Ever wonder what scandalous reality star Jenelle Evans was like as a kid? Sources who knew the Teen Mom 2 star as a child are coming out of the woodwork to say the drama that's kept her in the headlines over the past few months is nothing new. Turns out Jenelle used to get drunk at school.
And not just any school: middle school!
Somehow, that sounds exactly like the Jenelle Evans we know and can't stop watching, doesn't it? But parents, you're going to want to hear this one anyway. The story out of an old Brunswick Middle School classmate sounds an awful lot like a tale from the book of "there but for the grace of God go I."
A former classmate told Radar that Jenelle was a party girl even when she was a tween, and she once brought booze to school, taking advantage of the fact that a substitute was in charge of her class to get drunk.
Now let's pretend for just five seconds that we don't know that Jenelle ends up as a teen mom who loses custody of her son to her mother, doesn't actually know the paternity of her child, is a regular at the local jail, and ends two relationships by having the guys arrested.
Pretend she's a regular kid. Would you be willing to allow that her getting drunk in middle school is just a kid being a stupid kid?
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It's tempting, isn't it? Oh, sure, if you're the parent, you'd be livid, and you'd have to discipline the kid (in Jenelle's case, mom Barbara Evans grounded her for a week, but the classmate said it obviously wasn't enough to deter Jenelle).
But it's so hard to look at what our kids do objectively, isn't it? No one wants to think of their own child as a "bad seed." That's why you hear parents say, "well, she didn't mean it" or "it was just a mistake."
The problem with that kind of parenting is that when you start excusing bad behavior, you don't know when to stop. You don't know when your kid is just "being a dumb kid" and when your kid is crying out for attention, for someone to get to the root of why they're screwing up. Suddenly you have a Jenelle Evans on your hands -- pregnant at 16 with God knows whose kid, screaming and cursing, and, well, you know what Jenelle Evans has turned into. We can also see that Barbara Evans, although she really seems to be doing the right thing with her grandson, was no peach of a mother.
This week, Corey Simms' dad Jeff watched Teen Mom 2 and tweeted that if Corey had spoken to him "like that" (apparently referring to how Jenelle treats her mom), the reality star wouldn't have made it out alive. It was a bit over the top, but he had a point. If our kids are screwing up, it's up to us, the parents, to do something about it.
Don't excuse middle school pranks as middle school pranks. Do something. Discipline, and if it doesn't help, talk to an expert, get HELP if you don't feel like you can handle the situation.
Just don't let your kid be the next Jenelle Evans.
Does this blast from Jenelle's past surprise you? Do you think we'd be looking at a different girl if her mom had parented differently?
Image via MTV
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Comments 9
I'm glad to see comments that AREN'T totally blaming Jenelle for once. She is the way she is because of her mom, and that's obvious just from their interactions on the show. Her mom was never supportive of her, always tears her down, criticizes every last thing she does, and rarely says a nice thing to her. And @ Jennifer, it's been proven that girls who don't have their fathers in their lives growing up, especially during tween years, are more likely to end up as a pregnant teenager, a drop out, an alcoholic, a drug addict, etc. so I definitely agree about the father thing.
Oh and P.S., she does know that Andrew is the father of Jace, Stay up to date before you post things.
Amazing that her mom is even allowed to raise her child when clearly she failed at raising her!
I'm sorry, but if your child gets drunk at school (middle school especially), grounding them for one week is teaching them ABSOLUTELY nothing! And what on earth was going through that girl's head to make her want to rebel at such a young age?? Clearly shows something was wrong at home....
I agree with Christina Leigh.
I think Janelle needs to be broken, in terms of the hard facade so many teens get when they feel unloved, unwanted, unappreciated for so long by the people/person that is supposed to love and support and encourage them the most...their mother.
I don't think it was a matter of not enough discipline from her mother. I think it was a matter of not enough positive support and outward affection. Going to school drunk is a cry for help. It's akin to slashing your wrists in the middle of a busy street instead of privately at home. She was trying to show people back then that she needed something and it was missed and treated as just a discipline issue instead of a love/anxiety/insecurity issue.
I think in the right environment where she really is properly supported emotionally and praised for her success and led by a strong, successful, loving female role model -- such as strong, positive foster mother -- Janelle could really turn her life around still.
Unfortunately the feeling now is that she's 21, she's a legal adult, she has a child of her own (regardless of whether she has custody of it) and he basically just needs to "grow up and get over it" the last part being the most damning because emotional hurts of that level and length aren't something you can just wake up one day and say "Ok, I'm not going to feel like this anymore!" So it's very difficult for her to get any sort of help which is mostly reserved for troubled kids/teens.