New Show About Mom, Teen Daughter Pregnant Raises Questions
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TLC(NEW YORK) — TLC’s new show, My Teen Is Pregnant and So Am I, chronicles the often bumpy journey of a pair of teen moms whose own mothers are expecting at the same time.
Liz Forbes and Ann Golden from Oklahoma City are one of the two mother-daughter duos the show follows from pregnancy to childbirth. Forbes was just 17 when she discovered that she and her boyfriend Chris were going to have a baby, and then found out about a month later her 36-year-old mother was also pregnant.
My Teen Is Pregnant and So Am I is intended to entertain first and foremost, but it raises some provocative questions about parenting. While the other pregnant mother-daughter pair on the show goes to war with one another, Forbes and Golden are seen attempting to turn their simultaneous pregnancies into a bonding experience.
“Once we got pregnant, we were with each other every day,” Forbes said. “We were constantly talking … it brought us closer again.”
Golden said she has always believed that being a confidante — a girlfriend — to her daughter was more effective than being a heavy-handed parent.
“I think you know more about your kid if you’re best friends,” she said. Her daughter agreed.
“Most girls won’t even tell their parents they’re having sex, so it makes it easier for them to get pregnant,” Forbes said.
“Her being hard on me is not going change the fact that it happened,” she continued. “That’s why I’m glad to have her, because that’s how she is. I know that she was disappointed and everything, but she didn’t let it show too much… It wasn’t as difficult because I had my mom.”
Golden knows what it’s like to be a young mom on her own. She had Forbes when she was 18 and raised her as a single parent for more than a decade. Now, Golden is trying to provide her daughter with the support and compassion that she always craved when she was a teen mom.
“We can’t turn the clocks back,” Golden said. “What am I going do, be angry? She’s going to resent me and I’ll never see her or my grandson and that’s not the kind of relationship I wanted. I wanted to be involved in her life.”
My Teen Is Pregnant and So Am I premieres Wednesday on TLC at 10 p.m. ET.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio