ReadMeLattice

Oh, wow. I didn't know about all the flooding. I hope they and everyone else affected by it are ok.

Exactly. The girls are often described as having babies 'out of wedlock,' while that is very rarely used for any of the dads. And 'out of wedlock' itself is pretty outdated. Kail should have been praised for graduating instead of pushed to have yet another child with a man who she doesn't love and who doesn't love her.

Randy is a wonderful father who clearly loves his daughter unconditionally. His behavior on Twitter is whatever; if he finds it fun to get into squabbles there after a day of work or defends his daughter a little too zealously, who cares?! He is in no way "the same" as Adam. That thought boggles my mind. Everyone has flaws. If his is bitching on Twitter, well, then, he has a lot of company. Heck, we're doing the same, just anonymously and about reality TV stars.

Being "troubled" in the sense that you are still getting repeatedly arrested 6 years later is really, really different from being "troubled" by being attracted to the bad boy when you're insecure and 16. Same thing with "fault." Chelsea could have fairly major, readily apparent character flaws and they still wouldn't add up to what Adam has done and said both in his personal life and about/to his daughter.

It'll be fun to watch. I think Javi is at least slightly more ambitious--he does CrossFit and actually has a job and was able to pass the necessary tests, which is more than Jo appears likely to do in a lifetime --but that's primarily because he's quite egotistical. Jo is more likable, but damn, he is a slug.

Dr. Drew is insanely sexist on top of all the stupid. Who shames the only TM2 girl who has a four-year university education for wanting a job or grad school and not popping out another kid to keep her husband docile? Who shames the most emotionally healthy woman on the show for not getting engaged at an earlier age than 24??! And acts like without a man she didn't have a family and her life sucked? Oh, but Jenelle and Nathan are totes fine even though Nathan basically admitted to repeatedly physically abusing Jenelle on screen, she neglects her baby on TV, and between them and David, they have three kids they are entirely not or barely allowed to see, legally. Let's just let Leah and Corey 100% slide on the obvious neglect of their disabled daughter and tell them how great they are even though they blatantly admitted to ignoring a specialist's orders on how to prolong and improve their daughter's life. What in the fuck?!

I feel the same way about Nathan's and Adam's overactive weiners. Just watch some porn for a while, y'all. A year?! And how many arrests and breakups occurred in that time?! Plus an engagement and a child and several moves and a back and forth dog. Jesus Christ.

On the dance topic, I'll just say that even *if* one were to accept the premise that Chelsea lied, obfuscated, or otherwise evaded giving Adam the info about it; even if she is openly lying now about if he did or didn't text; even if the story is "suspect" (none of which I believe, but hypothetically), it would not matter. At all. Grown ass adults deal with far more difficult and contentious co parents than Chelsea will ever be, yet they still manage to attend their children's events. His gender is unimportant, as are Chelsea's texts or feelings about him or Cole. They are entirely irrelevant to this incident. Also, all of this is null and void. He openly said himself that he knew when the dance was and chose not to attend. If he could have blamed Chelsea, he would have. But he didn't. He said he had a different priority. He overtly admitted to knowing the school information and choosing not to go, and was not in any way upset about or ashamed of it. Period.

To be fair, she has repeatedly tried in the past to meet up or talk on the phone about Aubree, and he made it clear that she was never to contact him except through text.

Adam is the most spoiled brat on this show. They *made* him, like he's a victim? No, MTV has supported your lazy, child neglecting ass for years. And it's not like they even give him a bad edit. But I feel similarly, though not the same, about the other people who don't show up as some kind of "rebellion," like sticking it to the man...MTV isn't "the man," they're paying you thousands of dollars to hang out on camera. You know what would be a better way to stick it to them? Don't sign up for another season. Otherwise, your rebellion is about as justified as a young adult who still lives with their parents throwing a tantrum. The father/daughter dance thing was entirely Adam's fault. The fact that he has a penis makes him no less able to look something up and show up to it. Dr. Drew is such an idiot. Why would you push a 23 year old to have even more children with a dude who openly admits he was basically emotionally abusive about her miscarriage? They don't need to stay together for the kids. They need to speak as little as possible for the kids.

Wonder if he was cheating with her at least emotionally, hence the sudden "you won't have kids in the next 5 minutes so we can't be married" stuff? I mean, he had to be single by the time he came home so he could get it on with Peach. I assume this was going on for a while.

God, both of them are so disgusting. For such a "traditional" guy, Javi sure is an undercover whore.

