Reality TVs new low — turning teenage mums into celebrities
WHEN Megan Salmon-Ferrari was 14, she loved to watch an MTV show called Teen Moms — a U.S. smash hit, viewed by millions in America and Britain, that follows the lives of teenage mothers.
Was the reality show — a curiously grown-up twist on the frothy teen fodder that MTV does so well — suitable viewing for an impressionable youngster? Her father certainly didn’t think so.
‘He didn’t like me watching it,’ says Megan, who is now 18 and lives in essex. ‘He couldn’t understand why I’d want to, but I loved it.
‘The mothers on it were great. They all coped so well. They showed that it’s not the end of the world to have a baby when you are young.’
Unarguably influenced by the show, Megan fell pregnant with her own child at 16. The father was a fellow pupil at her school, called Dylan.
The pregnancy was hugely contentious in her own family. She and her mother Sonia fell out over her insistence on having the baby and didn’t speak for six months.
She has no regrets, however, telling me, rather heartbreakingly, that babies are ‘the only people who love you unconditionally’. Her little boy, McKenzie, turned one on Saturday.
Megan, who is clearly bright and independent, is now one of the stars of our very own Teen Mom series.
Yes, the MTV show has arrived in Britain, with the first programme being shown on Wednesday. Already it’s being heavily promoted, with the producers clearly hoping it will make household names of the teens it ‘stars’, just like those in the U.S.
Thousands of British teenage mothers applied to form the ‘cast’, as MTV insists on calling the five girls who were eventually chosen. All were 16 to 18 when they fell pregnant.
The promotional material from MTV is anxious to claim that this programme is A Good Thing for all of us, because it aims to ‘educate viewers’ about the reality of teen pregnancy. Consultants from the charities Gingerbread ( which supports single mothers) and Brook (which offers advice on sexual health) are involved.
But behind the spin, this show is car crash viewing — from the stable that gave us vulgar reality TV shows Geordie Shore and ex on The Beach. This is Jeremy Kyle meets the reality show Kardashians, where talk of stretch marks and postnatal depression is interspersed with some of the most dysfunctional relationships you are likely to encounter on telly.
The ultimate head- in- hands moment comes courtesy of Megan, who kicks off the first episode with the assertion that she and her baby’s father, Dylan, are rock solid and that they are going to show all the doubters how wrong they are.
She shows off the engagement ring he has brought her, and they quibble about what sort of wedding they’ll have (he wants a low-key affair; she wants to recreate a Winter Wonderland extravaganza she once saw on reality show Don’t Tell The Bride).
By the end of the first episode, though, their ‘for ever’ relationship is over and Megan is in tears and saying: ‘ How could you sleep with my best friend a day before you asked me to marry you?’
NOW, before the programme has even aired, she has moved out of the home she and Dylan were living in and has moved back in with her mum, who is none too pleased at the way things are panning out. The air is thick with I-told-you-sos.
I met all five young mums in London this week at a glossy promotional event. The excitement of the girls, all of whom think they are on the verge of fame, is palpable — and echoed by some of their parents.
‘It’s a brilliant thing to have on the CV isn’t it,’ says Amanda Riley, mum of 17- year- old Amber Butler and grandmother to baby Brooklyn, when I catch up with her later.
It turns out that Amber has turned down a university place so she can be in the show.
‘I wouldn’t be able to take days off from the studying to do promotional work, so I’ve decided to hold off until next year,’ she says.
‘You never know where this sort of opportunity will lead.’
Is there seriously a ‘career’ to be had in being a teenage mum? It’s certainly something these girls are thinking about.
Naomi Konichova, who was 17 when she had her baby, Kyanna, has recently qualified as a make-up artist, but isn’t working at the moment.
She worries about the logistics of trying to apply for a ‘normal’ job when her celebrity status is pending. ‘I don’t want people coming up to me all the time when I am working,’ she says, rather bafflingly.
What did her own mum make of Naomi getting pregnant so young? ‘She whacked me with her shoe,’ she says. ‘But I think she was happy on the inside.’
In the flesh, the girls are all highly engaging, and in their heavy make-up many of them seem older than their years. But when they open their mouths, their immaturity can flow.
When, for instance, I ask Amber if there is still a stigma attached to being a teenage mum, she looks blank. I repeat the question. ‘I don’t know what “stigma” means,’ she says.
Amber broke the news that she was pregnant to her father in a restaurant. ‘I said, I have something I need to tell you, and he said: “I’ll get a beer then.”
‘When he came back, he said “I know what you are going to say”, but it turned out he thought I was going to tell him I’d lost my virginity.’
