Tyler Baltierra recently opened up about the reason he believes that he and his wife Catelynn Lowell advocated so hard for adoption after placing their daughter Carly for adoption in 2009.
The Teen Mom star— who has become increasingly more-critical of adoption in recent years— revealed on a recent episode of the Keeping Your Power: Real Talk on Resilience podcast that he and Catelynn became very outspoken in favor of adoption because they were trying to come to terms with their decision to allow Carly to be adopted.
“ … It’s almost like your brain’s trying to heal and make sense of this pain, so what do you do?” Tyler said. “You advocate and talk about how great [adoption] is and this is beautiful … .”
In the years following Carly’s adoption, Cate and Ty were proponents of adoption, doing speaking engagements around the country about the topic and discussing their decision on various ‘Teen Mom’ shows, as well as talk shows.
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The couple’s stance on adoption has drastically changed since then, especially since Carly’s parents, Brandon and Teresa Davis, decided to cut off contact with them last year. Since then, Catelynn and Tyler have been outspoken against adoption.
“How you even begin to heal yourself with that kind of guilt?” Tyler said. “We look back on it now, as adults, and it was actually just tears, we were crying for help,” he said.
“Because I don’t care how much planning you have,” he continued. “I don’t care how many times you hung out with the adoptive family. You can be ‘prepared’ as much as you want, but the feeling to fight that organic, natural parental instinct is fighting against nature.”
While Tyler’s feelings about adoption have changed, he still maintains that discussing their adoption on ‘Teen Mom’ was actually beneficial to him and Catelynn.
“ … Me and Cate say it all the time that, you know, the show really [helped], because they can’t film you just watching TV and stuff like that,” he said. “You have to talk about stuff. So … I think the show actually helped us talk out loud [about] how we were feeling in real time.”
Tyler went on to note that the kind of conversations he and Cate had on-camera were often the ones they couldn’t have with their parents or adoption counselor.
He also recalled how those conversations would go when they would have them with other people.
“It was always a but, like we would say, ‘It was really hard, but [Carly] has such a great life, and it was devastating and sad but … ,’ and it’s like we were trying to make sense of the pain,” he explained. “It took years of therapy for us to even get to the point where our therapist was like, ‘Stop saying but.’”
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Despite seemingly acknowledging earlier in the podcast that the adoption process was what provided “a great life” for Carly, Tyler spoke favorably of the idea of all children being raised by their biological parents/families.
“ … I want to get to a point where adoption is not necessary,” he said. “[Where] we don’t need it because we as a human species take care of our people and adoption wouldn’t be necessary if that was the case, in my opinion.”
Watch a clip from Tyler’s podcast appearance below.
(Photos: MTV; Instagram)
32 Responses
From “crying for help” to “crying for attention” 24/7.
Seems like Tyler and Cate have found a way to keep MTV interested them with this “storyline” of regretting the adoption and criticizing the adoption process. They bring nothing to table for their kids…no jobs, no skills, no advanced education. Without MTV continuing to film them they would have nothing except their boring podcast. They’re exploiting their failed relationship with Teresa and Brandon. They have no ownership of the embarassment they have caused their teenage daughter Carly…instead of listening to the adoptive parents who asked for privacy for Carly, what they got were angry social media tantrums from them that further embarassed Carly and jeopardized their relationship even more. Exploiting all of this family drama online and in podcasts is disgusting and selfish. Both Tyler and Cate are pathtic excuses for parents.
YES! Exactly!
These two should not have made it past their one episode. All the “fame” has done is prevent them from getting real life skills, getting jobs, and moving on. Now we have a couple of 35 year olds who can’t earn a paycheck outside from exploiting Carly and her adoptive parents on MTV. Cut these fools off now and have them learn to adult outside of therapy pigs, therapy horses, and therapy in general.
They should read some of the posts about Jenelle’s children, all being raised by bio families.
