I’ll be discussing Stepmonster and stepmother reality this Tuesday, August 4th on NPR’s “On Point,” a two hour show airing on more than 150 NPR stations coast to coast (translation: you can run from Stepmonster, but you can’t hide!)
Check out the link for “On Point”: http://www.onpointradio.org/
Now find your local NPR station that airs “On Point”: http://www.wbur.org/syndication/?program=On-Point
Over the holiday, while you were grilling hotdogs and eating potato salad, I was doing interviews with Fox News, the BBC Newshour/NPR, and the CBC. I’ll post the links to the BBC and CBC interviews shortly (I am frequently stymied, it seems, by technological issues. But not for long!)
I’m noticing that there is great interest among the media in the idea that stepmothers really have the least control of anyone over how things go in the stepfamily. And that they have the least power in the stepfamily as well. It’s just a reminder that the stepmother reality we take for granted–that our husband and his ex have the main hand in determining how things go between us and their kids; that we are frequently treated as outsiders and interlopers in our own homes, and must struggle to find our footing in the family; that kids resent getting a stepmother much more than they resent getting a stepfather; that it’s not over when they turn 18 and/or move out of the house; that stepmothers tend to bend over backwards in order NOT to seem wicked, priming us for exhaustion, anxiety, and clinical depression at astronomical rates–is a mysterious, uncharted continent to those on the outside.
Please, more research and more accurate media coverage now, so we can close the gap between the perception of who stepmothers are, and stepmother reality.
Click here to download the BBC News Hour interview
http://www.cbc.ca/thepoint/MT/2009/05/may_25_curfews_local_marketing.htmlClick here for the CBC interview. Stepmonster interview is on Part 2, beginning at 13:30
Larry Mantle interviewed me about Stepmonster on his popular show, “AirTalk” On Tuesday, May 19. Many thanks to Larry and his callers.
You can check out the podcast by clicking on this link
The Stepmonster discussion begins halfway through this podcast.
If you’d like to hear podcasts (and watch a video) of my recent NPR interviews about Stepmonster, become my fan on Facebook (go to the “About the Author” page on my website, www.wednesdaymartin.com and click on “become a fan on Facebook”). Then, when you click on “Events” on my Facebook fan page, you’ll see three links for three different NPR podcasts, including the video excerpt from my interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC.
Also, there is a Stepmonster giveaway on www.steptogether.org, a wonderful resource for women with stepchildren and stepfamilies. Check it out! UPDATE: All copies were claimed in less than two hours, giveaway is closed. Happy reading!
