mtv

I don't watch a lot of trash tv or guilty pleasure shows. I've never seen The Jersey Shore and we don't even get MTV. But 16 and Pregnant and its subsequent sequel Teen Mom is totally my guilty pleasure show. I love everything about it. If you've never seen it, it's about (surprise) 16 year old pregnant girls starting with about their 30-35th week of pregnancy through the first month or so after the birth. The show is on its third season and has had a sucecssful spinoff called "Teen Mom" which is in its second season. There have been 2 adoptions, a nearly 90% break up rate, and a million tears. It's fantastic.

No, this isn't a post about how MTV is glorifying teenage pregnancy causing a chain reaction of teenage girls getting pregnant across this country to try to get on the show instead of starting the more important discussions about the lack of safe-sex education in schools. Also, it's not a post about how quick C-list fame has turned most of the mothers into camera whores. (did I really just use that word? dayum, I need a better vocabulary) See here, here, and here.

This post is about how much I love this show. All the feminist cells in my body are screaming at me, and yes, a little part of me watches it as part of an informal and ongoing study on motherhood in this country, but the rest of me just seriously loves it. I love watching how their lives unfold in partially scripted and totally predictable dramas, and how the "don't have sex without protection" lesson just seems to completely escape every single one of them. I even love the narration, done by each teen themselves, which sounds down to the syllable and inflection like every other show on MTV. (Remember this show?)

And maybe, there is a teeny, tiny, microscopic part of me that watches the show with a smug self-righteousness that I made it through my teen years without getting pregnant, and somehow by that right better than the girls on the show. Or maybe that I have the wisdom to know that no, he's not going to stick around. When he's partying instead of attending the birth of his baby, he's probably not going to "come around" once you bring the baby home.

But mostly, I genuinely like the show, and I choose to set aside my overall issues with the conversation surrounding teenage pregnancy, pregnancy in general and ridiculously awful MTV programing in order to just zone out and love it, something that I find I can do less and less these days. Don't hate. I know you have a guilty pleasure show too.

edit: No sooner did I click "publish post" did I see this article on CNN from the creater of 16 and Pregnant. Apparently today is national Day to Prevent Pregnancy. I mean, I totes knew that already.