Adoption was the right choice for Cate and Tyler at the time. They were bringing a child into a completely unstable and volatile situation with both parents being addicts and abusers and in and out of jail. They should have done a regular closed adoption so that Carly could grow up and at 18 she could find them if she wanted to. Cate and Tyler are statistical anomalies because they managed to stay together and get married and have more children together. In most teen pregnancy situations, that just doesn’t happen. Not a single one of the Teen Mom’s are with the fathers of their children. Cate and Ty are the only ones to have stayed together. With this open adoption, it kept them from healing and as they matured and got married and built a life with their other kids, they naturally want Carly back to complete their family. Every yearly visit or picture or contact that they made with her only ripped their wounds open again so they could never heal from the trauma of being 16 and giving away their baby. Had they had a closed adoption, they wouldn’t have that constant contact and they would be forced to move forward. All they do now is pine away for a little girl who isn’t theirs. If she wants to see them when she is 18, then fine. If she doesn’t, then they have to be ok with that.
You hit the nail on the head. I’m a birth mother myself who did a semi open adoption. My son found me when he was 18 and we’ve gotten quite close. We aren’t the norm, and I myself wouldn’t have been able to heal if we had done a fully open one.
Has Tyler forgotten that he was the one who pushed hard for the adoption?!
I am adopted. If I ever saw my bio parents on tv and read about them in articles like this I swear to you all I would never never never connect with them. Cate and Tyler are creepy and terrifying. They do not hold themselves accountable for their feelings and insist on spewing them onto everyone else.
Yeah. It is creepy. I don’t have an adopted child and I wasn’t adopted myself, but this is so awful for Carly and her parents. I cannot even imagine. It’s like Cate And Tyler see her like a bag of Doritos. You have some and the next person gets them and you take them back. They don’t understand that Brandon and Theresa are her parents, not them.
This is what happens in a society where people pay to watch drama. I believe both Cate and Ty have creativity and talents that they could be using to support their family but instead are doing what they have been taught, make money by creating drama.
I have never heard them take accountability for making an adult choice as a child (having sex) and then having to face adult consequences. No one forced them to have sex.. Nor do I hear them advocate for waiting until marriage to be intimate. Might make more of an impact than the path they are going on.
At this point, I think they are honestly just trying to ride out the money wave because Teen Mom is waaaay over due to be cancelled.
I actually think they would have made decent parents at age 16, especially with MTV money but that was not the choice THEY made, they made the choice to be intimate and they made the choice for adoption. Carly is really blessed to have such wonderful adoptive parents.
Both Cate and Ty’s therapist and everyone giving them an outlet to complain, need to stop if they truly want to help them grow.
I wish them the best.
They likes adoption at first because they treated it as Brandon and Theresa were simply babysitting for them. It wasn’t until they put their foot down as parents and enforced the adoption agreement EVERYONE signed, adoption didn’t work anymore.
And adoption “isn’t necessary”… yeah gee because Carly would’ve had such a great life with two teen parents and Grandpa in and out of jail for fighting and beating Grandma…
Exactly. And most likely Catelyn and Tyler would have had minimum wage jobs, which is very difficult to survive on just for yourself (not to mention a baby).
Would they have attended college if they didnt have the MTV money? Maybe, who knows. But it still would have been a struggle for those few years.
He is still so very out of touch with reality.
Adoption will always be necessary as it has always been necessary since the dawn of mankind, in some form or another. There are numerous reasons why adoption is necessary, and it’s NOT all or even mostly evil-which is the picture these two so often paint. There are both negatives and positives with adoption, however, in MOST cases, the positives far outweigh and outnumber the negatives. The most common reason why some find more negative association is because they, themselves, didn’t put in the work to reduce, deal with, or even remotely understand their own emotions, their own involvement with the process(es), how it might potentially affect them, etc….but just want(ed) to wallow in the pain they feel and not climb back out of it to see there even is another side. They got themselves stuck, and they still are stuck. Their therapist told them to stop saying but because their therapist knew what most humans know, it’s unnecessary. Both things can be true, it was a painful process for them AND Carly has a great life. Those are two separate statements, not one singular statement with a huge but in the middle.
