Making Ends Meet: Representations of Welfare in MTV's Teen Mom

Despite a continuous decline in the rate of teen pregnancy in the United States, American popular culture seems obsessed with young teen mothers. Multiple reality shows purport to document and describe the experiences of adolescent parents, the most popular of which is MTV’s Teen Mom, a spin-off of the successful 16 & Pregnant. Episodes regularly call attention to the financial burdens of these young parents and how they respond to them. Depending on the socioeconomic status of the teen mother’s parents, monetary issues include gaining independence from family members who financially support the young mother, taking legal action to claim child support, and applying for welfare, food stamps, or other assistance from the state or private agencies. Specifically, this critical discourse analysis considers the ways in which the featured mothers on Teen Mom talk about welfare and public assistance and how Teen Mom reinforces negative stereotypes about welfare recipients while providing opportunities for subversion. The reproduction of harmful myths about welfare prevents young women in similar circumstances from utilizing one of the few resources available to them in the form of publicly funded assistance. Simultaneously, these young women articulate a radical feminist understanding of welfare that names it as a tool for their autonomy and empowerment. The hegemonic and counterhegemonic messages within the context of Teen Mom ultimately contribute to public discourse and subsequent policy about the role of welfare in the lives of teen parents. These results suggest additional research into the production practices of reality television, how audiences interpret messages and engage with texts, and the contradicting political possibilities of popular media.