Teen Mom star and adoption critic Tyler Baltierra is offering his advice to anyone considering the same path he and wife Catelynn Lowell took in 2009 when they placed their biological daughter Carly with her parents, Brandon and Teresa Davis.
On this week’s episode of The Southern Tea Podcast, Tyler suggested to listeners an alternative option to adoption, citing his and Cate’s own negative experience with the adoption system.
“There are other things besides adoption,” Tyler told host Lindsie Chrisley. “You could do guardianship. Adoption is not really necessary.”
According to Adoption.com, in order to adopt a child, the child’s biological parents must have their parental rights terminated– either voluntarily or involuntarily– but in a guardianship, biological parents still maintain parental rights of the child. (Guardianship does, however, give someone other than the biological parents the ability to make legal decisions for the child on a temporary basis.)
Adoption is also a permanent and legal action, whereas guardianship is temporary.
As fans of ‘Teen Mom’ know, Cate revealed in 2024 that Brandon and Teresa had cut her and Tyler off and closed Carly’s adoption. Since then, Cate and Tyler have seemingly become more critical of the concept of adoption as a whole, with Tyler reiterating on Lindsie’s podcast this week that he “absolutely” would have “done it differently.”
“Anyone thinking about adoption, you need to get an attorney ASAP,” he said. “You need to get a private, separate attorney. Adoption is a legal process.”
Tyler also encouraged those considering guardianship to “get a lawyer ASAP,” before going on to further criticize adoption.
“ … think about not having a complete termination of rights and doing a guardianship or whatever because adoption is designed for a safe external care for a child,” he said. “It’s not designed for adults who dream of being a parent, in my opinion.”
As for the reservations he and Cate had about placing Carly for adoption back in 2009, Tyler claimed it was as if he and Cate were “fighting logic versus nature.”
“Being 16, you have everyone telling you you’re doing the right thing and it’s so sacrificial,” Tyler explained. “There’s just too much stuff about these adoption agencies that have come out about how manipulative and [the] coercions involved.”
As The Ashley told you earlier this week, Tyler also opened up on the podcast about the harsh criticism he and Cate have received for choosing to speak out against adoption in recent years, arguing that he and his wife are not given the same “grace” as their fellow cast members.
“I did not sign up to be ridiculed, judged, or criticized with such visceral cruelty,” he said. “That is not what I signed up for. I signed up to be transparent with my life. I think people need to humanize more reality TV stars.”
Click here to listen to Tyler’s interview on The Southern Tea Podcast.
RELATED STORY: Tyler Baltierra Talks About the Harsh Reaction He’s Received from ‘Teen Mom’ Fans Since Changing His Stance on Adoption: “It’s Unfair”
(Photos: Instagram; MTV)
36 Responses
Tyler is such a 🔔end.
The thing is, Cate and Ty have all this regret because of how their lives turned out, with all the fame and money and houses. They see the other teen moms from the show that kept their babies and they are now millionaires. BUT Cate and Ty were only selected for the show because they were choosing adoption 🤷🏽♀️MTV contacted the adoption agency directly, specifically looking for an adoption story for the show. No adoption, and MTV would have gone with another young couple, and Cate and Ty would likely still be living in the trailer park. Do they really believe that would have been best for Carly?? Cate with no job, living with drugged out Butch and her alcoholic mom, and Ty nowhere to be found because he would have ditched Cate in a hot minute.
This dude should be locked in an asylum. Both of them should. Take those kids away from them, and lock tylwr and Caitlin up and throw away the key. Their obsession is severely unhealthy. Disgusting abominations. Both of them.
I truly hate commenting on anything Catelynn and Tyler related because it makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I dont know what is so hard for them to understand! They both come across as dumber than a box of rocks, immature, and selfish.
Promoting “rent-a-baby” is so unbelievably irresponsible.
A child is not a toy you can just pass from pillar to post. They need stability, structure, reassurance.
I cannot imagine anyone with good intentions towards a child picking this option.
These idiots just prove how dumb they are every time they open their mouths. And still missing the big picture – it’s what’s best for child not them. So Tyler “if you don’t give the baby up for adoption I’ll break up with you” really needs to give it a rest and stfu.
