Children sometimes ask tough questions. So when Kailyn Lowry’s son Isaac asked her, “What is love,” she was inspired to write her first children’s book, Love Is Bubblegum.
“I thought, ‘This might be a good concept story for a children’s book, so that’s when I took it and ran with it,” the Teen Mom 2 star, 23, tells Us Weekly. Lowry then collected kids’ cute explanations of love, which illustrator Fuuji Takashi translated into adorable, colorful drawings. The artist also illustrated the cover, which Lowry is sharing exclusively with Us.
As for what Isaac, 5, thinks love is? “He’s like, ‘I love when I pet my dog Gizmo,’” Lowry revealed. Awwww!
But it wasn’t all adorable explanations of the sometimes tricky subject matter. “One of the kids in the book had a really mature answer for their age, so I was just a little shocked by that,” Lowry says.
The mom of two — she also has son Lincoln, 20 months, with husband Javi Marroquin — knows that some fans of Teen Mom 2 may be wondering how she could be qualified to write a book about love. After all, her relationship with ex-boyfriend Jo Rivera — Isaac’s father — didn’t last, and the show is revealing serious trouble in her marriage this season.
“My haters … they are going to be questioning the title and how can I explain love to a little one or my kids when I don’t even display love for my husband on the show,” Lowry acknowledges. “My kids were and are my first true loves. I never really knew what it was like to love somebody unconditionally until I had my kids.”
And though Teen Mom 2 shows an incredibly rough period for Lowry and Marroquin, who married in September 2012, the young author, who also penned her memoir, Pride Over Pity, says her marriage is much better now.
“We’ve been really, really good,” Lowry, whom Marroquin had suspected of cheating, tells Us. “Javi sat me down one day and he was like, ‘I can’t believe we were ever in that place. I cannot believe we fought about somebody from school texting you!’”
She says she’s also hoping for her marriage to continue to improve. “Javi and I will just continue to get better and display the right things about love to both the boys.”
Love Is Bubblegum will be in stores on Nov. 17 (available to pre-order now). Teen Mom 2 airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on MTV.
