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ABC Primetime Exposes Stepfamilies on the Brink
By Dawn Miller.
The bad rap for stepfamilies just got worse. Last week's ABC News Primetime featured two stepfamilies on the brink of pure breakdown. Promotional spots may have hyped that the show would offer help to the one-third of Americans living in stepfamilies today, but what the producers chose to show was people ready to throw in the towel on their marriage or pummel their children into submission.
In the first family - a "Brady bunch" combination (complete with the cheesy graphics) where both parents brought children into the marriage - the parents take sides against each other - and fail to put up a united front with the kids. One of the girls openly admits bruising herself and blaming it on her stepmother. The parents look at the therapists brought in to coach them and actually ask if they should give up on their marriage altogether.
In the second family - the bullying stepmother glowers jealously at the stepdaughter, and she even physically intimidates the girl. One of the most horrific moments - when the stepmother and dad are off-camera upstairs shrieking profanities at the stepdaughter, and the couple's three pre-school-aged children sit at the dinner table, covering their ears and praying aloud to drown out the din of emotional abuse being heaped on their stepsister.
The episode an explosive outcry from viewers, who noted that ABC filmed these families over a period of years - and did nothing to protect the stepchild in the second family from abuse. If you haven't witnessed the hubbub, you can go to ABC's website to read hundreds of posts (ABC has currently set the site to read-only and the boards will not allow any new posts) and even watch footage showing the father striking his daughter while the stepmother prances in the background like a boxer egging him on.
Attempting to quell the fury, ABC posted a statement from the teenaged girl, saying she is ok and living with her grandparents, does not want ABC's viewers interfering in her life or attacking her father, and that the family is getting the help it needs to heal with counselors.
For ABC to capture child abuse on tape - and then not act on it with the proper authorities - is morally reprehensible. In an interview on Hannity & Colmes with Fox News to promote the show, Diane Sawyer, herself a stepmother who admits being jokingly nicknamed "the WSM" (aka the wicked stepmother) by her stepchildren, says that viewers will have to make up their own minds about what the hitting of the young girl means.
It is a sad day in journalism when a news organization allows the exploitation of a child to occur - does nothing about it - parades it on national television - and can't even call it what it is. Child abuse. And there's the question no one at Primetime bothered to ask - did the father hit people during his first marriage too?
Like many, I was left with a sense of revulsion for the parents, sympathy for the children, and outrage at the impotence and callousness of "experts" and journalists alike. As a stepmother myself - I was angry. When the examples are so extreme - how can the ordinary person relate to them?
If the point of the story was really to help stepfamilies today - then what were we supposed to get out of this demonstration of dysfunction? Relief that we aren't in as bad a situation as these people? Nightmares?
It used to be that journalists strived for balance in their stories. Where was the balance in this story? Where are the stepmothers and stepfathers who care for their stepchildren, support their relationships with both parents, and make financial sacrifices for them? You know the ones I am talking about - the ones who take them to school, pick them up at soccer practice, and cook dinner? Where is the couple that forges a united front in a stepfamily and lays down house rules and sticks to them lovingly but firmly? Where are those stepfamilies?
Is the media only willing to show one picture of stepfamilies that plays to our worst suspicions and fears? Apparently so. And willing to brutalize children and families while doing it.
Copyright © Dawn Miller. Dawn writes a column on life in blended families at TheStepfamilyLife.com. Website links about stepfamilies, a free e-newsletter and bookstore are available. Readers are welcome to her. Reprinted with permission.
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