Trending Violence Amongst 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom Girls

MTV seems to have developed a habit of picking violent girls for their shows 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom. Everyone who follows the show or reads gossip sites probably remembers Amber Portwood's legal troubles last year after she was seen on the show slapping her baby's father, Gary Shirley, in the face in front of their child.
Amber was charged with felony domestic violence charges for the incident and was arrested; she is still facing two felony counts of domestic battery, a misdemeanor charge for domestic battery, and a felony for neglect of a dependent.

This year the violence has taken off. Valerie Fairman, Jennifer Del Rio, and Jamie McKay of 16 & Pregnant and Jenelle Evans of Teen Mom have all been involved in assault just in the past five months. You would think that these teenage girls, who have young children and who know they are in the public eye, would make more of an effort to control themselves. Teenagers fight, everyone knows this, but not all teenagers have babies to care for and not all teenagers are on TV shows viewed by millions of people.

In January of this year Jamie McKay of 16 & Pregnant allegedly punched a classmate in the back of the head...twice. Also remember that her daughter's daycare is located in the same school. The assault charges were later dropped, but in North Carolina it is possible to have the charges dismissed after mediation. At the time of the incident, Jamie's daughter Miah was about three months old.

On March 27th of this year Teen Mom star Jenelle Evans was arrested (and not for the first time, she has received past charges related to violence and drugs) after a video surfaced of her viciously beating another girl, Britany Truett. Apparently Jenelle and Britany were arguing over Jenelle's on-again off-again boyfriend Kieffer Delp.

Evans and Delp's relationship has been volatile from the beginning. This isn't the first time arrests have occurred in their relationship, and considering Jenelle's May 21st facebook update confirming their reunion, it probably won't be the last.

During April of this year both Jennifer Del Rio and Valerie Fairman of 16 & Pregnant faced cops for attacking others. Jennifer Del Rio was not arrested, but her baby's father, Josh Smith, did call the cops on her after she allegedly "attacked" him and punched him in the face. Later Jennifer said that she didn't punch Josh in the face, but he did it to himself.

Valerie Fairman was arrested for assaulting her mother in their home on April 5th. The two apparently got into an argument that lead to Valerie punching her mother and pushing her to the ground. Her mother was said to have suffered a broken vertebra from the incident, indicating the severity of the fight.

The girls of these shows need to begin considering their public image. Unlike many other reality television stars, these girls' entire image revolves around the fact that they are mothers. Their entire public image therefore becomes a reflection of the way they are viewed as mothers. With organizations such as Child Protective Services having access to all of this information, it is important for these girls to prove their ability to be suitable parents. Their age already makes people weary of their ability to be parents and violent outbursts such as these certainly aren't helping anything.