Tyler Baltierra Says Fathers Should Have ‘No Say’ In Abortion And Adoption Decisions
When we first met Tyler Baltierra back on 16 and Pregnant, he was a teenage boy with a pregnant girlfriend trying to figure out what was the right thing for them to do. Ultimately, he and Catelynn Lowell decided that the best option was to give their daughter up for adoption, and we watched how their story continued to play out on Teen Mom. Now, in a recent interview, Tyler has opened up more about his thoughts on the role a father should play in the decision between adoption, abortion, or parenting — and that it should primarily just be support.
While talking with Kate Casey for her podcast Reality Life with Kate Casey, she asked him, “Can you tell me about what that’s like to be the father and how you can cope with it?” She continued, “I feel like your side of the story is not often told, which is that of a father when a child’s given up for adoption. We so often focus on the woman that’s given up the baby for adoption.” Instead, she wanted to hear about the other side of that story — and how Tyler felt as someone who’s been in that situation.
“Well, my personal opinion is that I really feel that when it comes to women bearing children, carrying children, whatever, that really us men need to keep our mouths shut, because we know nothing about it,” Tyler answered. “Our bodies weren’t meant to do that so I feel like it’s kinda pointless to even have opinions about it or make kind of passionate arguments or debates about it. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect the men that are involved.”
He went on to discuss his situation in particular and how it felt going through what he and Catelynn did with giving up Carly. “When it was my situation, I just felt like an immediate attraction. You know, I think a lot of guys would’ve either ran off or let the woman do it on their own, but I felt very compelled,” he shared. “And I just felt kind of just passionate to stay there and kind of help Cate, you know, and just be with each other. I mean, because, I think it’s also really unfair for women to be alone by themselves during that traumatic kind of experience. They need someone else — not necessarily a mom or grandma but someone that’s like, no, this is your baby, too.”
Over the years, the Teen Mom OG stars have gone out of their way to support each other during trying times. And that’s what they did back in the day, too. “[It’s] like a traumatic loss,” he explained.” We’re both experiencing the same thing. So I felt very compelled to be there… If the woman wants to terminate her pregnancy or place the baby for adoption or parent or whatever, that really honestly in my opinion has nothing to do with the guy. The guy has no say.”
What the guy should be doing, he thinks, is listening — and being there for the mother. “He’s going to have to just go along with what the woman decides to do because he is not the one that has to carry that child and, you know, go through the birthing process and all that stuff,” he continued. “It’s really not his right to say anything. I think the only job for the man is just to support the mother of his child regardless of whatever happens.”
Ultimatey, he put it pretty simply: “I think it’s a man’s job to stand by the woman and I think it’s the woman’s job to do whatever’s right for her.”
That’s something the family has been practicing for a long time — and the same way they handled Cate’s miscarriage earlier in the year. “It was very emotionally intense for me,” he said, revealing to Kate that he cried every day that Cate was in treatment. “I mean my first initial reaction was just to kind of help Kate… I just kind of like ran to her, held her. We cried and we just kind of like held each other for probably two hours… That was our kind of way of just letting go and just accepting reality for kind of what it is… As far as a man’s perspective, I can’t necesarily say it’s as hard as what women go through, but, I mean, it’s devastating.”
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