We live in an age where information is literally available at your fingertips (as it was even when they were teens, let’s not forget this, they weren’t teens in the 70s, 80s or 90s without internet access). You’ve only yourself to blame when you don’t seek out the information you need. Now, of course, teens are less likely to know exactly what information they need, but they are MORE likely to seek out information in general than most grown adults. Why is that? Because they have grown up with the internet being their source for all things they don’t know. These two did little to nothing to help themselves throughout this entire process, before, during or even after (unless they could make money off it). The process was always going to bring about numerous emotions, some at the drop of a hat for seemingly no reason at all. It was always going to bring about questions that definitely need answers, and some that may never have answers. But the ability to get information, to get help for themselves, to deal with how everything affected them has always been there at their fingertips…they simply chose not to engage it properly.
Now they’re suffering with the consequences of their choices. I don’t mean their choice to put a child up for adoption, as that was the absolute best choice for them and more importantly, for her. But their choices since have all been half-assed, at best, have lost them all contact which they were once graced with, and have turned them into horrible people. Their children will one day see how horrible they behaved throughout Carly’s entire life as a child…we can’t ignore this, it’s important. They aren’t advocates for anything positive and they never have been, they’ve been perfect examples of exactly how not to behave, exactly how not to treat a child you chose to give up (and her family) and exactly how to alienate the rest of your children (subtly or not so)because they aren’t her. FFS these two really need to just read the room already.
Jesus Christ Leah! Do these two incest bumpkins EVER stop feeling sorry for themselves??? Seriously, it’s boring and tripe. Stfu, grow up, move on
trite*
It was the stupid Batman thing that I always thought he needed to dial back.
Seriously though, I still find that pic of them holding Carly right before the hand to be super sad.
*hand-off
Imagine being the kids they kept and having to live in this shadow. Adoption is their entire personality
Does the pity party ever get old ? It’s been 16 years . We all have trauma at some point it’s your job to take care of it
Welp, catelynn should’ve listened to mom. Say what you want about Butch and April, but they did everything in their power to give them an out. They even refused to sign the paperwork forcing them to bring the baby off hospital property in order to do the hand off and they could’ve changed their mind at any time.
No she shouldn’t. If MTV didn’t pick them for Teen Mom they would still be living in a trailer park with their junkie parents, probably broken up. Carly would have been raised in that mess.
Butch and April were terrible, unstable, negligent parents and abusive addicts at the time. All they had was words. Horrible words they hurled at their teenage children who were desperate to find a safe home for their baby. If either of them had been an even half decent parent doing the bare minimum then maybe Catelynn could’ve kept her baby like they claimed to want her to. I think it’s important to allow for the very likely possibility that Cate was abused in her mother’s home in ways that have never been talked about publicly. The kind of men addicts bring around their children. There was a reason Catelynn gave her daughter to the first responsible adults she could find.
If they didn’t put that kid up for adoption, she would be living a poverty stricken life with Butch the convict and April the druggie as grandparents. They would have have NOTHING. The only reason these two got ANYWHERE is because of MTV money.
That’s a lot of words for the person who said “if you don’t put the baby up for adoption I’ll dump you”
That’s true too. And Tyler’s mother, as soon as the baby was adopted and gone (as she wanted her to be) she put Catelynn out of her house. Nobody was interested in Catelynn beyond manipulating her to do what they wanted her to.
I can’t even begin to imagine the hurt feelings of the 3 Not-Carly’s.
If you regret your decision, seek extensive therapy and move on. It’s been almost 16 years and you had 3 more kids while the kid you gave up had a loving family and a good life. Now stop harassing her and her parents and man up.
Didn’t even bother reading the article yet because the headline is enough. These two haven’t healed at all. If anything, they’ve gotten worse over the years.
… yeah…
They seem really healed. They really broke the dysfunction cycle.
Sure.
The problem is that they talked about adoption. The problem is that they won’t stop talking about even to the point where it’s harming their biological child and the children they raised.
Maybe they wouldn’t have stalked Carly and her friends if they weren’t on TV, but maybe not.