It's already two in the morning and all i have to say for myself is that i watched all six episodes of 16 and Pregnant + the reunion episode in the last twenty-four hours. Recommend not starting with the last episode, especially if you are an adoptee because you will spend your evening in your bedroom, by yourself, bawling your eyes out and wondering why this show couldn't be about dumb teenagers doing stupid shit. Thankfully, every other episode is.
Most of the girls on 16 and Pregnant have absolutely no concept of what it takes to raise a child, but assume that everything will magically fall into place as quickly and easily as it was to make their little bundle of runny feces. Not Catelynn and Tyler, though. It's obvious the facts that they look (and probably are) the youngest of the couples and that they have significantly less money and more familial problems play into their decision to give up their child, but it's no less shocking. As the youngest, they should lack the maturity to make such a decision, and as the least privileged, they should be the ones to repeat the cycle, but they're not - in fact, Catelynn and Tyler go out of their way to make it clear to their parents (which, p.s. her wastrel mother and his ex-con father got married after meeting through their children) that they're going to give their child what they never received from them.
Ironically, through the process of giving their daughter up for adoption, Catelynn and Tyler prove themselves to be the most responsible and ready to be parents of all of the couples. While Farrah is busy worrying about what type of car her parents are going to replace the vehicle she wrecked with, Catelynn is choosing what family will provide the best life for her daughter. And Tyler blows all of the other baby daddies out of the water by not only sticking with Catelynn throughout her pregnancy and afterwards, but fiercely defending their choices as a couple to their deadbeat parents, who fight Caitlynn and Tyler's decision tooth and nail. And you thought Gary returning his new Playstation 3 was good teen parenting.
Watching Catelynn and Tyler interact with their daughter's prospective adoptive family was completely heart-wrenching. I'd never seen that side of adoption before, the actual real process of handing your child over to another family. The adoptive mother's eagerness reminded me of Jennifer Garner's character in Juno - you could just tell how achingly desperate she was for a child. Even though she was clearly elated to have been chosen it was written all over her face how terrified she was that things weren't going to work out, and once you meet the adoptive couple, the tension of the episode builds as you worry that Catelynn might just keep the baby and crush these people's hearts. During every scene with the adoptive parents i could see my parents, twenty-one years younger, right in their places - explaining their lifestyle and hobbies, making their case for why they deserved to raise me, waiting in agonizing anticipation until i just showed up in their lives completely unannounced. It was absolutely excruciating. In the last few years i've experienced a great range of inner conflict about the idea of adoption and how it has shaped me, but rarely do i think about what it's like (and is still like) for the other two parties involved. At this point, i feel like it's old news to everyone but me - but if it's still an issue for me twenty-one years later, the one party who wasn't even really there for most of the actual process, why wouldn't everyone else still be thinking about it as well?
All in all, i'm rather floored at how much 16 and Pregnant really got to me, considering I was looking for more maury-esque escapades from it than anything else. Thank god for Maci and Farrah. Fuming over them totally helped bring me back to my usual schadenfreude-lovin' self.
(Also I can't stand how boring and dry I sound in this, but god, at least i wrote something. And I've written two abandoned half-essays. But mostly I'm blowing through backissues of The Believer. Why didn't i bring more than 7 issues with me? Oh that's right because i figured i wouldn't read them just like i haven't read through all of the other 30 that are sitting in my Lawrence storage unit. Wah wah wahhh. )
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