Amber Portwood probably won’t be winning any Mom of the Year awards anytime soon.
Attacking your baby daddy with a machete while he’s holding your infant son kinda takes you our of the running for such honors.
But to her credit, it seems that these days, Amber is at least trying to improve her relationship with her children.
And while there have been some setbacks over the past year, it seems that Amber’s efforts to rebuild trust with her 13-year-old daughter Leah have been mostly successful.
Portwood opened up about these efforts in a new interview with Hollywood Life.
“Honestly, when it comes to me and [Leah], I did exactly what I thought I needed to do, which was give her space so she could understand what she was kind of like feeling and understand the emotions that she had though because she was obviously she’s getting older,” Amber told the outlet.
“I can say very happily that giving her the space […] and some people might not understand why that was the best thing that I ever could do because we actually talk now and she sees a brother all the time and that’s exactly what I wanted,” Portwood continued.
“She’s hugging me [and it’s just] a completely different dynamic than what you guys saw last season on OG […] where it was just kind of leaving the house and not saying anything. And that is how we’re starting to grow a little bit.”
As viewers know, Amber clashed with Leah’s father, Gary Shirley, several times over the course of the previous season.
Most of their arguments involved Leah in some way.
Amber says the situation improved once she decided to ease up a bit and stop trying to “push” herself into Leah and Gary’s home life.
“It’s great right now. Honestly, I can’t ask for anything more,” she told Hollywood Life.
These comments echo sentiments that Amber expressed to Page Six in November of last year.
“I don’t want to mess anything up, but [things are] good,” Amber told the outlet.
“She’s reaching [out] and I am [so excited]. My arms are up and open.”
Apparently, Leah has been asking Amber about her troubled past, and while this has no doubt led to some difficult conversations, Amber says she’s been 100 percent honest with her eldest child.
“She’s been asking questions. I’ve always told her the truth, as much as I could for her age,” Portwood explained.
“As she’s gotten older, she’s learned more. With her age right now, she’s kind of like, ‘Well, I don’t like that attitude or behavior. I’m not like that,’” she continued.
“I think she has every right to be mad at me for a lot of things. I let her feel her emotions and I understand that.”
Amber’s acts of violence and other abusive behaviors were appalling at the time, and they look even worse in retrospect.
The fact that she still has a job is astonishing, as Teen Mom OG fans have been calling for Portwood to be fired for years.
We can only imagine how Leah feels when she hears about these incidents, or worse, watches the footage captured by MTV camera crews.
Fortunately for Amber, it sounds like her daughter is the forgiving type.
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