Maci Bookout is not happy with ex Ryan Edwards‘ parents. The Teen Mom OG star vented to husband Taylor McKinney in a sneak peek of Monday’s episode after Edwards’ parents put ideas about private school into her son Bentley’s head without consulting her about it.
Click here to watch the sneak peek.
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McKinney was also confused when he found out that Bentley, 10, is bringing up private school just a few short years before starting middle school.
“What’s wrong with public school, though?” McKinney, 29, asks Bookout, 27.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with public school,” she replies.
“He’s just fixated on it right now. For him right now, he really doesn’t understand what private school is. I Think it’s like a materialistic thing to him. It’s like getting a new pair of baseball cleats,” he says.
Bookout agrees. “It’s almost like he thinks because you have to pay for it, it’s special,” she says, going on to explain that she thinks public school is best for him, especially considering the way he’s grown up.
“Part of me thinks that, just for the fact that Bentley has grown up in an odd family situation and on TV, public school is better for him [because] he gets exposed to a lot of different walks of life than his. I don’t want Bentley to think he is on a pedestal or belongs on one, being on TV,” she explains. “He just expects when he wants something, at Jen and Larry’s [Edwards], he gets it.”
Bookout and McKinney, who share 3-year-old Jade and 2-year-old Maverick, also worry that if they send Bentley to private school, they’d also need to consider it for their other children — which comes with a hefty price tag.
“It’s at least $25,000 a year, and then let’s go ahead and pay the same, if not more, for high school too,” Maci says. “It’s like paying for eight years of college.”
“It’s ridiculous that we’re having to have this conversation,” McKinney says, to which Bookout agrees: “It’s ridiculous.”
On last week’s episode of Teen Mom OG, Bookout learned of Edwards’ latest arrest — and was not terribly surprised. She was helping Bentley with his homework when she received a text message saying her ex had been arrested for violating probation on an earlier charge of heroin possession.
Edwards had attended rehab briefly in 2017 and claimed to Bookout that he was sober throughout the previous season of Teen Mom, despite the fact that he wouldn’t take a drug test in order to see Bentley.
When asked if she would tell Bentley about the latest development, Bookout said, “He knows that if we say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to talk to you about some stuff that’s going on with your dad,’ he definitely knows what’s coming after that.”
“I definitely hurt for him,” McKinney said. “He’s only 9, he shouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of things. But Maci’s made it very clear, she’s not going to lie to him either.”
Following the March taping of last week’s episode, Edwards was arrested once again in July 2018 for another probation violation. He is now reportedly attending another rehab program in Alabama, but took a break from it to visit wife Mackenzie Standifer after she gave birth to their son, Jagger, earlier this month.
Teen Mom OG airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.