Neither parent was thrilled to learn that Amber was expecting. How badly did they take it, on a scale of one to ten, I ask. ‘Mum would have been about an eight,’ she says. ‘Dad was a 20.’ Amber’s mum, Amanda, admits: ‘I thought her life was over when she fell pregnant, but she has proved me wrong. Becoming a mum has been the making of Amber. She has two jobs. She finished college. She will go to uni, I’m sure of it.
‘I’m really proud of her, and I want people to see that.’
Chloe Patton is perhaps the one who comes across as the most grounded and capable. A straight-A student, she was hoping for university and a career in acting when her Pill ‘got knocked out by antibiotics’ and she found herself, at the age
of 17, expecting her son Marley. ‘It was absolutely not good news for me,’ she says. ‘I was devastated. My feeling was “I am only a kid myself — I can’t have a baby.” ’ Chloe’s parents were unstintingly supportive. Her mum Sue, who works in M&S, tells me that the news came like a thunderbolt. ‘I’d actually had Chloe very late — I was 36. She was doing the exact opposite. ‘But right from the off I told her that I was there for her.’ At one point, that meant Sue going with Chloe to an abortion clinic — but the pair left when Chloe could not go through with the procedure. ‘I said to the receptionist that I wasn’t sure, and she mentioned it to the nurse,’ says Chloe. ‘When I eventually said I couldn’t do it, the receptionist called out: “Good luck.” I got the impression they don’t see many girls changing their minds.’
Chloe’s boyfriend, Jordan, was equally stunned to learn he was going to be a dad, but pledged his support. The pair now live with Chloe’s parents. Sue tells me that they have jobs and pay rent.
‘That was the deal,’ she says. ‘We are happy to give them a helping hand, but they are saving to get their own place. I’m really proud of how they have handled this. They have their heads screwed on.’
Mostly, the teens’ mums are falling over themselves to praise their daughters and attest to how this show is going to challenge stereotypes.
Then there is Mia, who is very pretty and talks 19 to the dozen. She’s only too happy to talk about how she got pregnant with daughter Marliya at 18.
‘I’m the sort of person who means to do stuff, but says “I’ll do it tomorrow, or next week,” ’ she explains. ‘You see, this nail of mine is broken. I’ve been saying “I need to get that sorted” — but I haven’t done it yet.
‘It was the same with getting an implant. I wasn’t great at remembering to take the Pill. My boyfriend would say “Have you taken it?” and I’d say “Yeah, I will.” ’
Mia first had a contraceptive implant fitted after being frogmarched to the GP by her mum.
‘She found out I’d lost my virginity the day after it happened. The boy went into school and told my cousin, and he told his dad, who told my mum, and she went mad.’ Her current relationship, with boyfriend Manley, has been a bit on-off: ‘We were together, then he went off and started seeing someone else, and she got pregnant. But then we got back together. We’re together now, yes definitely.’
She discovered she was pregnant on the day her boyfriend’s other girlfriend, Erin, was due to give birth. So Manley has two daughters, and is in the middle of one impossible triangle.
In the first episode, when he ‘likes’ a photo on his ex’s Facebook page, it causes Mia to combust. The odds on their relationship lasting? Not great.
The show also lays bare the strain it puts on family relationships.
Sonia Ferrari, Megan’s mum, is livid — and openly so — that Megan ‘did all the things I hoped she would not do’.
SONIA had Megan when she was 20 and feels that was a mistake. ‘I was too young, definitely. I missed out on so much, and I always said to Megan that 20 is far too young to be a mum. Then she went and did it at 16! ‘She didn’t tell me face-to-face and actually moved out of the house so she wouldn’t have to face me,’ says Sonia. ‘She went to his parents’ place. They came and helped her move. I’ll never forgive them for that because she was just a child herself. ‘ We didn’t speak for six months. When I asked her why she couldn’t have told me to my face, she said: “Because you would have made me get rid of it.” And she was right.’ She is eye- wateringly candid about her dismay that her daughter has ‘turned into one of the girls in the town centre with the buggies and the snotty babies — the ones she said she never wanted to be.’ ‘She’s on benefits, and that is not something I ever wanted for her. All this breaks my heart. I wanted better for her. ‘I mean I love that kid to death,’ she says of little McKenzie. ‘But I still think it was a mistake. If I could wind the clock back, I would lock her in her room until she was 25.’ Megan insists that she thought Dylan was the one, yet now their relationship is over she is back living with her mum. ‘But I still don’t have any regrets,’ she says. ‘ How could I have? McKenzie is everything.’ How complicated this whole issue is. And how bizarre to have these girls’ lives served up on MTV in such a frothy way. MTV reject any idea that they are glamorising teen pregnancy. Fans of the U.S. show point out that the teen pregnancy rates have actually fallen in the States as a result of the show. Sonia isn’t so sure. ‘I’m not sure a TV programme can make a blind bit of difference, one way or the other,’ she says. ‘Teenage girls are teenage girls. They think they know best, and they don’t have a clue.’