I think you could definitely think you're a good mom when you are, but it would take some sort of honest self awareness, which these people don't have. They think a "good mom" is someone who occasionally hangs out with the kid and a "good dad" takes selfies with him/her.

In a word: no. Or they think it's positive.

That's right, though I was more disturbed by the fact that he didn't press Jenelle on her childrearing issues or ask if she still used drugs, or ask about the assault on Jessica. He also didn't ask David about his own abusive past. He didn't ask Nathan about the abuse he pretty much admitted to (the choking, hitting her face, everything else they mentioned--the choking wouldn't be affected by her wrists even if she did cut them) or his own continued court dates/alcoholism. I'm assuming from how the conversations go that Drew is given a script and he's not to veer from it. He's the worst.

Neither Nathan nor Jenelle went through with the drug testing. HMM WONDER WHY http://starcasm.net/archives/352032

I actually thought Jenelle's outfit was super cute. Her body looks great. She always looks trashy somehow in the face and hair, though.

Why was Mariah at the painting thing anyway if it was about their intimate adult relationships and asking forgiveness from her spouse and sister wives? Weird.

The crux of my feelings on Barb/Jenelle is this: I generally agree with all of Barb's impulses and sentiments about the disturbing and abusive things happening around her, but the way she expresses them isn't just unpleasant, but abusive and disturbing in and of itself. She doesn't just exacerbate, she causes a whole new problem.

So true. A miscarriage is traumatic. You don't immediately start pushing for more kids.

Here is someone's account of a visit to an AUB chapel. They mention the "endowment house" (substitute temple). http://52weeks52churches.blogspot.com/2014/05/my-surreal-visit-to-apostolic-united.html?m=1 This is a mainstream Mormon temple. Much more public.

I don't think she got what she deserved, but it would be an affair if one of them did that, certainly. Even if an affair is justified, it's an affair. It would also depend on if they lied about it repeatedly, guilted other people for their affair, continued to act shittily towards the other wives, didn't actually leave, kept praising their religion, etc. She also continues to actively promote polygamy and the religion while knowing it causes harm. As for the temple thing, yes, it is an actual place separate from the church building (where weekly services/meetings take place). There, they do sealings, endowments, and baptisms for the dead. I grew up Mormon (not anymore) and there was drama over people from the AUB and other fundamentalist Mormon cults trying to enter the mainstream temples to get sealings and other "blessings." They have since built their own temples as well because the mainstream church cracked down. They have one full temple in Mexico and a smaller one in Utah due to legal issues. The dresses they each wore at their weddings were textbook sealing/temple dresses. They made eternal vows to Kody but also one another. The sister wives are part of the other sealings. The fundamentalist ones take place in secret. The Browns are following actual original Mormon doctrine, unfortunately. It's the mainstream LDS Church that's distanced themselves, but they are the original teachings. In the AUB/FLDS, you cannot enter the highest ring of the celestial kingdom if you are not a polygamist. Technically speaking that is still Mormon doctrine, but nobody talks about it.

Regardless of whether she has BPD or bipolar disorder (which also fits well) or something else, or just general codependency, anxiety, and addiction, she needs treatment she won't get while still on MTV. And that's the real tragedy here. And yes, prolonged emotional abuse leads to BPD in some cases too, especially the slightly less severe ones (less self harm etc)...the 90% statistic is about any kind of abuse, the 75% is sexual abuse. We know Jenelle was at least emotionally abused and has now been physically abused repeatedly. I assume she was in childhood as well though commenting on that feels exploitative or weird on my part. I feel like I might be contributing to the horrible stigma surrounding BPD by commenting about it any further, which stops a lot of people from getting treatment, so I'll stop there. I'll just say I really hope that Leah and Jenelle both get treatment off screen for whatever mental illnesses they have, and that the people around them encourage them to do so. Beyond that, not my business.

I can too, actually. Being an alcoholic is as dangerous and serious as being any other kind of drug addict, as we've seen with Nathan.

*Abusing* her mother? Jesus. If Meri lied to me like this and dragged my whole family through the fallout of her humiliating, banana filled affair by playing the poor-me victim and starring in a TV special about the emotional abuse of catfish and then expected her hundreds of voicemails about loving and wanting to fuck Sam and sexy bath photos to be swept under the rug because of some paintings, while still professing to love and adore the misogynistic cult she raised me in, I'd say a lot more than some BS about her eyebrows. I don't think it was about *obeying* her. Meri claims over and over that no one knew about it and how was she to know this was fake and she was all alone, etc. But Mariah saw and warned her, so she knows that's patently untrue.