Photo: Maci Bookout McKinney/Instagram
Maci Bookoutis loving the stage of motherhood that she’s in.
Speaking with PEOPLE about her life and what fans can expect fromTeen Mom: Next Chapter, the mom of three, 31, celebrated that her kids are “all in a really fun stage right now.”
“Jade is 7 and Maverick is 6, second grade and first grade, so they’re really getting into the groove of who they are in school, in sports and with their friends,” she says. “They’re becoming older and growing into the actual humans and personalities that they have.”
“Teenage years are an absolute blast and they are an absolute struggle,” Bookout says. “It is difficult because it’s gotten to the stage where he wants to make his own decisions and deal with the consequences of those.”
As a mom who remembers her own teen years clearly, Bookout says she finds herself “biting my tongue all the time.”
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“I’m like ‘Maci, you just have to let him like just let him do it,’ " she says. “Even though you know it’s totally not going to work out, you just gotta let him learn.”
Admitting that “it’s a struggle,” Bookout is learning that “parenting is hard in general but teenage years are fun but they’re tough.”
“As he’s gotten older, obviously sharing things that are personal to him, is always been under the same set of boundaries. If he doesn’t want to film — or Jade or Maverick — then they don’t film. If they don’t want even to put a microphone on, they don’t put a microphone on.”
“There’s always a conversation that I have with them before we film it to see if they’re okay with it,” she continues. “And then again, with a producer too, to find out ‘What’s off limits? What are you good with if you’re good with, if anything at all?'”
PHOTO: Maci Bookout McKinney/InstagramPHOTO: Maci Bookout/Instagram
“I think, first and foremost, it took the good to get here and took the struggles to get here,” she says, noting that it also “took a lot of the viewers to get here.”
Bookout explains that fan feedback throughout her time on16 & PregnantandTeen Momhas meant a lot to her.
“Hearing viewers’ feedback and them sharing their stories and experiences, it doesn’t go unnoticed,” she says.
“Sometimes, if I’m sharing something that is raw and real and making me feel very vulnerable, knowing that they’re watching and they’re able to relate — and they share their stories with me — I also then feel like, ‘Oh man, I’m not alone,’ " she says. “I very much appreciate the give-and-take relationship that I have with the viewers.”
source: people.com
