So how great are all those guys on Teen Mom, huh?!
Such remarkable specimens of manhood, every one of them, filled to the brim with integrity, compassion, and grace.
… Wait, like 85% of them are completely terrible human beings?
Well, huh.
Sure, some of them baby daddies are awful, but some of the aren’t! Some of them are kind of OK, and a few are even great!
Check out our ranking of all the Teen Mom fellas, from best to worst.
And prepare to be amazed, as always, at the level of awfulness.
Cole DeBoer
Cole DeBoer is Chelsea Houska’s husband, and thank goodness for that. He’s a wonderful stepfather to Aubree (and he’s made it clear that he’s ready to adopt her if/when Adam gives up his parental rights for her like he did with his other child), he and Chelsea have two precious babies together and one on the way, and ever since he first came on the show, he’s been perfect.
Taylor McKinney
Taylor McKinney is Maci Bookout’s husband, and they share two children together, Jayde and Maverick — and they’re often talking about having more, whether it’s through more pregnancies or fostering and adoption. They’re also raising Bentley, the son Maci had with Ryan Edwards, and it’s safe to say that Taylor is doing all the heavy dad lifting there, too. Like, he coaches Bentley’s little league team, how sweet is that? And sure, Taylor drinks Bud Light like it’s water and he’s in a desert, but he’s an amazing father.
Jo Rivera
Jo Rivera is the father of Kailyn Lowry’s oldest son, Isaac, and he also shares a daughter named Vivi with his wife, Vee. Jo and Kailyn dated when they were teenagers, but it wasn’t long before they realized they were terrible together. They struggled with coparenting for a good few years, and sometimes they still struggle, but for the most part they’ve managed to put all their personal issues aside for the sake of Isaac. Also, Jo still lets Isaac hang out with Javi, his ex-stepdad, and how understanding is that? That’s something a good dad would do for sure.
Tyler Baltierra
Tyler Baltierra has been with Catelynn Lowell since they were 12 years old (yes, literally), and when she got pregnant at 16, they placed their daughter up for adoption. They’ve since had two more children, daughters Nova and Vaeda, and they’ve been through just a lot of stuff together. He can be pretty insensitive sometimes, but it’s clear that he loves being a father and spending time with his girls. You love to see it.
Gary Shirley
Let’s just say it: Gary was not great in the early days of Teen Mom. He never did anything to deserve being abused by Amber, to be clear, but he was kind of a jerk. Fortunately he’s matured a bit over the years, and he seems like a great father to Leah and Emilee, the daughter he shares with wife Kristina. And thank goodness for that, because Leah in particular needs a whole lot of stability with Amber for a mom.
Corey Simms
Corey Simms was married to Leah Messer, and they had twins Ali and Gracie. They got divorced when Leah couldn’t stay faithful to him (and also because they had twins and got married when they were teenagers), but Corey’s been a good father, and a good coparent with Leah. He’s just a good ol’ boy, y’all.
Andrew Glennon
Oh, Andrew … where do we begin? He loses points for his history of restraining orders, but the way he’s stepped up for baby James after Amber’s horrifying machete meltdown in July of 2019 is definitely commendable. Since the arrest, we’ve heard plenty of evidence that’s proved that she’d been abusing him for nearly a year before the July assault, and Andrew has said that she’d even been rough with James, too. It looks like he’s placing James’ safety and wellbeing above all else, and if that’s not being a good dad, what is?
Cory Wharton
Cory is newer to the Teen Mom franchise — he’s Cheyenne Floyd’s former boyfriend and the father of their daughter, Ryder. He also has a baby named Mila with his current girlfriend, Taylor Selfridge. We may not know as much about him as the other guys because he simply hasn’t been around as long, but so far he seems like a pretty solid guy, right? He gets along fine with Cheyenne, he’s an active father to Ryder and Mila… good job, Cory!
Jeremy Calvert
Jeremy Calvert was married to Leah Messer, and they share one daughter, Addie. Jeremy runs his mouth a lot and says lots of ignorant things, but this is less of a list about who these guys are as people and more about who they are as fathers and partners, and it seems like he’s stepped up his game in those areas. There are the constant rumors and he and Leah are back together, and while we don’t know about that, we know that they are definitely getting along, and he’s also definitely been spending more time with Addie than he has in the past.
Javi Marroquin
Javi Marroquin was married to Kailyn Lowry, and they share one son together, Lincoln. Javi was also a pretty great stepdad to Kailyn’s first son, Isaac, and now he has another son with his fiancee, Lauren. His issue is not so much with being a good dad as it is about being a good romantic partner — he was controlling with Kailyn, super weird with Briana, he cheated on Lauren and said on the show that she was his second choice to Briana and it’s even come out that he was juggling all three of those ladies at the same time. On top of that, Kailyn has said that Javi tries to hook up with her whenever he’s in her town. So yeah, pretty solid dad, but as a boyfriend? Nope.
Simon Saran
Simon Sarah was the most serious boyfriend Farrah ever had on the show, so he’s kind of awful by association, right? Sure, he called her out on her nonsense from time to time, and he was fun to watch on the show, but we wouldn’t call him a good guy or anything.
Josh McKee
Josh is Mackenzie’s husband and … ugh. She supposedly left him after she found out he was talking to her cousin behind her back after her mother passed away, but they’ve been spending a lot of time together and it does seem like they’re back together. Even before the sketchy cousin business, she left him because he’d cheated on her. She’s also admitted to being really awful towards him. But she does say he’s a good dad, and she’s recently hinted that that’s why she’s taken him back again.