Tyler and Catelynn keep harping on how adoption should be in the best interest of the child. What they really mean, however, is that it should be in the best interest of the birth parents. By all accounts, Carly is doing great! In my opinion, adoption was the best thing for her. She has stability and opportunities that she never would have had otherwise. Catelynn and Tyler are the ones who are unhappy with how the adoption played out. The people who told them that it takes a sacrificial love to place your child for adoption, weren’t wrong. Unfortunately, they aren’t capable of that, because they love themselves more than they love Carly. They cling to the bitter adoptees’ stories to justify their behavior, while discounting the voices of the happy well-adjusted adoptees by saying they are in the “fog.” This has never been about Carly. It has always been about Catelynn and Tyler.
Absolutely. It’s like they are angry that their child is happy and stable, with parents that love her. They didn’t want her to be happy because that means she prefers her parents to them, they would rather she were miserable and crying out to get away from her family and come and live with them in disfunction. As you say, it’s all about them, not Carly.
Will this guy ever stop?! I assume no…adoption is great if THE BIOLOGICAL PARENTS AREN’T NUTS! We saw the texts. All you did was brag about the lives your three daughters have been having without ever asking Carly how she is doing. You aren’t mad cuz you can’t pretend to be “parents” anymore, you are just mad cuz you lost access to your main cash cow. (Just like Rhine was always pushed in Maci’s story)
If Tyler is wanting to reflect on the last 16 years then I’ll join in.
I watch back the episode of Cate & Ty crying, promising they’ll make something of their lives and make Carly proud and they’ll study and become social workers. What really happened is they accepted being filmed sitting around for big, big bucks rather than keeping that promise to Carly and working their butts off to achieve.
What we see now is a guilty conscience mourning a life wasted and sold so cheap to the masses for D-list entertainment.
Such a damn shame.
Dont forget the public facing sex work, what every teen daughter dreams of for a father.
But they won’t talk about that! They’re losers!
Who would Tyler and Cate given guardianship to? None of their family were in a place to take care of Carly. Temporary guardianship is an insane expectation to put on strangers seeking to adopt. And are the guardians and the child just supposed to wait around until the birth parents decide to get it together? What if it takes years for the birth parents to find stability? Is Tyler suggesting a 10-year-old be taken from the guardians who have raised him his whole life and given to his birth parents? Has it even crossed Tyler’s mind that maybe he should learn basics about child development before declaring temporary guardianship to be the superior option to adoption?
speaking as a kid that had unofficial temp guardianship, thats exactly what tyler wants and i can personally attest to it being devastating. all the mental health and guilt issues adopted kids complain of having without ever getting away from the parents that abandoned you for years and expect gratefulness for them keeping you. never get the parents’ you deserve, no option of living a better life because the bar to get the kids back is lower than dirt. just a shrug and shut up.
Came here to say that.
April & Butch were absolute nos.
Ty’s mum (can’t think of her name) could barely afford to feed Catelynn most extra nights of the week, let alone a baby.
None of their extended family put their hand up to help. (Unlike Ashley Salazar – and Callie; who had extended family trying to help)
Adoption WAS 100% THE BEST OPTION FOR CARLY.
She is never going to speak to them again.
I was thinking the same thing because usually guardianship happens when the parents are unfit, but there is a chance they will get it together. And a lot of times its family who takes in the child, but they wanted to get Carly out of that environment so who were they going to sign her over to?
ok tyler, if guardianship is such great advice why didn’t you let butch and april have guardianship of carly or at least them adopt carly like they tried to do? at the end of the day, they’re both just mad that brandon & teresa won’t let them spam text them everyday and wanna act like they’re coparenting
And use B&T’s daughter as a prop. Brandon and Teresa are the only ones looking after CARLY’S best interests .
Oh he’s such an idiot. What a horrible, unstable place to deliberately put a child in because you want to have the option of deciding to parent if you somehow get your sh*t together, which you obviously won’t ever do. So selfish. And you just know that even if Carly had been placed under a guardianship they would have pretending that was best for her and kept her there, probably would have added some of the not-Carlys alongside her.
Here, raise this child for me. Do the hard baby stuff while I go have a fun teenager life and then when I’m ready to grow up I’ll rip this child from your arms.
-Tyler, basically.
Yes, people are going to be lining up around the block to essentially share custody of a child with strangers for an indeterminate length of time.
I saw a post once that questioned how Cate having been removed from her home pre-Carly (but still getting pregnant by Tyler) would have ended up playing out, and I’ve wondered about that since.
I’ve personally been curious as to what would have happened if Cate had been pregnant with a boy. Had they still gone through with the adoption (and gone on to have three girls) I could see him being (somehow) even worse now.
Tyler’s biggest addiction is to FAME. When this extremely long, reality show ends, he is going to be lost. I feel a bit bad for Cate but she has had so many great opportunities to get better.
Funny he didn’t want the responsibility then but now he wants to make decisions for someone else’s child. She is no longer their child. Why can’t they understand that? The adoptive parents should have closed the adoption years ago.
I’ve been largely silent on Cate and Ty’s very public opinions on Carly and adoption, but came here to say that Cate and Ty have completely forgotten where they came from if they are advising people to hire a private attorney before going the adoption route.
I work in the legal field. Attorney are billed out at an hourly rate – often $500/hour. Cate and Ty could never have afforded to hire an attorney at the place they were in when Carly was adopted. Which is a big part of the reason why they placed her to begin with. To give her a better life that they knew, at the time she was born, they couldn’t give.
They made that decision because of the circumstances, as they were, at that time. I genuinely feel that the majority of the hurt and regret they feel now is for the fact that they went on to star in Teen Mom and could have financially supported Carly. But that was luck and not something that is, in any way, the norm.
Imagine placing your baby for adoption because you had no money and knew you couldn’t support the baby – and then hitting the lottery 6 months later. I imagine that would be incredibly painful…to be young, broke, and in a living situation with a family that you KNEW wasn’t right, only to end up, no too long after, in a position where you could support yourself and the baby and get away from that unhealthy environment.
I feel for Cate and Ty in that sense. But advising to hire a lawyer is largely forgetting the major reason Carly was adopted – Cate and Ty were not in a place to be able to care for her. Tyler is giving advice that sounds great, but is entirely impractical.
You nailed it on the head 100%!
No, no. You cannot condemn the entire institution of adoption because as you’ve matured, you realize you could raise that child. Maybe now, yes. Then? No. Adoption makes beautiful families whole. This is so cringe worthy. Here’s a thought. Maybe B&T wanted to shield THEIR daughter, not yours, from the absolute sh*t show of reality TV and you not being able to keep your mouth shut.
Side note: didn’t Tyler and Caitlyn start their own podcast? Why is he bitching on someone else’s podcast?
Have either of them finished any goals they have set for themselves?
This is why society needs adaptation, so babies have alternatives to being raised by lazy tools.
So he’s admitting he just wanted some else to do all of the work while he retained parental rights? How very Tyler of him.
We did it Ty.
Sounds like you and Cate need REAL therapy. A therapist that really is able to help you accept the decision you make and help you grow. You’re still stuck in past. Carly is never going to want anything to do with y’all while you drag her parents. I’m sure she’ll watch the show if she hasn’t already, and feel sorry for y’all but also be very grateful she was able to have emotionally mature parents who knew how to care for her in peace and not raise her in chaos.
I will say he is probably reflecting a lot because the brain doesn’t finishinggrowng until mid 20s. Having FASD probably delayed that sum, plus his up bringing probably kept him from maturing, then constant living in past during their most traumatic experience that’s left them with a lot of regret and guilt is going to keep them there.
Their 3 daughters deserve to have healthy parents. They deserve to be treated with love and respect. They are the ones stuck with them. You’d think they’d get over it and just get their shit together for them since they are the daughters they do have, but they love their victim role.
He’s such a god damn selfish idiot.
He doesnt get that the needs if the kids (stability) come first.
NOT THE EFFING ADULT!
Selfish ass num-nut.
Seriously he’s turned into such a POS. He thought Brandon and Theresa were some kind of nannies that would raise Carly so him and Cate could come and go as they please and make decisions about her.
F*ck you Tyler and your pathetic wife. Thank God at least Carly has actual PARENTS. I pity the 3 girls you didn’t give up because they are stuck with you, pair of lazy losers
AMEN!!! If I could like this 400 times I would!
A) This is terrible advice
B) PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TYLER SHUT UP
Can it be outlawed for Tyler and Cate to have social media? It’s just so old. They’re like nails on a dang chalkboard.
Wow that sounds a little insensitive. It’s clear that they deeply love their 1st born and speaking online likely helps them manage with those difficult emotions. They also are showing their daughter that they still care about her and want to make sure she is reminded of that as they are both hoping she will want her own relationship with them once she turns 18.
Carly is not their daughter. Carly is Brandon and Teresa’s daughter. Tyler and Cate are just two weirdos who won’t stop talking about someone else’s child.
It is clear that they do *not* care about her.
If they truly cared about her, they’d respect the wishes of her *parents* and give her some privacy to live her life; they wouldn’t drag her name, incessantly and publicly, without her permission or consent. They are using her. Full stop.