply have more kids, welfare, and a lot more sexual partners/potential baby daddies if she'd had to work to survive or hadn't had good role models. At the very least, even if she made every good choice, she would have had a hard time adjusting from poverty to wealth, Iike the other girls have. Chelsea moved up the ladder financially and socially...the others shot up from the ground like a rocket. That's got to be confusing. So no, it's not her fault and she deserves credit for what she has done. I also like her the most. But looking at it objectively, it's hard to compare and say she'd have turned out the same no matter what.

Lol, even the other 16 year olds were like, "Dude, maybe just watch your kid."

Apparently Nathan hasn't even been seeing Kaiser for his appointed visitation times. http://radaronline.com/photos/jenelle-evans-custody-nathan-griffith-kaiser-birthday-no-visit-teen-mom-2/photo/1314624/ I feel awful for this little boy.

...fruit stands?

She was 16...I'd actually say that being incredibly insecure and desperate for a guy as ANY 16 year old girl is pretty much par for the course, unfortunately. Cultural context is key, but it's very common for young women to feel or be made to feel this way. There's no evidence she personally tried to get pregnant. They didn't use condoms and had drunken teen sex. It was a mutual choice in that sense.

Whoa, I don't want to get into a disagreement, but this kind of makes it sound like it was her fault she was abused. There's any number of reasons someone has mental health or self esteem issues. They are never someone's fault. He openly joked about not using a condom, so it doesn't matter what she did with her birth control.

I think makeup on kids is weird, but the bikini isn't. I have nudist friends who have plenty of naked pics of their kid. Except for the makeup, there's nothing sexual about a kid in a swimsuit.

Maybe she had self esteem issues or "mental health" issues, too. She certainly seemed to. She's not any more responsible for wrapping it up than he is. No more how troubled someone is, no matter the age, no matter the circumstances, a woman doesn't have even a tiny bit more responsibility than a guy when it comes to safe sex, unless she's raping or assaulting him. He's still committing crimes and bad mouthing his child's mother, and pretty much ignoring his kid. Not exactly sure how he's improved except for occasionally hanging out with her...?

I think all this is true...and I'd add that with their histories of abuse/fatherlessness/broken families/neglect/lack of education/poverty/alcoholic parents, they are likely to attract abusive, unworthy, and/or immature male partners, too. So it makes it doubly hard. Except for Chelsea, who had quite a few years when it wasn't the case, they would be unable to recognize (or perhaps attract) an actually mature, educated, unselfish man if they desperately tried.

@SPLAIN, I think that's true, but based on her recent commitment to education and career, she does seem like she's learned/is learning from her mistakes. One may hope. ;)

She has probably been told very explicitly just what will happen to her if she talks about any of the ACTUAL affair. Those voicemails were not doctored. They were Meri, and there were hundreds, and they were highly romantic and sexual. Even if "spliced together," which they weren't, the fact that there were explicit things *to* splice together says it all.

Yeah...food politics are really complicated. I honestly wonder if Leah even *knows* what nutritious means. A lot of people really, really don't. And many can't afford it or have access (there are certainly places with no grocery stores), though she obviously could and does. So the MTV money makes me confused, because those things don't apply to her except the education and experience. Does she just feed her kids what she ate growing up? Does she legitimately not understand? What's weird is that yes, she's lazy, but handing your kids an apple, a banana, or cheese and crackers is actually easier than making that breakfast, and about the same level of effort as cracking open a soda or opening a bag of Cheetos. So there's got to be something else going on besides just laziness. It's really shocking to me, but I wasn't raised how she was. Do people like this just think "this is how I done got fed so it's good enough for ma girlses," like they obviously do with things like spanking and ignoring a child's disability? Do they think things like "healthy food" are liberal propaganda?

It wasn't all four of them. Indulgent parenting isn't associated with a higher risk of teen pregnancy, but ironically, living in a religious and/or politically conservative area is, as is having abstinence-only sex education or being Christian yourself/coming from a very religious family. Chelsea had several friends who had kids before or slightly after she did. I would assume their area, and perhaps their family, was quite religious and conservative. Kids with extremely strict parents are actually more "at risk" of teen pregnancies than kids with very lax parents. Out of wedlock as a term has primarily been used historically to shame women and their children. Not men.

So true-- although unfortunately he could still spread STDs. Maybe he's calmed down in that arena recently, though. All these girls seem so obsessed with being with "a real man." Obsessed. Jenelle is constantly talking about how David is the only man she's been with, etc. Leah telling Jeremy to man up and saying the little lady should take care of the children while the man works. Chelsea obsessing over Cole making their family "real" because you need a man to have a family. Kailyn is the only one who doesn't and that's because she's pretty explicitly feminist and trying to be independent. Meanwhile, they regularly attract and are with men who are very much not *real men,* whatever that means. I wonder what that's about. Daddy issues, yes, but there also seems to be something deeper about masculinity.