Following her big fight with daughter Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird, Mama June begged for Dr. Ish‘s help during the June 23 episode of Mama June: Family Crisis. It was actually Doe Doe Shannon‘s idea for June to call Dr. Ish, so he could help her fix the divide within the family, but no one truly expected June to seek his guidance. Still, she did, and June’s family might now be better off because of it.
Dr. Ish told June he’d try and help her, but before meeting with her and her daughters together, he wanted to meet with her individually to see if she was truly ready to make some changes. So June called him on video and addressed her broken relationship with her four daughters. Dr. Ish told June, “Those young women have grown up right before your eyes and they’re about ready to make some grown-up decisions now. Cutting you out of their lives might be one of those decisions. If that’s the truth, if that’s where they are, you’re going to have to accept that.”
June then opened up about her 2019 arrest on drug possession charges, addiction struggles and giving up her parental rights to Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, saying, “To be honest, I can never really honestly make up for what I’ve done. I mean this is the truth – I can never make up for what I’ve done in the past. But that past doesn’t define who I am today. I want to be part of the girl’s life, I want the girls to be part of my present, I want the girls to be part of my future. I want to be there to see the grandkids grown up, I want to see Alana graduate, I want to see things that are going on in life.”
“Those young women deserve a better mom. Are you ready to be that?” Dr. Ish asked, to which June replied, “I’m not going to tell you I’m going to be the best mom because they don’t and I don’t come with an instruction manual. But I can be the best person that I can be for them and for myself.”
“A couple of things is going to have to happen. You’re going to have to be ready to finally take some accountability in a way that those girls can hear it, number one. And number two I’m going to need you to act like you actually give a damn. Can you do that?” Dr. Ish further asked her, and she said, “Oh yes, most definitely. If I didn’t give a s*** I wouldn’t have begged and said look I have no other choice but to please help me.”
“You sound like a mom today. A mom who wants their daughters back today. And my guess is your daughters want their mother back,” Dr. Ish told June as they came to the end of their video call. But what June didn’t know was that Dr. Ish planned to include more than just her daughters in his attempt at fixing her broken relationships.
Dr. Ish asked June, her daughters, and Doe Doe to all join him at a rental house nearby — he wanted them to all get together for an intense, full weekend of group therapy. But when he invited Doe Doe, he told her not to tell June that she was coming. He felt that it would be beneficial to have Doe Doe there at the start of the weekend, before he worked with June and her daughters more intimately.
So at the end of the episode, we saw Doe Doe arrive before June walked in. And when June saw her sister sitting down with Dr. Ish, she wasn’t thrilled. But to see what happens next, you’ll have to tune in next week!
Want more? New episodes of Mama June: Family Crisis air Fridays at 9pm on WE tv.