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Teen Mom’s Amber Portwood and Gary Shirley’s Daughter Leah Discusses Birth Control
Teen Mom stars Amber Portwood and Gary Shirley joined forces to speak to their daughter, Leah, about birth control.
During the Wednesday, August 23, episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Gary’s wife, Kristina, took Leah, 14, to the doctor to discuss issues with her period. After noting that Leah agreed to discuss the situation on camera, Christina told Gary that the doctor suggested she start taking birth control to address the issues.
“Welcome to parenting a teenager,” Kristina, 42, told Gary, 36. “The doctor did give her a good sex education talk along with the birth control pill, that Leah kept saying, ‘I don’t need it for that, it’s just for my period.’”
Gary said he wasn’t “against her taking it,” adding, “I would prefer it. I’d rather her be safe than sorry because she’s eventually going to be old enough and be more curious, and I don’t want it to be how it was with her mom and I.”
Later on in the episode, Gary told Amber, 33, he was “glad” Leah is on the pill. “I wish my mom would have thought about that when I was laying on the floor cramping and dying at that age,” she responded.
“I do feel better that at least Leah is getting that and she’s smart and she understands about what sex is and to wait,” Amber continued. “For me, being a teenage mom, usually the statistic is that it’ll happen to your children, possibly more so.”
Gary later spoke to Leah about the pill, and she assured him that she doesn’t plan to have sex anytime soon.
“I’m glad you have that mindset. Guys are sly. They’ll say certain things to make you feel special. You have to keep in mind, as you already are, that if you play, you pay,” he said. “Your mom, she was 17. She was out of high school because she stopped going.”
The reality star then advised his daughter to “be smart.” She replied, “I’m not that person. I’m not going to do that; you don’t have to worry about that.”
The conversation ended with Gary encouraging Leah to talk to Kristina when she feels she’s ready to have sex.
“Conversations about our bodies and sexual things and things like that is always awkward and probably a little bit uncomfortable,” Leah said in a confessional. “You have to have enough trust built up to be able to talk about those things, so I’m really lucky to have Kristina and my dad to talk to and to understand me.”
She added that she doesn’t think she will “ever be able to have a kid any time soon” and that “thinking about it is really stressful.”
“I have my own life right now. I have a chance to go to college, a good college if I want, to even have a good career,” the teen continued. “I want to be able to have a kid when I have a job and a future that I can look to and not be so young that I am strapped and deprived from that.”
Amber and Gary made their reality TV debut during season 1 of 16 and Pregnant when they were expecting Leah. The pair split in 2011, while Amber welcomed her son, James, with her then-boyfriend Andrew Glennonin 2018. Meanwhile, Gary married Kristina in 2015 and they welcomed their daughter, Emilee, that same year.
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