We are sitting here in a very comfortable conference room on the 45th Floor of One TV Fiends Plaza in the Pine Valley section of Northern Virginia, and we are a bit dumbfounded. We were shocked by this week’s episode of 16 and Pregnant, which featured Jennifer Del Rio and Josh Smith as the much too young parents of new twins.
Our first reaction to Josh was, “We don’t like the way Josh looks.” He had what our grandparents would describe as a “not-right” look in his eyes. Yet while we at TV Fiends are known to unleash fierce Hate Storms, we are loathe to do it on looks alone. Our hate is for substantive reasons. We try hard not to base it on caprice, so we decided to reserve judgment.
In this day and age — when it is really easy NOT to get pregnant — how did these latest 16 and Pregnant stars manage to do something they could have avoided easily? We were treated to perhaps the lamest reason for a pregnancy in the history of 16 and Pregnant: Josh claimed he didn’t have money for condoms (don’t you have friends with boxes of condoms, Josh? We do. Ask for a couple), and that “it’s awkward to buy condoms.” What? Wow …
You know what’s really awkward Josh? How about the next lifetime you have to spend with Jennifer’s parents (who look like they are barely suppressing the urge to hire a contract killer to take care of their Josh Smith problem)?
So we started off in a bad place with Josh on this episode of 16 and Pregnant. But while he really messed up, he seemed to know he had done something really stupid. He was behaving like a young man who wanted to live up to his responsibilities. The fathers on 16 and Pregnant often are terrible people, and it looked like Josh wasn’t terrible.
Our standard for 16 and Pregnant dad’s isn’t really all that high. We don’t want all that much: We want a 16 and Pregnant father to (1) support his children financially and emotionally; (2) not abandon the mom or the new issue, and (3) refrain from calling the mother of your children some variation or analogue of the word, “whore.”
For a while it looked like Josh would meet our minimum standards. He proposed to Jennifer, for goodness sakes — we liked that.
Then the Del Rio parents said something that pushed us further onto Josh’s side: They said Josh had to earn the right to be a father. Ummmm … no. He earned that right when he and Jennifer decided to have sex without protection. No one should have their relationship with his father severed merely because the grandparents don’t like the father. The father has the responsibility to take care of his children, but he and his twin boys also have a right and a need to have a relationship. Talk to someone who grew up without a father, and see how great that is.
The Del Rio parents have every right to dislike Josh, but they would be totally wrong to keep him from forming a relationship with his children.
They earned our ire.
So for a few minutes, we joined team Josh — but only for a few minutes. After his performance at the hospital following the birth of the twins (Josh Jr. and Noah), we thought we might need to return our team Josh membership cards. Within minutes, we knew we couldn’t return it. We had to destroy it by violent means to make sure it didn’t wind up in anyone else’s hands. Josh doesn’t deserve anyone on his team.
Jennifer asked her mom if Josh could stay at the Del Rio house for a few days, to help as she adjusted to life with the twins. Jennifer’s mom was not thrilled by that. Josh proceeded to pick an unnecessary and nasty fight with Mrs. Del Rio and put Jennifer smack dab in the middle of it. The mess took place during a phone call between Jennifer and her mom, which Josh had no business butting into. The whole scene was one of the more bizarre 16 and Pregnant situations, but Josh’s worst was yet to come.
Despite Josh’s horrendous behavior during the phone call, the Del Rio parents agreed to let Josh come stay for a few days. It was a very mature, caring decision for them to make (for their daughter and grandchildren) given how much they despise Josh.
How long did Josh stay at the Del Rio house? We can’t know for sure, but it looked like 10 minutes.
Jennifer had just come home from the hospital, so friends and family came over to the Del Rio house to help her get the new babies settled in. She had just had a c-section, so she needed all the help she could get. How did Josh respond to all the kind help being offered to the mother of his children and his new twins? He flipped out.
Josh said something about not knowing why all those people were around, and he stormed out of the house. He then essentially abandoned Jennifer for the first week of the twin’s lives.
We still are trying to figure out why. The Del Rios actually were trying to accommodate the father of their grandchildren, whom they actively hate.
Josh refused to have anything to do with Jennifer or the babies as long as the Del Rio parents were around. Josh decided not to be a father during the first week of Josh Jr.’s and Noah’s lives.
He showed back up only when he was assured the Del Rio parents weren’t home, to pick Jennifer and the twins up for a trip to his house.
During the ride, Josh basically asked Jennifer why she didn’t hate her parents for him. What ensued was a pretty bad scene. Jennifer rightly questioned Josh’s desire for her to hate her parents, and Josh responded by stating he thought Jennifer was a “stupid-a** bitch.” It really did come from nowhere. Josh was losing our support by that point, but calling her that was beyond where we thought he was willing to go.
Josh then put Jennifer out of the car (she had just had a c-section and was now standing on the side of the road) and he sped off with the children — without letting Jennifer close the door.
Josh did come back (Jennifer’s mom also showed up by then), but he then got into a physical altercation with (we repeat) a woman who had just had a c-section.
The police were called, and Josh spent the night in jail.
We normally reserve the Hot Mess-O-Meter for American Idol Performances, but the relationships on this week’s 16 and Pregnant would rate a 10 out of 10 if we put it on the Hot Mess Spectrum.
We really don’t ask much of 16 and Pregnant dads, as we stated earlier. Josh proved by the end of this week’s 16 and Pregnant that he couldn’t provide much.
