Kailyn Lowry was just 17 years old when she and her high school boyfriend Joe Rivera welcomed their first son, Isaac Elliott Rivera, on January 18, 2010.
And although they broke up a year later, the ex-lovers settled into a comfortable co-parenting arrangement. “We’ve come a long way since we were 18,” Kailyn wrote to X after attending Joe and now-wife Vie Rivera’s 2018 wedding. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mother-in-law.”
As for her eldest son, she wrote in a tribute on Instagram on his 13th birthday: “We have literally grown up together, and in some ways he has grown even more than I have.” The Delaware State University graduate described Olivia Rodrigo’s avid fan, musician and basketball player as a “thoughtful, intelligent, funny and sometimes smart person” and praised his caring heart.
“I think what’s really inspiring about him is the way he challenges societal norms,” she wrote. “He’s curious and open-minded, so he can form his own thoughts and opinions.”
Elliott, who came out as gay while announcing his intention to go by his middle name on his mother’s Barely Famous podcast in June 2025, “accepts people as they are and never accepts ‘what they should be,'” Kailyn wrote. “More people should be like him.”
