The franchise may be called Teen Mom — but nearly all of the original Teen Mom 2 cast members are now parents of teenagers themselves.
When the show premiered in 2011 — following the lives of four girls from 16 and Pregnant season 2 — no one, least of all the cast, could predict that their children would be growing up on television for more than a decade.
The original iteration of the show took MTV viewers behind the scenes of becoming a teenage parent. Though each cast member — Kailyn Lowry, Chelsea Houska, Leah Messer and Jenelle Evans — all lived in separate areas of the country and had different experiences with their children’s fathers, the foursome’s struggle was the same when it came to the difficulties of being a parent at such a young age.
In 2017, the cast grew with the addition of Briana DeJesus, who appeared on 16 and Pregnant season 3 — and, later, in the failed Teen Mom spinoff Teen Mom 3. She not only brought her own drama to the small screen, but also created a scandal within the cast when she began dating Javi Marroquin, Lowry’s ex-husband. (The two called it quits in January 2018, several months after making their relationship Instagram official.)
Jade Cline, for her part, rounded out the cast two years later, taking her story from Teen Mom: Young and Pregnant to Teen Mom 2.
Throughout the show’s 11-season run, the four original girls — Lowry, Houska, Messer and Evans — went on to expand their families.
Keep scrolling to see all of the Teen Mom 2 kids then and now: