I Could Be A Reality Star

Do you watch reality television shows? I could be a reality star. Honestly, it seems it doesn’t take much to be on reality television nowadays. You can even have your own reality show. In the 1960’s I missed my chance, I guess. Teen mom – that was me. Teen Mom on MTV seems to be fairly popular. Who knew back then?

Those girls have nothing on me. I had my third baby when I was nineteen years old. My first, Tammy, was born when I was sixteen, a month before my seventeenth birthday. I guess I was kind of unique in that I was married and was not pregnant when I got married. I was….a virgin when I got married.

Somehow I survived – my babies did too – without much help from anyone except for friendly advice and the occasional offer to babysit. You know what else? My friend, Sande, did too. We were both teen moms with three babies.

We had no idea that what we were doing could someday be viewed as a potential for stardom. We spooned baby food into tiny mouths, rinse and washed soiled diapers (there wasn’t such a thing as disposable diapers), rocked cranky or sick babies, went without sleep, did laundry that we hung outside to dry, and juggled schedules while keeping our sanity.

We did it because we wanted to be mommies. I can’t imagine being a teenager and doing all of those mother things in front of a television camera. I value my privacy. I can’t imagine, either, that anyone behaves as they normally would without a camera recording it all.

I had two more babies – five children total – by the time I was twenty five. I did it all without a – television show. And that’s not the only reality show my life could fit. I am – was – a cougar before I even knew there was such a thing. I recently celebrated my twentieth anniversary to Jeff, who is sixteen and a half years younger than me – a second marriage for both of us.

But that’s a story for another time.