Devoin Austin
Devoin is Briana DeJesus’ ex-boyfriend and the father of her oldest daughter, Nova. And boy, do they have their issues. For a long time there, Briana would complain about how he never spent any time with Nova, but she also refused to let him see her anywhere that wasn’t her living room. And when she finally agreed to let him take her to stay with him, he took her to a pool then got drunk while she was playing in the water, which understandably upset Briana a lot. But while that wasn’t great, we’ve learned from a social media fight between these two that Devoin actually spends more time with Nova during the week than Briana does, and that Briana wants it to look like he doesn’t come around while she’s filming the show, which is obviously shady on her part. So yeah, there are issues, but Devoin really does seem to be trying, so that’s neat.
Jason Jordan
Leah dated this guy, Jason Jordan, twice — and it didn’t work out either time. At first he seemed all right. He was a bit older than her, but that meant he was more mature, right, so he would be a better fit for Leah and her three children? Not so much. It turned out that he gave her daughers the creeps, and when he got too controlling, Leah gave him the boot. Not a great boyfriend, and thankfully not around long enough to see what kind of father he would be.
Kieffer Delp
It would be totally inconceivable and morally wrong if we did any sort of comprehensive post about Teen Mom dudes and didn’t mention KIEFFAH. This guy was Jenelle Evans’ first real boyfriend on Teen Mom 2, and … wow. With Kieffer at her side, Jenelle started partying harder, she stole her mother’s credit card, and she started doing heroin. He’s no gem, but he’s definitely not the worst of Jenelle’s love interests.
Luis Miguel
Luis is the father of Briana’s second daughter, Stella, and she didn’t date him so much as she hooked up with him in a club, got pregnant, then half-heartedly dated him for a few months before deciding to cut him loose. He doesn’t really see Stella much at all, but he has started sending Briana around $200 a week for her, which is more than many of these dads do.
Sean Austin
Sean Austin is Jade Cline’s boyfriend and the father of her daughter, Kloie. They weren’t together for a while after Kloie was born because of his drug use, and judging from some scenes from Teen Mom 2 things got super bad for them, but Jade has since said that Sean’s turned things around in a major way. They’re back together, and she says he’s a great dad now, so … yay?
Andrew Lewis
Aww, look, it’s Andrew “Who?” Lewis! Andrew, in case you missed it, was Jenelle Evans’ boyfriend back in the day, and a paternity test proved that he’s the father of her oldest child, Jace. He’s such a weird, creepy dude, but he did sign over his parental rights, so at least he’s not all up in Jace’s life, corrupting the hell out of him. If only we could say the same for Jenelle …
Matt Baier
Hey, it’s gross old Matt Baier, Amber Portwood’s ex-boyfriend and Deadbeat Dad Extraordinaire! Matt creeped his way into Amber’s life after hitting on a few other Teen Moms, and he brought along his shady past, including numerous children that he helped bring into the world before completely abandoning them. If you’re wondering why Matt isn’t lower on the list, it’s because he was pretty OK to Amber’s daughter, Leah.
Chris Lopez
Chris Lopez is the father of Kailyn’s third son, Lux, as well as her new baby, Creed,` and he’s also dated her at least a couple times. Their relationship history is so messy, it’s hard to really make any kind of judgement about it, you know? She’s claimed that he was abusive and a deadbeat dad, he’s claimed that she lies about him and she was also recently arrested for allegedly assaulting him. She says that he rarely sees the boys and doesn’t even send her money for diapers, but again, he says she lies. Either way, this is terrible for the kids, so we can’t put him too high on the list, can we?
Nathan Griffith
Nathan Griffith was once engaged to Jenelle Evans, and he’s the father of her second child, Kaiser. He can come across as kind of likable on the show, but make no mistake, he’s got a whoooole lot of issues. He has a handful of DUIs, he’s been accused of domestic violence more than once, and he could stand to be a little more active in Kaiser’s life — like, maybe he could just even live in the same state. He also gave up on going for custody of Kaiser even after claiming that David abuses him, which is remarkably disappointing.
Ryan Edwards
We’re getting down to the bottom of the barrel here, friends. Ryan is just not great in any capacity. He’s father to Bentley, the son he shares with Maci, and Jagger and Stella, the kids he shares with Mackenzie Standifer. Unfortunately, instead of being an active father to his children or a doting husband to Mackenzie, he usually just gets arrested then goes to rehab. He’s struggled with a bad heroin addiction for at least a few of years now, and although his family has been insisting he’s clean, not everyone believes that that’s true.
David Eason
If you just felt a wave of nausea, don’t worry: it’s not food poisoning, it’s not morning sickness, it’s just David Eason! David’s the father of Jenelle Evans’ third kid, and there’s not enough time in the day to count all the ways in which he’s a terrible partner and father. He killed Jenelle’s dog and we’ve heard her claim multiple times that he’s abusive, Nathan swears he’s been abusive towards Kaiser, his ex claimed in court that he was violent with her while she was pregnant with their son, we’ve heard recordings of him being absolutely awful to his older daughter, Maryssa, while she cried about being scared of him … it’s all awful, every single bit of it.
Adam Lind
… But Adam is still THE WORST. He’s been arrested about a billion times for things like DUIs and domestic violence and failure to pay child support. He had a court-ordered drug test and failed it because he had a “substantial amount” of meth in his system. He gave up his parental rights to Paislee, he daughter he shared with girlfriend Taylor Halbur, and although he’s still Aubree’s dad, he’s only allowed to see her at a visitation center — he usually skips out on those visits though. There really isn’t one single redeemable thing about him, as a father or as a boyfriend, and that’s sad.