During the current season of Teen Mom OG, fans have watched as Bentley, son of Maci Bookout and Ryan Edwards, has struggled with his relationship with his father.
In an earlier episode, Bentley expressed the desire to go to therapy with his father. During their first session, the therapist felt that he needed to see Bentley one on one for a few visits before he introduced Ryan to the mix.
Ryan has failed to step up and be there for Bentley, which has frustrated Maci. After Bentley’s first therapy session, he told his therapist that he felt neglected by his father, which broke Maci’s heart.
On last week’s episode of Teen Mom OG, Ryan’s mother Jen Edwards called to invite Bentley to his brother Jagger’s birthday party. Jagger is the son of Ryan and his wife Mackenzie Edwards.
While Bentley has said he didn’t want to be around Ryan until they had gone to therapy together, he did want to be there for his brother’s actual birthday and was more comfortable because it was going to be at his grandparents’ house.
Jen then sent a text message to Maci to let her know that she misspoke and the party would be at Ryan and Mackenzie’s home instead. Maci felt the news would make Bentley uncomfortable as his grandparents home was a more neutral location for him.
When Maci decided to break the news to Bentley in a sneak peek of tonight’s new episode, he had a change of heart with his plans.
Bentley cancels the birthday party plans
During the sneak peek, Maci and her husband Taylor went to Bentley’s room to break the news to him. They explained that the party that was on Jagger’s actual birthday, which he originally planned to attend, was not going to be at his grandparents but at Ryan and Mackenzie’s instead.
Bentley told them he didn’t want to go to his father’s house. He said, “I haven’t seen him in forever and then, like, that’ll just be a big jump from just like not seeing him and then going like straight to his house.”
Bentley then called Jen and let her know he would not be going to the party on Jagger’s actual birthday but would go to the one at their house two days later instead.
Bentley explained his reasoning and Jen said it was fine and that she loved him.
Jen and Larry feel they put too much pressure on Ryan
While Jen was kind to Bentley when he told her he wasn’t comfortable going to the party, she and her husband Larry Edwards have put a lot of the blame on Maci for Bentley’s decisions in the past.
During a recent episode of Teen Mom OG, they opened up about feeling bad for putting so much pressure on Ryan to be more involved with Bentley when he was incapable of taking care of himself at the time.
Fans have criticized Jen and Larry several times on social media for enabling Ryan and blaming Maci.
During an interview with InTouch, Maci said, “I have raised Bentley to be an individual, to be himself and it’s OK to feel however he feels. Honestly, I have no raised him to give anybody the ability or the power to influence him, not even me.”
As Bentley continues to advocate for himself and his feelings, it will be interesting to see how his grandparents and father react.
Teen Mom OG airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on MTV.